Origin Story

Are you a foodie? I’m not. Yet, I still know the world renowned restaurant ranking system, The Michelin Star. I can’t tell you who the top chefs are on tv or the name of that one that always says bam!, but I know that if a restaurant was awarded a Michelin it must be among the best in the world.  

So how did the Michelin Star become so popular? Who devised this ranking system and led to its success? One would think it would have been started by chefs, food critics, or something else closely tied to the restaurant business. While that would make much more sense as an origin story, if you don’t already know this fun fact then you might be surprised to know that is started with tires.  

In 1889 brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin started their tire company.  With fewer than 3,000 cars in the country, tire sales did not have a large market. With the challenge of trying to increase tire usage and therefore tire sales, they decided to start the Michelin Guide in an attempt to encourage people to travel more.  

More travel = more tires = more business

Beginning as a simple free traveling guide and later evolving to a paid guide in 1920, it wasn’t until 1926 when they hired food critics and it began to resemble the Michelin Guide we know today:

“During the rest of 20th century, thanks to its serious and unique approach, the MICHELIN Guides became best-sellers: the guide now rates over 40,000 establishments in over 24 territories across three continents, and more than 30 million MICHELIN Guides have been sold worldwide since.”

When I first learned this, I was very surprised to see the evolution from tires to table. I always assumed that the Michelin tires and Michelin star just coincidentally shared a name. I would have never guessed that something could change and evolve so much that it wouldn’t even be recognizable to its beginnings. 

For many people that have made big shifts in life, it’s hard not to question it - how did I get here? When here is so far from the origin, it’s easy to feel like we must have gone wrong somewhere along the journey or think we should have chosen better at the start - why did I become a teacher? I should have majored in business.

I don’t think the Michelin brothers ever could have imagined where their tire journey would be a century later, or that a great deal of the company’s current success would be tied to something that was vastly far from their original vision. But just because it’s different, doesn’t mean any part of it was wrong. Sometimes you need to start driving before you see enough to know where you’re going.