McDonald's is a franchise with a history that extends back more than 80 years. But
even the hungriest Mickey D's aficionados might not know that they can get a glimpse
into the past at one of the fast food favorite's first locations.
When it was first opened in San Bernardino, California,
the OG McDonalds was your classic drive-in, with carhops running food out to customers.
The main menu item wasn't the Big Mac, however. Instead, it was barbecue, with more than 40
items of smoky deliciousness up for sale. The only problem was the barbecue wasn't selling.
Eventually, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald realized that customers were
coming in primarily for burgers and decided to switch tracks. They dropped barbecue from the
menu and turned McDonald's into a classic hamburger stand, offering burgers, fries,
and Coca-Cola at insanely competitive prices. Adopting an assembly line-style approach to
food service, the brothers began churning out meals faster than any of their competitors.
The change in direction proved to be successful, and the revamped restaurant was practically an
overnight success. As the McDonald's brand grew in popularity, the brothers began to broaden
their horizons, opening another location on Lakewood Boulevard in Downey, California — about
15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. The San Bernardino location is now gone, but the
L.A.-adjacent location still stands, making it the oldest active McDonald's on the planet.
In 1961, former milkshake mixer salesman Ray Kroc bought out the
McDonald brothers to bring the brand nationwide.
"It's the name. That glorious name: McDonalds."
His expansion and eventual domination of the world of fast food made McDonald's a household name.
However, as Kroc grew his business empire, the Downey location fell outside of his purview. That
location was owned by Roger Williams and Burdette Landon, who had purchased the rights directly from
the McDonald brothers. As a result, the Downey location was free from the perpetual upgrades
required of other McDonald's franchises and still looks essentially the same as it did back in 1953.
Walking through the Downey McDonald's is like stepping through a portal in time and coming out
into the bright, blazing sun of the California of old. The roof and walk-up window sport the
distinctive angular design that typified mid-20th century Americana, and the original golden arches
still glow in neon when the sun goes down. You can almost picture customers lining up to enjoy
burgers and shakes while Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, and The Four Aces blast from car stereos.
Long before Ronald McDonald became the face of McDonald's, the franchise was represented by
Speedee, a cartoon chef with a burger for a head. The mascot's name was inspired by
the "Speedee Service System," the McDonald brothers' patented method of preparing and
delivering burgers to their customers quickly and efficiently. It ensured that burgers could
be mass-produced and delivered quickly to eager customers with little to no wait time. This
system is part of what helped push McDonald's to the forefront of the fast food revolution.
"Here you are."
"What's this?"
"Your food."
"No, no, no. I just ordered."
"And now it's here."
Speedee remained the face of the franchise until 1962 when he was phased out in favor
of the clown mascot Ronald McDonald. Dubbed "The Hamburger-Happy Clown," Ronald McDonald
began appearing in commercials in 1963, where he was first portrayed
by TODAY weatherman Willard Scott. This iteration saw the mascot sporting a fast
food tray as headgear and a paper cup in place of the classic red clown nose.
The character's popularity skyrocketed and so he became the franchise's mascot for more than 50
years. In 2016, due to a rise in creepy clown sightings across the country, Ronald McDonald
was shelved by the brand, although the door is always open for a return. As for Speedee,
the famous burger-headed chef can still be seen zipping about at a few Mickey D's locations,
including one in Green Bay, Wisconsin — open since 1959 — at the oldest
operating location in Downey, and at a couple of outlets in Florida.
The Golden Arches are the defining symbol of the McDonald's brand and are recognized the
world over. In fact, they are so famous that original research conducted by Sponsorship
Research International reported that the arches were more well-known than the Christian cross,
according to the Tampa Bay Times. Today, the two arches are joined to form the letter "M," but,
in 1952, the arches were designed to make each location distinctive and eye-catching.
The brainchild of Maurice "Mac" McDonald, the arches were designed by Stanley Clark Meston,
a Los Angeles-based architect whose streamlined
designs helped define the look of many drive-in restaurants during the 1950s.
The location in Downey was the second McDonald's to feature a distinctive design with arches on
either side of the building. Today, very few buildings remain with this look,
in part because of the franchise updates mandated by McDonald's that require the now-distinctive
double arch logo. One such old-school spot is in San Jose and another in Pomona,
although it now operates as a doughnut shop. If you're looking for the classic,
1950s Mickey D's experience, the Downey spot is still your best bet.
The drive-thru is a McDonald's tradition that accounts for close to 70% of the
company's business as of 2022. The concept originated in the '70s when
soldiers stationed at Arizona's Fort Huachuca Army Base were unable to frequent the local
McDonald's due to regulations forbidding soldiers to leave their vehicles while
dressed in fatigues. Not wanting service members to be deprived of Big Macs,
the company put in a sliding window at the local McDonald's and a revolution was soon born.
Although the drive-thru window has become a McDonald's staple, the classic location in
Downey made it close to 60 years without one. Unfortunately for the restaurant,
while this architectural omission may have added to its retro charm, it was also hurting
sales. In 2016, the restaurant went before the city's Planning Commission to request approval
for a drive-thru on the site. The lack of a drive-thru, combined with the placement
of another McDonald's just down the street, was impacting the viability of the throwback location.
