This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
A group of former McDonald’s employees returned to their old restaurant in Missouri for a “Class of 1975” reunion to celebrate nearly 50 years of working together.
Nineteen former workers returned to the restaurant in Hazelwood in eastern Missouri in March, some traveling from Arkansas, Florida, Ohio and Tennessee, Joan Elhoffer, one of the former McDonald’s employees who helped organize the meeting, told Business Insider via email.
“Earlier this year, I and a few friends reminisced about how special it was that we had all stayed in touch over five decades – and decided a celebration was long overdue,” Elhoffer said. “We had a 10-year reunion a long time ago and a 40-year reunion 10 years ago, but for the 50th anniversary we wanted to make it even bigger.”
Some of the participants brought old photos and their McDonald’s softball jerseys, Elhoffer said. They ate together, spoke with the restaurant’s current employees and even signed yearbooks they created for the occasion.
Including those who work for franchises, McDonald’s is one of the largest employers in the U.S. and says one in eight Americans have worked at the chain. Its network of over 40,000 corporate and franchise restaurants worldwide employs more than 2 million people.
In October 2023, McDonald’s celebrated its claim that over 12% of people in the US have worked at the fast food giant by throwing a lavish party and highlighting notable former crew members such as Michelin-starred chefs, astronauts and Peloton instructors.
Courtesy of McDonald’s via BI
Elhoffer was 16 when she started working at the Hazelwood restaurant, she told BI. Most of the other former workers who attended the meeting were between 16 and 19 years old when they started there, and many stayed at the jobs throughout high school and while attending local colleges, she said.
“For almost all of us, this was our first job,” Elhoffer said.
They became close friends while working at the restaurant, Elhoffer said, and some of them played on the restaurant’s softball team. She said “several” of them – herself included – met their spouses while working at McDonald’s.
Courtesy of McDonald’s via BI
“There is such a strong feeling of family and friends in this group,” Elhoffer told BI. “We attended each other’s school dances, weddings and our parents’ funerals. We raised our children together, celebrated holidays, vacationed together and maintained strong friendships for 50 years.”
Elhoffer said she began her career at McDonald’s managing the grill area. She was later promoted to second assistant manager in 1978. She then attended Hamburg University and the McDonald’s school and became a branch manager.
Elhoffer said she bought her first restaurant in 1991. Today she owns seven McDonald’s restaurants around St. Louis. Seven of the 19 people at the meeting went on to become franchisees, while the others pursued other career paths, such as becoming a teacher or an accountant, she said.
Courtesy of McDonald’s via BI
The biggest change since she started at McDonald’s has been the introduction of drive-thrus, Elhoffer said. She added that when she started working at the chain, orders had to be placed by hand and workers had to manually add taxes.