What was the name of McDonald's first restaurant in San Bernardino, California?

McDonald's first restaurant in San Bernardino, California, was called McDonald's Bar-B-Q.

Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the restaurant in 1940 on North E Street in San Bernardino. It began as a drive-in barbecue restaurant with carhops and a broad menu. In 1948, the brothers reorganized the business around a smaller menu, counter service, and rapid preparation, creating the operating model that later defined McDonald's branding.

The restaurant's early name is often blurred with the later McDonald's identity. The famous Golden Arches were not yet the central corporate symbol, and the business was not initially the global hamburger chain familiar today. The McDonald brothers first built a local California restaurant before Ray Kroc expanded the concept through franchising.

The original San Bernardino site later became associated with the unofficial McDonald's museum and the history of the company. It is also separate from the first restaurant opened by Kroc, which began in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955.