The big question was where to place the window while still preserving the integrity and history
of the original structure. Eventually, the request was approved, and a decision was
made to stash the window in an alley behind the building. Today, motorists looking to get
their nostalgia on while also satisfying a fast food fix won't even have to leave their cars.
"Now, McDonald's family restaurants have America's favorite dessert on the menu: hot apple pie."
Debuting in 1968, the deep-fried apple pie became as vital a component of the Mickey
D's menu as French fries and the Big Mac — which also debuted the same year. However,
after a run of nearly a quarter century, the franchise retired the fried pies in 1992,
replacing them with a less-fatty baked alternative to appease growing public demand.
The loss of the deep-fried apple pie led many of the McDonald's faithful to search
far and wide for any franchise holdouts that still featured the delicious treat
on the menu. Until recently, restaurants in Miami and Tampa Bay still had them on offer,
but no more. This means that, as of 2023, the Downey location is likely
the only McDonald's in the continental United States where you can still savor a crispy,
deep-fried apple pie just like in the old days — though some international locations still
serve these treats, too. If you're feeling adventurous, you can also travel to Hawaii,
as the fried apple pie is still a mainstay at all McDonald's locations in the Aloha State.
One of the biggest problems modern visitors had with McDonald's Downey location was its
lack of indoor seating. That was a holdover from its '50s burger stand origins. Yet the feeling
of higher-ups was that the original location, in its then-current state,
was not at all equipped to meet the demands of the '90s McDonald's enthusiast. More to the point,
the lack of an indoor dining room was hampering the restaurant's efforts to become profitable.
Luckily, the voices of the preservationists won out and kept the restaurant from being
demolished. However, that didn't mean that a compromise couldn't be reached. As part of the
restaurant's renaissance, the chain opened up a museum adjacent to the original stand,
which features a modest indoor dining area.
One of the interesting features of the museum is an original menu board from the '50s, showing the
unbelievably low prices that helped set McDonald's apart from the competition. If you rolled up to
this location — or any other McDonald's location, for that matter — back in 1953, a burger would
cost you only 15 cents. Adding cheese would bump your bill up to a whopping 19 cents.
The reason that the McDonald brothers could keep prices so low is that their Speedee Service System
kept the restaurant's overhead costs to a minimum. With paper cups and wrapping paper eliminating
the need for dishwashers, and a small, 12-person crew that worked assembly-line style, the McDonald
brothers were able to keep their kitchen running smoothly and quickly without a large staff. All
of this meant that, back in the day, if you decided to order yourself a cheeseburger,
fries, and a large Coke, you'd be out a whole 44 cents. Not a bad deal for under a buck.
"This morning, we've been hit with a major earthquake. Right now, we're trying to
basically gather some more information, trying to figure out where this has been centered."
In 1994, Los Angeles was hit with an earthquake that registered 6.7
on the Richter scale, costing the city close to $20 billion in damage. Another
$40 billion racked up as a result of economic loss, according to the California Department
of Conservation. Among the buildings affected by the quake was the Downey
McDonald's location. To many who had already fought to keep the location preserved in its
original 1950s splendor, this seemed to be the final nail in the restaurant's coffin.
The corporate heads at McDonald's had long sought to close the restaurant,
saying that renovations to modernize it would prove too costly. When the earthquake shuttered
the restaurant indefinitely, this seemed to be the moment for McDonald's to finally lower the
boom and tear the location down. However, the city came through at the last minute,
refusing to issue a permit for McDonald's to demolish the restaurant — just days before the
wrecking ball was about to strike. Eligibility for the Downey McDonald's to land on the
National Register of Historic Places meant that architects had to evaluate the structure before
it could be altered or torn down. Ultimately, the site was saved and reopened intact in 1996.
When Ray Kroc began expanding the reach of McDonald's across America, the first place he
planted his flag was in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois. Opened in 1955,
the site was often referred to as the "Original McDonald's," given its status as the beginning
of the franchises' expansion. However, for those keeping score, it's the ninth overall location.
Upon Kroc's death in 1984, the Des Plaines McDonald's was torn down. However,
the company still wanted to preserve its history, so it built a replica restaurant on the site.
Dubbed the McDonald's #1 Store Museum, the site was a lovingly recreated replica of a classic,
'50s-era Mickey D's. Unfortunately, flooding in the late 2000s forced the site to close,
leaving passers-by to simply gaze through the windows. Eventually,
it was deemed unsalvageable and the replica restaurant was torn down in 2018.
Although it's operated under the McDonald's name since 1953, the Downey restaurant was
owned by Roger Williams and Burdette Landon, as mentioned earlier. When Ray Kroc took over as
head of the company in 1961, Williams and Landon were still able to hold on to their restaurant.
While this proved to be advantageous for the location in terms of keeping its integrity
and original design, it also made it difficult for the owners to keep up with the competition.
Because Williams and Landon didn't pay a franchise fee to McDonald's,
they weren't able to use such staples as mascot Ronald McDonald or serve otherwise ubiquitous
items like Chicken McNuggets, Big Macs, or Happy Meals. Then, to make matters worse,
another McDonald's location opened up just down the street, further cutting
into their shaky profits. Eventually, flagging sales led Williams and Landon,
by then well into their 80s, to finally sell the location to the McDonald's Corporation in 1990.