Alcide E. Bernardin Jr.

Alcide E. Bernardin, Jr.
February 17, 1928 ~ December 22, 2009

Pebble Beach - Al Bernardin, inventor of the McDonald's Quarter Pounder, died of a stroke at Community Hospital on December 22. A native of Lawrence, MA, he has made his home in Pebble Beach for the past nineteen years.
Al was raised by his mother, Jeanette, and never really knew his father who died when he was only five years old. "My father was a butter-and-eggs man. He had a truck route delivering groceries to people's houses and I worked for him. I remember being in the basement of a tenement grinding coffee and putting it in 1-pound bags. I loved the aroma of the coffee." One summer Al worked at a woolen mill in his hometown pushing wheelbarrows loaded with 1000- pound bales of wool over wooden floors rutted like washboards. Other summers, he caddied. Even in sports, money became an issue. Al, a goalie, would linger after hockey practice with a friend who was a forward on the team. They would play one on one until the winter dark descended - a nickel a shot.
In 1960, Al placed a phone call to McDonald's founder and patriarch, Ray Kroc. "I think I can be of help to McDonald's," he told Kroc, "and I know you can be of help to me." Al saw Kroc for 15 minutes, after which he interviewed with Fred Turner, then Kroc's right-hand man and, later, the Chairman of the Board. "We hit it off." At the time, Al was a manager at a vending machine company in Chicago. He was inspired to call Kroc by a meeting with some friends who were thinking of investing in the fast-food industry. Al looked at their numbers and figured they must be bogus. The rate of profit was 10 percent higher than in traditional restaurant operations. "The projections were incredible. I asked, ÔWhat are you basing these on?' They said, ÔMcDonald's P and L (profit and loss) statements.' The bottom line was spectacular. I thought, why mess around with this (proposal)? I just called Mr. Kroc."
So Al hooked up with McDonald's, first as a consultant and then as dean of the company's vaunted training ground, Hamburger University. He rose through the ranks of product development to executive vice-president. He, like Kroc, was an idea man, a ceaseless experimenter with food. "Ray Kroc became my mentor."
Al "invented" the Quarter Pounder in 1971. He test- marketed it in one of his Fremont stores. "I felt there was a distinct need for a sandwich with a higher meat-to-bun ratio." He oversaw the development of the frozen fries, the fruit pies and the fish sandwich. He got the chef at Chicago's Palmer House hotel, where he had once worked, to duplicate his tartar sauce recipe down to the vital ingredient, a pickle made by the Manhattan Pickle Co. that was low in acid and thus did not mask the sauce's subtler flavors.
In the pre-boom years, Kroc was a driven man. "He had an uncompromising attitude toward standards... He was very antagonized by lethargy. He wanted things done now. He was very impatient." But his bark was also worse than his bite. "A lot of his bombast was for show... He obviously enjoyed the material trappings and he liked to share that. All the top-level executives at McDonald's had limousines. With three or four key executives, he bought them homes to reward them for their years of hard work."
Al fell into line. He gave heart and soul to the company. "I averaged between 60 and 70 hours a week working for the corporation. I made sacrifices to show people I was worthy of their confidence." "It was important for me to prove myself to the world. That made work the top priority." Why? "It's something innate. I had a sense of inferiority. I felt I just wasn't good enough to get the job done in eight hours. I am still prone to equate performance with the amount of time you put in."
After retiring to Pebble Beach in 1996, Al became an avid golfer and would play every chance he could. During the last two years of his life, his health started to decline and he could no longer play the game he so dearly loved. He would sit on the deck and wave to his golfing buddies as they passed by and pet his little dog, Sweet Pea. He would look forward to his visits from his four-year old grandbaby, Ryan Olivia. She had her "Poppy" wrapped around her little finger and she would make him get up and do a little dance and sing his French songs to her and she would say to him, "Good job Poppy! Now it's my turn."
Al leaves Joan, his loving wife of 17 years; his children, Mark Bernardin of Fremont and Kirsten Thompson of Manteca; his step- children, Dan Ryan of Seaside, Julie Bullas of Del Rey Oaks and Kristie Ryan of Monterey; ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A Celebration of Life and Roast for Al will be held at Monterey Peninsula Country Club this Saturday, January 23 at noon. Contributions in his memory may be made to Hospice of the Central Coast, 2 Upper Ragsdale Dr., Monterey, CA 93940. Please visit www.thepaulmortuary.com to sign Al's guest book and leave messages for his family.