McDonald’s original restaurant business was called McDonald’s Bar-B-Q.
Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their first restaurant in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. It operated as a drive-in barbecue restaurant with a broad menu and carhop service, a format that was common in Southern California at the time.
The brothers later redesigned the business around a much smaller menu and faster preparation. In 1948 they introduced the Speedee Service System, emphasizing hamburgers, fries, drinks, standardized production, and customer self-service. That change created the operating model that later made McDonald’s famous.
The original barbecue name is often forgotten because the modern company is associated with the arches, hamburgers, and franchise expansion. It is also important not to confuse the 1940 restaurant with the later McDonald’s Corporation story associated with Ray Kroc. Kroc joined the business as a franchise agent in the 1950s, after the McDonald brothers had already developed their restaurant concept.