Which architect designed the McDonald's restaurant that introduced the first Golden Arches in Phoenix?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the McDonald's restaurant in Phoenix that introduced the first Golden Arches.

Meston created the restaurant's distinctive 1950s design for the McDonald brothers. The building used a red-and-white color scheme, a sloping roof, and large yellow arches at the sides. Those arches were intended to make the restaurant visible to drivers and to give the roadside business a memorable identity.

The Phoenix location is important because it shows that the Golden Arches began as part of a physical restaurant rather than as a logo drawn on paper. The two arches stood separately on the building. Only later did the company turn their combined form into the famous “M” logo.

People sometimes attribute the entire development to Ray Kroc because he built McDonald's into a global chain. Kroc, however, was not the architect who created the original building concept. Meston's architectural work supplied the visual foundation for the later brand symbol.