McDonald’s recently honored an Ohio franchisee with one of its highest honors, continuing a family tradition of successful restaurant operations.
Erica Shadoin is one of only 40 current McDonald’s franchisees to receive the company’s highest honor, the 2026 Fred L. Turner Golden Arches Award. Her connection to the brand goes back decades — she’s the granddaughter of Lou Groen, the Cincinnati native who invented Filet-O-Fish and saved his restaurant.
Here’s more about the Ohio origins of McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish and how it evolved over the generations.
Ohio McDonald’s owner Erica Shadoin wins restaurant’s top award, continuing Filet-O-Fish tradition
The Lou Groen Filet-O-Fish shrine at McDonald’s in Montfort Heights, where the sandwich was invented in 1962.
Filet-O-Fish has been around for over 60 years.
Without Lou Groen, McDonald’s seafood staple wouldn’t be on the menu. Lou Groen invented Filet-O-Fish in 1962. At the time, Groen’s sales dropped as Catholics abstained from eating meat on Fridays during Lent, the 40 days before Easter.
According to American Catholics, Groen decided to create an alternative that would be universally acceptable during Lent. “I invented the fish sandwich, developed a special batter, made the tartar sauce, and brought it to headquarters,” he told the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2016. That sparked a fight between Groen and McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc, who was preparing his own meatless alternative, called the Hula Burger, with a slice of pineapple sandwiched between two buns.
The top-selling sandwich will be added to the menu as a permanent fixture. “Friday came and word got out. I won handily. I sold 350 fish sandwiches that day,” Groen said. “My fish sandwich is the first addition to McDonald’s original menu,” he added. “It saved my franchise.”
According to McDonald’s, Lou Groen’s son Paul Groen left his estate to his two children Grant and Erica and retired from the company in October 2023. Erica became an approved McDonald’s owner-operator in 2014, and the Groen family owns dozens of McDonald’s stores in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
How many McDonald’s locations are there in Ohio?
According to data from the web scraper ScrapeHero, Ohio has 618 McDonald’s restaurants.
This article originally appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer: Kentucky-Ohio McDonald’s owner wins top award, has family ties to Filet-O-Fish
