McDonald’s first Golden Arches restaurant design appeared in Phoenix, Arizona.
The original arches were part of a restaurant design developed for McDonald’s during the 1950s. Architect Stanley Clark Meston created the form, which used large yellow arches on the building’s sides as a highly visible roadside identifier.
The Phoenix location is especially important because it shows that the Golden Arches began as architecture rather than as a printed logo. The design was later used more broadly as McDonald’s expanded through franchising and standardized its restaurants.
The company’s first restaurant was in San Bernardino, California, and its early corporate expansion later centered on other locations, including Des Plaines, Illinois. Those places are therefore easy to confuse with Phoenix, but Phoenix is the city associated with the first restaurant design featuring the Golden Arches.