What was the original name of the restaurant that became McDonald’s?

The restaurant that became McDonald’s originally operated as McDonald’s Bar-B-Q.

Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the restaurant in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. Its original format was a drive-in barbecue restaurant with a large menu and carhop service. The brothers later streamlined the business, replacing the barbecue menu with a limited selection of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, milkshakes, and drinks.

In 1948, the restaurant was reorganized around the faster self-service system that became famous as the Speedee Service System. After that change, the business increasingly used the shorter McDonald’s name. Ray Kroc later joined the company as a franchise agent and helped turn the San Bernardino operation into an international chain.

The original name is sometimes confused with the name of the later corporation or with the McDonald brothers’ simplified hamburger concept. McDonald’s Bar-B-Q refers specifically to the first restaurant’s earlier identity, before the brand adopted its streamlined fast-food model.