The first McDonald's restaurant with Golden Arches opened in Phoenix, Arizona.
The restaurant opened in 1953 and used the arches as prominent architectural features. Their purpose was practical as well as visual: the tall golden forms helped passing motorists identify the building from a distance and gave the new McDonald's design a distinctive roadside profile.
This Phoenix location is important because it represents the Golden Arches as architecture, not yet the fully unified corporate logo familiar today. The two arches were positioned on opposite sides of the building and were later transformed into the “M”-shaped mark used in corporate branding.
Phoenix is sometimes confused with San Bernardino, California, where the McDonald brothers operated their original restaurant, or Downey, California, home of the oldest surviving McDonald's restaurant building. Those locations are central to McDonald's history, but Phoenix is associated with the first arches restaurant.