What was the name of the McDonald brothers’ restaurant before it became simply McDonald’s in 1948?

Before it became simply McDonald’s in 1948, the McDonald brothers’ restaurant was called McDonald’s Bar-B-Q.

Maurice and Richard McDonald opened their drive-in restaurant in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. Its original menu focused on barbecue items, and the business used the name McDonald’s Bar-B-Q. In 1948, the brothers closed the restaurant temporarily and reopened it with a much smaller menu centered on hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, milkshakes, and soft drinks.

That 1948 relaunch also introduced the Speedee Service System, which emphasized rapid, standardized preparation. The shorter McDonald’s name matched the restaurant’s simplified identity. It is sometimes confused with the later corporation’s founding date: the restaurant began in 1940, while the streamlined hamburger operation began in 1948. Ray Kroc later expanded the concept nationally after becoming involved in the 1950s.