Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's restaurant in 1955. It stood in Des Plaines, Illinois, near Chicago, and opened on April 15 under Kroc's franchising company, McDonald's Systems, Inc.
The date marks Kroc's entry into restaurant operations, not the birth of McDonald's itself. Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their original restaurant in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. They later developed the Speedee Service System and began franchising, which attracted Kroc, then a seller of Multimixer milkshake machines.
The Des Plaines location is often called McDonald's first restaurant because it was Kroc's first and became the launch point for the modern corporation. Technically, it was the ninth McDonald's restaurant, while the oldest surviving location is the third restaurant, opened in Downey, California, in 1953.
Kroc eventually bought the McDonald brothers' stake and transformed the business into a global chain. The Des Plaines building was demolished in 1984, replaced by a replica that operated as a museum until 2018.