The oldest McDonald's restaurant is a drive-up hamburger stand at 10207 Lakewood Boulevard at Florence Avenue in Downey, California, United States. It was the third McDonald's restaurant and opened on August 18, 1953. It was also the second restaurant franchised by Richard and Maurice McDonald, before the involvement of Ray Kroc in the company. The restaurant is the oldest one in the chain still in existence and is one of Downey's main tourist attractions. Along with its sign, it was deemed eligible for addition to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, although it was not added at the time because the owner objected.
History
The McDonald brothers opened their first restaurant adjacent to the Monrovia Airport in 1937. It was a tiny octagonal building informally called The Airdrome. That octagonal building was later moved to 1398 North E Street in San Bernardino, California in 1940. It was originally a barbecue drive-in, but the brothers discovered that most of their profits came from hamburgers. In 1948, they closed their restaurant for three months, reopening it in December as a walk-up hamburger stand that sold hamburgers, potato chips, and orange juice; the following year, french fries and Coca-Cola were added to the menu. This simplified menu, and food preparation using assembly line principles, allowed them to sell hamburgers for 15 cents, or about half as much as at a sit-down restaurant. The restaurant was very successful, and the brothers started to franchise the concept in 1953.
The first franchisee was Occidental Petroleum executive Neil Fox, who opened a restaurant at 4050 North Central Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona in May, for a flat fee of $1,000 (). His restaurant was the first to employ the McDonald brothers' Golden Arches standardized design, created by Southern California architect Stanley Clark Meston and his assistant Charles Fish. Fox's use of the "McDonald's" name came as a surprise to the brothers. (Two of their franchises, in North Hollywood and Azusa, would use the name "Peak's," but all others would be "McDonald's".)
Fox's brother-in-law Roger Williams and his business partner Burdette "Bud" Landon, were the franchisees. They used their expertise in siting Occidental gasoline stations in choosing the location. Like the McDonald brothers' other franchisees, they were required to use Meston's design.
The purchase of the chain from the McDonald brothers by Ray Kroc did not affect the Downey restaurant, as it was franchised under an agreement with the McDonald brothers, not with Kroc's company McDonald's Systems, Inc., which later became McDonald's Corporation. As a result, the restaurant was not subject to the modernization requirements that McDonald's Corporation placed on its franchisees. Its menu came to differ from that of other McDonald's restaurants, and lacked items such as the Big Mac that were developed by the corporation. In part due to these differences, as well as a corporate McDonald's opening in the mid-1970s less than half a mile away, the restaurant suffered from poor sales, and was eventually acquired by McDonald's Corporation in 1990, when it was the only remaining McDonald's that was independent of the chain.
With low sales, damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and the lack of a drive-up window and indoor seating, the restaurant was closed, and McDonald's planned to demolish it and incorporate some of its features in a modern "retro" restaurant nearby. However, it was listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 1994 list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. With both the public and preservationists demanding the restaurant be saved, McDonald's spent two years restoring the restaurant and reopened it. Customers can visit the restored restaurant and an adjoining gift shop and museum.
Other early McDonald's restaurants
Very few early McDonald's restaurants remain, largely because McDonald's Corporation required its franchisees to update their buildings.
The original hexagonal McDonald's hamburger stand located at 1398 North E Street in San Bernardino was demolished in 1953 and replaced by a building in the now familiar Golden Arches style. In an oversight, the McDonald brothers failed to retain rights to the McDonald's name when they sold the chain to Kroc, and were forced to rename it "The Big M". It went out of business and was demolished in 1972, although part of the sign remains.