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 since they worked together.
Nineteen former workers returned to the Hazelwood restaurant in eastern Missouri in March, some from Arkansas, Florida, Ohio and Tennessee, Joan Elhoffer, one of the former McDonald’s workers who helped organize the meeting.
“Earlier this year I was reminiscing with some friends how special it is that we’ve all stayed in touch for over fifty years — and I decided it was late to celebrate,” Elhoffer said. “We had celebrated a 10-year reunion a long time ago and we did a 40-year reunion 10 years ago, but we wanted to make it even bigger for the 50.”
Some of the attendees brought old photos and their McDonald’s softball jerseys, Elhoffer said. They ate together, spoke with the restaurant’s current employees and even signed the yearbooks they had created for the occasion.
Including those who work at franchises, McDonald’s is one of the largest employers in the United States and says one in eight Americans has worked at the chain. Its network of more than 40,000 corporate and franchise restaurants worldwide employs more than 2 million workers.
In October 2023, McDonald’s celebrated its claim that more than 12% of people in the United States 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 he started working at the Hazelwood restaurant, he told BI. Most of the other former workers who attended the meeting were between the ages of 16 and 19 when they started, and many continued to work through 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 “many” of them–including herself–met their spouses while working at McDonald’s.
Courtesy of McDonald’s via BI
“There is a strong sense of family and friends within this group,” Elhoffer told BI. “We went to school dances, weddings and parents’ funerals. We raised our children together, celebrated holidays, went on vacations together and continued for 50 years to enjoy strong friendships.”
Elhoffer said he began his career at McDonald’s managing the grill area. She subsequently was promoted to second assistant manager in 1978. She went on to attend the University of Hamburg and the McDonald’s training school, becoming a store manager.
Elhoffer said he bought his first restaurant in 1991. He now owns seven McDonald’s restaurants around St Louis. Seven of the 19 people at the meeting became affiliates, while the others followed different career paths, such as becoming teachers and accountants, she said.
Courtesy of McDonald’s via BI
The biggest change since he started working at McDonald’s has been the introduction of drive-thrus, Elhoffer said. He added that when he started working in the chain, orders had to be given manually and workers had to add taxes manually.