McDonald’s opened its oldest surviving restaurant in 1953.
The restaurant is in Downey, California, and was opened by franchisees Roger Williams and Burdette Landon. Its distinctive golden-arches architecture preserves an early stage of McDonald’s visual development, before later restaurants adopted many standardized design elements.
The Downey site is often called the oldest surviving McDonald’s restaurant because the original San Bernardino location, opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald in 1940, no longer operates as a McDonald’s restaurant. The distinction between “first restaurant” and “oldest surviving location” is therefore important.
The Downey building also illustrates how the arches began as architectural features before becoming a highly recognizable corporate symbol. Its design is associated with the early 1950s expansion of the McDonald’s brand through franchising.