No golden arches, a horrifying clown, and meals for a buck? Let's head back in time
to the very first McDonald's. Cheeseburger fans, welcome to the Promised Land!
The world's very first McDonald's was located in San Bernardino, California, a suburban city
just east of Los Angeles, California. The restaurant opened all the way back in 1940,
at 1398 North East Street. The location was chosen by the founding brothers, Richard and Maurice
McDonald, two New Hampshire natives who previously worked in the movie business in nearby Hollywood.
According to the New England Historical Society,
"Dick" and "Mac" were employed at local film studios, where they worked as handymen.
Slowly, the brothers began their transition out of Hollywood. First,
they opened a movie theater in Glendora, a smaller town outside of the hustle and bustle
of downtown LA. The theater did not succeed, but they found an interest in food from managing
the concessions part of the business. Next, they directed their attention to restaurants.
"Voila! A fresh delicious burger from grill to counter in 30 seconds."
The McDonald boys gave up their attachment to Los Angeles and moved to San Bernardino. At the time,
this city was a growing transportation hub,
thanks to nearby major highways like Route 66. All this meant more potential customers for the
McDonald brother's restaurant. This location would prove successful for the founders.
According to The New York Times,
Richard and Maurice vowed that by the time they turned 50 years old, they would make:
"One million dollars!"
And if you went to the first restaurant shortly after it opened in the early 1940s,
you might've seen the McDonald brothers themselves working to fulfill that goal.
With constant shifts underway, it is entirely possible that some of the earliest customers
at that first McDonald's restaurant even laid eyes on Richard and Maurice
as they directed their growing crew, like so many successful small business owners.
Long before the McRib was a thing that anyone cared about, McDonald's had a
passion for barbecue, which was first served at the flagship San Bernardino location.
Between 1940 and 1948, the place was even referred to as "McDonald's
Bar-B-Que Restaurant" or "McDonald's Famous Barbeque," per the Library of Congress.
According to CNN, the barbecue menu at the first McDonald's was extensive. Customers could choose
from sandwiches made with barbecued pork, beef, or ham. These sandwiches cost only 35 cents each.
If diners wanted something more substantial, they could order a barbecue plate, which cost 60 cents.
During this time, hamburgers were available,
but they weren't the main event. Because McDonald's hadn't found its voice yet.
Yet, however strange this menu may sound today, the first location began to take off. But just as
their success was growing, the founding brothers decided to shut things down…temporarily, at least.
Richard and Maurice McDonald wanted more from their business.
With recent successes boosting their confidence,
the brothers aspired to make their restaurant even more profitable by increasing efficiency.
"Ketchup!"
"Use your lazy susan!"
"Put your back into it Seth!"
The brothers took their inspiration from the successful home-building company that had
recently created an entire suburb of prefabricated homes in Levittown, New York in record time.
During construction, the company used assembly line-style efficiency
methods to complete a new home every 16 minutes. As Smithsonian Magazine reports,
the McDonald's brothers wanted to apply this strategy to burger-making.
The result was the Speedee Service System,
which saw much of the McDonald's kitchen become mechanized. Condiment dispensers,
burger patty makers, and milkshake-stirring machines were added to the kitchen.
Meanwhile, an assembly line strategy was applied to food preparation. This
method allowed 900 servings of fries to be produced per hour.
"Speed. That's the name of the game."
In December 1948, after months of closure, the first McDonald's reopened. Diners from then on
would encounter a very different restaurant. This new McDonald's was not only different
from its previous iteration, but it stood out from competitor restaurants in the area.
After its re-vamp, the kitchen wasn't the only thing about McDonald's that changed.
The founding brothers transformed the customer's experience to further increase efficiency,
ditching the drive-in style that was the standard at the time,
and hoping to speed up ordering methods.
Waiters no longer came to your car when taking orders or delivering food. Instead,
customers had to do it themselves, by parking, getting out of their car, and walking up to a
window. According to Los Angeles Magazine, the first McDonald's made the process a
bit more complicated by establishing separate ordering windows for burgers, fries, and drinks.
