Aug 2, 2023 4 min read

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Katherine Mansfield

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Katherine Mansfield

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Katherine Mansfield

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Katherine Mansfield

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I opened the box and there it was: two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions between a fluffy sesame seed bun.

At 30-something, I’d never had a Big Mac and figured the best place to try McDonald’s famous sandwich the week of International Big Mac Day, celebrated annually Aug. 2, was in the place it all began: the McDonald’s along Morgantown Street in Uniontown, Pa.

“The first place to sell was Uniontown,” said Michael Delligatti, whose father Michael James “Jim” Delligatti debuted the Big Mac at the Uniontown Shopping Center Mickey D’s in 1967. “He actually was asking the corporation if he could do a bigger sandwich. Really all they had at that point was hamburgers, cheeseburgers. They kept saying no. While they were saying no, he kept fiddling around with some things.”

Jim Delligatti’s persistence prevailed, and the corporation agreed to let him experiement, so long as he used ingredients already found in McDonald’s restaurants. Delligatti mixed up a new kind of burger sauce and tried stacking two beef patties onto one sandwich.

“It was really messy on a regular hamburger bun,” Delligatti said. “He went to a bakery and said, ‘Can you make me a double cut bun?’ They said yes.”

Jim Delligatti ran ads for his new sandwich in the Herald-Standard, ads that included a coupon for 29-cent Big Macs. That was a steal, considering the original burger cost only 45 cents.

Quickly sales soared to double-stacked burger heights and Jim Delligatti introduced the Big Mac at his other Pittsburgh-area franchises – he was one of the first businessmen to franchise McDonald’s, and at one time owned 48 restaurants throughout Western Pennsylvania.

“They tried it (the Big Mac) locally here in Pittsburgh and it went so well, it was 10% or 12% of sales that year,” Delligatti, a McDonald’s franchise owner himself, said. “They launched it nationally. Now, they sell a few billion a year.”

By 1968, a year after its debut, the Big Mac was on the menu in every McDonald’s nationwide.

“I’ve been eating them since I was a kid,” said Dave Basinger, of Connellsville, earlier this week, when he placed an order for a Big Mac meal at the Morgantown Street location. “I like the sauce, the secret sauce.”

It’s no secret the Big Mac’s biggest draw is that sauce, a sweet and tangy dressing that starts tastebuds dancing. 

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“It’s my favorite sandwich. I want the extra sauce. I don’t care if it’s sloppy,” said James Spiker, who works maintenance at the Morgantown Street McDonald’s. 

Dawn Mause, of Smithfield, enjoys the versatility of Big Mac sauce.

“The sauce, I’ll get it on the side to dip chicken nuggets in,” Maust said, adding the Big Mac is a perfect blend of ingredients. “The cheese, when it’s all nice and melted together with the lettuce…”

Millions agree. McDonald’s sells about 550 million Big Mac burgers a year, according to the corporation, more than any of its other burgers. And in Uniontown, Dan Masi, a grill cook, cooks up dozens and dozens of Big Macs each shift.

“Definitely a couple hundred,” he said, smiling. “There’s more to making a Big Mac. There’s three stages: preparing, make sure sauce is on there, and pickles, you gotta have pickles, serving.”

A Big Mac is in the details, all seven of them, and Maust hit home when she described that heavenly blend of melty cheese, sauce and crisp lettuce – I jotted down that wondrous bite in my tasting notes. Mark Zooner, a Uniontown native, also loves everything about the Big Mac.

“All my life I’ve been eating Big Macs at McDonald’s,” Zooner said, after placing a lunchtime order for the meal earlier this week. “I just like them. I like the sauce, I like everything on it.”

The Big Mac is equal parts delicious and nostalgic. Recently June Rygelski, shift manager, served an older couple two Big Macs, one for each of them. 

“They said they have not been to McDonald’s in ten years. They wanted to just come in and try the Big Mac again – does it still taste the same from that many years ago?” Rygelski said. “They said everything was perfect, the fries, the Big Mac.”