Four Family Groups Hold 56 of Chicago's 102 McDonald's
Mert Iseri·
Chicago has 102 McDonald's. We pulled the business license behind every one. 101 carry their own city license. The last, inside McCormick Place, runs on the venue's.
No single owner dominates the way one family owns 38 of the city's 46 Burger Kings. But this is not a city of one-store operators. The top four groups hold 56 of the 102: an operating network tied to the Mendez, Lawrence, and Herrera families with 18, the Karavites family with 17, the Hale family with 11, and Sargon Mando's RMS Mangement with 10. McDonald's corporate keeps just 7.
Tanya Lawrence; Laura Herrera; Edgar Omar Herrera; Juan and Gladys Mendez
Karavites family
17
Nicholas, Janet, and Angelo Karavites
Hale family
11
Vincent L. Hale; Marina Canseco-Hale
RMS Mangement (Mando)
10
Sargon Mando
Akinnagbe (Omakin)
7
Omoakin Akinnagbe
McDonald's corporate
7
McDonald's Restaurants of Illinois, Inc.; officers Gregg A. Ereio, Mahrukh S. Hussain
Al-Hajje family
7
Mohamad R. and Ellen M. Al-Hajje; Saleh Al-Hajje
Dakajos family
6
John, Victoria, Jessica, Alana, and Nicholas Dakajos
Funkhouser family
5
Steven, Roseann, and Gianna Funkhouser
Williams (Lexi)
4
Tonnette R. Williams
Ojeda-Oviedo family
3
Michael J. Ojeda; Virginia F. Oviedo
Fuentes family
3
Philip K. and Mary Ann Fuentes
Curry (K&K)
2
Synethia Curry
Lubeznik
1
Rodney Lubeznik
McCormick Place unit
1
Operator unresolved; venue concession with no standalone city license
51 companies, 14 owners
The licenses name 51 legal entities. The Business Owners records collapse them to 14 owner groups. The Al-Hajje family runs one corporation per store, seven in all: Cicero 26, Foster 3164, Devon 16743, and four more. HQ 39148, LLC holds the flagship restaurant inside McDonald's own global headquarters. Nothing in the name says Karavites, but the owner records do. We call these hidden chains.
The city's largest group does not exist at the entity level. Pepino/Robles, Caguax, and Rylamor read as three unrelated operators under three surnames. City records tie them together: shared officers, shared offices at 7105 W Higgins, and three store transfers between them since 2024. We count those 18 stores as one operating network, not one family. Split them and the Karavites family's 17 stores is the city's largest holding.
27 years of data
The license history goes back to 1999. 200 legal entities have held a McDonald's-related retail food license in Chicago since then:
McDonald's corporate: 13 city addresses in 2002, 18 at its 2006 peak, 7 today.
Heisner Enterprises: 12 addresses, 2002 to 2008.
Cirilo's Inc.: 11 addresses including O'Hare, 2002 to 2010.
207 E 35th St: six operators since 2002. RMS Mangement is the sixth.
O'Hare: seven operator families since 2002. Today Caguax runs 6 units, the Hales run 2.
The handoffs are visible in real time. 2834 N Ashland and 3241 W North moved from Pepino/Robles to Rylamor in 2024 and 2025. 4601 W Diversey is dual-licensed by both right now.
Sources
Ora Google Places sweep: 100 operational McDonald's listings inside city limits, a tiled census to beat Google's 60-result search cap.
Chicago's Business Licenses datasets, current and historical: 101 McDonald's locations actively licensed across 51 legal entities.
The Business Owners dataset, joined on account number: named principals and titles for all 51.
Limitations: city limits only, no suburbs. Officer listings are not proof of equity ownership, the 18-store network grouping is an operating inference rather than an asserted family, and two groups rest on city records alone.
Download the dataset: 102 rows with address, owner entity, named principals, and license dates.
Ora tracks the license filings, transfers, and closures that change this table. Contact us to learn more.