At least the customers didn't have to wait long,
thanks to the assembly line style of food preparation happening inside the kitchen.
Once customers were handed a paper sack that contained their food, they could go on their way.
Patrons at the first McDonald's would not have just encountered a small menu,
but an affordable one even by the standards of the times. After eliminating barbecue,
the founders discovered that meals were cheaper to make. Moreover,
employees could produce hamburgers and fries faster than a plate full of barbecued meats.
All told, those cheaper ingredients, plus the ability to sell more meals per hour,
allowed the first McDonald's to lower its menu prices.
The most expensive item was a milkshake, priced at 20 cents. As McDonald's explains today,
the staple item was the 15-cent hamburger. You could get an entire meal – a burger,
fries, and shake – for just 45 cents. With one dollar, you could feed two people,
making McDonald's a serious competitor in the growing world of fast food.
He may not have founded it, but Ray Kroc did visit the first McDonald's as a salesman,
according to TIME. Long before he became McDonald's millionaire CEO,
Kroc sold various supplies to fast food companies such as Dairy Queen.
First, he sold paper cups, though he later upgraded to milkshake machines.
This brought him into the orbit of Maurice and Richard McDonald when
Kroc sold the founding brothers several of these machines, known as "multi-mixers."
As the name implies, these multi-mixers allowed the first McDonald's to make multiple milkshakes
at once. Given how much business boomed following the restaurant's overhaul in 1948,
they needed to make a lot. Indeed, Kroc found the number of milkshakes being made shocking.
After selling the brothers eight multi-mixers, Kroc told The New York Times that he simply
had to see what kind of place needed to prepare 40 milkshakes simultaneously.
So, Kroc visited the first McDonald's location in 1954. This visit would have a lasting impact,
but McDonald's customers in the early 1950s would not have known about this. Instead,
they likely would only have noticed the speed with which
their milkshake was prepared compared to other restaurants.
Though he's everywhere these days, those eating at the first McDonald's would not
have seen Ronald McDonald. Instead of a smiling clown, they would have encountered
"Speedee," a character named after the efficiency system launched in 1948.
Speedee was meant to visually communicate just how fast McDonald's food could make
it to a customer. The mascot wore a white uniform,
not much different than the employees of the first McDonald's, and had a burger-shaped head.
At the first McDonald's, you'd see a simple version of the chain's founding mascot,
but in later iterations, Speedee was given a little more energy. Sometimes,
Speedee's legs were shown moving rapidly using a succession of neon lights.
In other cases, he pointed to the restaurant or held a sign reading,
quote, "I'm Here." This represented Speedee's ability to spring into action,
implying that McDonald's itself would do this for customers.
Speedee would be replaced in the early 1960s
by the character Ronald McDonald — but not quite as we know him today:
"Who is this horrifying looking character?"
"That's the first rendition of Ronald McDonald."
Ronald certainly evolved over the years – he would've had to,
since the colorful clown was meant to market the chain to children.
Of course, some might say they never quite figured the whole Ronald McDonald thing out:
"Whoa! Sundae, it's me!"
"Oh. Sorry Ronald."
If you're trying to picture the first McDonald's in its heyday, you can start by removing the now
familiar version of the golden arches. That's because, in the very beginning,
there weren't the large, yellow arches you see in McDonald's restaurants today. But the rise of the
now-iconic logo shows how the McDonald brothers had a bigger role in the chain than many know.
According to the BBC, the founding McDonald brothers workshopped the
design in the early 1950s. While their San Bernardino location was taking off,
the brothers thought of opening another restaurant.
They met with Los Angeles architects and, together, they worked to come up with a design
that could lure drivers to a roadside restaurant. In the end, they decided on two giant, yellow
half-circles. The structures were lit with neon, making them visible at any time of day or night.
"What are those called?"
"It's a way to make the place stand out when you're driving by."
"The golden arches, I call 'em."
However, the arches wouldn't form the "M” shape of the McDonald's logo that is so familiar now.
The beginnings of that idea would first take shape under Ray Kroc's leadership in the 1960s.