Food Empires of California: The Real McDonald’s

In 1940, the McDonald brothers, Maurice and Richard, opened a carhop service BBQ restaurant or stand in San Bernardino, California.  It was located on E Street.  The brothers, through trial and error, and sheer genius, morphed their restaurant into a walk-up service, fast food legend that focus on a limited menu and speed of food delivery in 1948.  They called it the "Speedee Service System"...developed by the McDonald's, for McDonald's, and it was revolutionary, but not original...both brothers were very familiar with what Henry Ford had developed for automobile manufacture, as well as production lines that churned out mountains of tanks, planes and equipment during WWII.  Word spread, and aspiring entrepreneurs from across the country were coming to see what these two brothers were doing, and how they were doing it...from Glen Bell to Keith Kraemer and Matthew Burns.

A milkshake mixing machine changed history.  Had this chance connection not taken place, McDonald's as we know it would probably not blossomed into a fast-food conglomerate.  Raymond Kroc was the exclusive, nation-wide distributor of the Prince-Castle ice-cream "Multi-Mixer".  You could churn out up to five milkshakes on one machine...the McDonald brothers had ordered eight of them.  Curiosity got the better of Kroc and he travelled to California to see in 1954...and his life, along with Dick and Mac's, would never be the same.

Ray Kroc was able to more than "milkshake business" with the McDonald brothers, he convinced them to let him franchise the McDonald's brand, opening up the hamburger stands wherever the market would have them.  On April 15th, 1955, the first McDonald's franchise opened under Ray Kroc's McDonald's System, Inc., in Des Plaines, Illinois.  Ray Kroc had the hubris to name this first franchised location, his first location, McDonald's Restaurant #1.  It wasn't...

Mac and Dick McDonald had already franchised restaurants prior to Kroc entering the picture.  The first McDonald's franchise was in Phoenix, Arizona and opened in May of 1953.  That first franchise was given to Neil Fox, an executive at Occidental Petroleum.  Fox paid the brothers $1000.00, and was required to use the new "Googie" building design for the restaurant.  The McDonalds were thinking ahead, and they were eager to franchise their winning system and product, but they needed a "look".

Stanley Clark Meston...of Fontana...California.  Fontana is known for three things, the Kaiser Steel Plant, the birthplace of the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club, and Stanley Meston's architectural firm, the man that designed McDonald's chain of restaurants...the "Golden Arches" so to speak.

But why stop at Phoenix?  Fox and his associates had three franchises from the McDonald brothers...but they named the Phoenix location McDonald's, much to Dick and Mac's surprise.  The North Hollywood and Azusa location were called "Peaks", same food by a different name.  Two associated of Neil Fox, Roger Williams and Burdette Williams franchised the fourth restaurant from the McDonalds, again in 1953...and it was located in the city of Downey, California...a sleepy suburb of Los Angeles...

After 1955, all franchising had to go through Ray Kroc...but the original McDonald's franchises had the luxury of being islands unto themselves.  They were not beholden to what became McDonald's Corporation, and Raymond Kroc could not tell them what to do or how to do it.  these franchises had been acquired from the McDonalds themselves and were outside his purview.  The Phoenix McDonald's lasted until the late 1970s, and was torn down and eliminated, most likely to the relief of McDonald's Corporation.  However, the Downey McDonald's, the third location to bear the name (under the McDonald brothers) still stands and still operates to this day.  They held out as long as they could, fighting off the big corporation and their desire not to serve Big Macs but stick with the original menu items from the days of Mac and Dick, but eventually they relented and sold out...or back to, the corporate conglomerate.  At one point, this location, the oldest McDonald's in existence (the original in San Bernardino was torn down in the late 1960s) was slated to be leveled due to earthquake damage in 1994.  But it was saved, refurbished and reopened, albeit as a corporate McDonald's, complete with a gift shop.  It is located at 10207 Lakewood Blvd.