Which 1950s McDonald's restaurant design by Stanley Meston featured the original Golden Arches?

Stanley Meston’s 1950s McDonald’s restaurant design featuring the original Golden Arches was the Red and White design.

The Red and White design used red-and-white exterior panels, a high pitched roof, and large yellow arches rising at the sides. The arches were intended to make restaurants visible to passing motorists, turning the building itself into a roadside advertisement.

Meston developed the architectural concept for the McDonald brothers’ San Bernardino restaurant and later McDonald’s locations. The physical arches were not initially a flat letter “M”; they were three-dimensional structural elements attached to the building. Their later combination into the corporate logo created a more abstract version of the same idea.

The Red and White restaurants are now remembered as an important stage in McDonald’s visual history. They connected roadside architecture, color, and brand recognition before the logo became the primary way customers identified the chain.