Ekrem Bardha | |
---|---|
Born | Kolonje, Albania |
Title | Businessman |
Ekrem Bardha (born 13 May 1933) is an Albanian American businessman, co-founder of the National Albanian American Council (NAAC), and former owner of Illyria Newspaper. [1] He is currently serving as Albania's Honorary Consul in Michigan [2] and is regarded as one of the most successful Albanians in America. [3]
Bardha was born in the southern village of Radanj in Kolonjë District, Albania. Having escaped from the strict Albanian communist regime in 1953, after one of his brothers was jailed for political reasons, he settled in the Detroit area and went into the restaurant business. He eventually became the owner of 18 McDonald's fast-food franchises, which grossed over $25 million a year. [4]
He is the author of 2 books: Far Yet Near Albania, and The Albanian-American Diaspora and the Independence of Kosova, 2023.
Tirana is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills, with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea in the distance. It is among the wettest and sunniest cities in Europe, with 2,544 hours of sun per year.
Raymond Albert Kroc was an American businessman. He obtained the fast food company McDonald's in 1961 from the McDonald brothers and was its CEO from 1967 to 1973. Kroc is credited with the global expansion of McDonald's, turning it into the most successful fast food corporation in the world by revenue.
Klubi i Futbollit Teuta, commonly referred to as Teuta, is an Albanian professional football club based in Durrës. The club competes in the Kategoria Superiore, the top tier of Albanian football. Their home ground is the Niko Dovana Stadium.
The Golden Arches are the symbol of McDonald's, the global fast food restaurant chain. Originally, real arches were part of the restaurant design. They were incorporated into the chain's logo in 1962, which resembled a stylized restaurant, and in the current Golden Arches logo, introduced 1968, resembling an "M" for "McDonald's". They are widely regarded to be one of the most recognizable logos in the world.
The Filet-O-Fish is a fish burger sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was created in 1962 by Lou Groen, a McDonald's franchise owner in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood of Monfort Heights in Cincinnati, Ohio, in response to declining hamburger sales on Fridays due to the practice of abstaining from meat on that day. While the fish composition of the sandwich has changed throughout the years to cater to taste preferences and address supply limitations, the framework of its ingredients have remained constant; a fried breaded fish fillet, a steamed bun, tartar sauce and pasteurized American cheese.
McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1955, Ray Kroc, a businessman, joined the company as a franchise agent and, in 1961, bought out the McDonald brothers. Previously headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, it moved to nearby Chicago in June 2018. McDonald's is also a real estate company through its ownership of around 70% of restaurant buildings and 45% of the underlying land.
The American fast-food restaurant chain McDonald's was founded in 1940 by the McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, and has since grown to the world's largest restaurant chain by revenue. The McDonald brothers began the business in San Bernardino, California where the brothers set out to sell their barbecue. However, burgers were more popular with the public and the business model switched to a carhop drive-in style of restaurant. From the 1940s to the mid 1950s, the brothers expanded their business, even incorporating the golden arches, until Ray Kroc turned their small business into the well-known and commercially successful business that it is today. Kroc convinced the brothers to move into a more self-serve business model and to expand nationwide.
McDonald's has been involved in a number of lawsuits and other legal cases in the course of the fast food chain's 70-year history. Many of these have involved trademark issues, most of which involving the "Mc" prefix, but McDonald's has also launched a defamation suit which has been described as "the biggest corporate PR disaster in history".
Wetson's was an American fast food hamburger chain that existed from 1959 to 1975. At its peak, Wetson's had approximately 70 locations in the greater New York metropolitan area.
The McDonald's Sign, also known as McDonald's Store #433 Sign, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, United States, is one of only a few surviving examples of a single-arch McDonald's sign. The sign was erected in 1962 and remained at its original location until 2007. That year, McDonald's Store #433 moved and the sign was renovated and moved to the new location. The McDonald's sign was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
McDonald's Israel is the Israeli master franchise of the fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. Previously operated and licensed by Alonyal Limited, McDonald's Israel is the largest of Israel's burger chains with a 60% market share. It was the first Israeli outlet to be opened in 1993 and a major competitor of the local restaurant chain Burger Ranch. The world's first kosher McDonald's was opened in Mevaseret Zion in October 1995. After a sales decline attributed to consumer boycotts as part of the BDS movement, McDonald's Corporation announced in 2024 that it would buy Alonyal pending regulatory approval.
Albanian wine is produced in several regions throughout Albania within the Mediterranean Basin. The country has one of the oldest wine making traditions, dating back at least 3000 years ago to the Bronze Age Illyrians. It belongs chronologically to the old world of wine producing countries.
The oldest McDonald's restaurant that is still in business operation is a drive-up hamburger stand at 10207 Lakewood Boulevard at Florence Avenue in Downey, California, United States. Opened on August 18, 1953, it is the third McDonald's restaurant outlet to be opened and is the second restaurant franchised by Richard and Maurice McDonald, before the involvement of Ray Kroc in the company. The outlet still retains the original, standardized Golden Arches façade design and is one of Downey's main tourist attractions. Along with its sign, it was deemed eligible for addition to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, although it was not added at the time because the owner objected.
Aurel Plasari is an Albanian lecturer, scholar, writer, translator and professor.
The organization Global Detroit stated that the largest group of ethnic Albanians not in Europe is in Metro Detroit. As of 2014, 4,800 ethnic Albanians live in Macomb County, making up the fourth-largest ethnic group in that county, and the highest concentration of Albanians in Metro Detroit. There are also several thousand in Wayne County, with most living outside Detroit city limits; Hamtramck and St. Clair Shores are plentiful in Albanian American and Kosovar-Albanian American communities. There are at least ethnically 30,200 Albanian people in Michigan, consistuting 0.3% of Michigan's population.
McDonald's Philippines, known locally and colloquially and shortened as McDo, is the master franchise of the multinational fast food chain McDonald's in the Philippines. The master franchise is held by the Golden Arches Development Corporation, a subsidiary of Alliance Global Group.
Aleksandër Merxhani mostly known as Branko Merxhani (1894–1981) was an Albanian intellectual, sociologist, writer, journalist and literary critic. He was one of the most important cultural figures of the pre-World War II in Albania, publisher of Përpjekja shqiptare. During the '30s he developed an ideological program named Neo-Albanianism, which he developed being heavily influenced by Turkish sociologist Ziya Gökalp.
Harry Trevlin Fultz was an American teacher who contributed to the development of education in Albania in the period between the two world wars.
Seven years later, Ekrem Bardha, another activist and businessman, became the owner of the newspaper.
Bardha, the owner of McDonald's restaurants in the Detroit area, wants to see the Golden Arches tower over Tiranë as well.
5. https://exit.al/en/2022/04/01/to-this-british-albanian-success-story-hats-off-to-you-all/