San Bernardino was home to the first McDonald’s restaurant and its earliest branding.
Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the restaurant in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. The original business was a drive-in barbecue restaurant, and its early identity was very different from the standardized global brand that followed. In 1948, the brothers reorganized the operation around a limited menu and fast self-service production.
San Bernardino remained important to McDonald’s history because the restaurant became the testing ground for the Speedee Service System. The system emphasized assembly-line preparation, consistent portions, and rapid service. It later influenced the franchise model that helped spread the McDonald’s name across the United States and internationally.
The first restaurant is sometimes confused with the first franchised McDonald’s operated by Ray Kroc in Des Plaines, Illinois. Des Plaines was crucial to Kroc’s expansion, but San Bernardino was the location where the McDonald brothers created the original business.