The first McDonald’s restaurant opened in 1940. Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened McDonald’s Bar-B-Q on May 15, 1940, in San Bernardino, California.
The original business was a drive-in restaurant where carhops served customers, and its menu was much larger than the streamlined McDonald’s menu people know today. In 1948, the brothers temporarily closed the restaurant, redesigned its operation, and introduced the Speedee Service System, which emphasized fast preparation and a limited menu.
That 1948 transformation is why some people mistakenly choose 1948 as the founding year of modern McDonald’s. Another common mix-up involves 1955: that was the year Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, and began building the nationwide chain associated with the modern corporation.
Kroc later purchased the business from the McDonald brothers in 1961. The company’s global expansion grew from their earlier restaurant concept, but the first McDonald’s itself dates to 1940.