What was McDonald's first restaurant brand name before it became McDonald's?

McDonald’s first restaurant brand name was McDonald’s Bar-B-Q.

Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their first restaurant in San Bernardino, California, in 1940 under the name McDonald’s Bar-B-Q. It was a drive-in barbecue restaurant with a broad menu, reflecting the dominant drive-in format of the period.

In 1948, the brothers closed the restaurant temporarily and reorganized it around a shorter menu and faster production system. When it reopened, it focused on hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, milkshakes, and other quickly served items. The business adopted the Speedee Service System, which became the foundation of its later model.

The restaurant was later known as McDonald’s Famous Hamburgers before the company settled on the shorter McDonald’s name. The early barbecue name is easy to overlook because the modern brand is so strongly associated with hamburgers and the arches.