The oldest surviving McDonald’s Golden Arches building is the Downey McDonald’s in California.
The restaurant opened in 1953 at 10207 Lakewood Boulevard, making it the third McDonald’s location. Its distinctive yellow arches were part of architect Stanley Clark Meston’s early restaurant design. The building remained in operation after later McDonald’s restaurants adopted substantially different architectural styles.
The Downey site is often confused with the original McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino. The San Bernardino location opened earlier, in 1940, but the surviving building there is a reconstruction rather than the original structure. Downey’s 1953 building is therefore usually identified as the oldest surviving McDonald’s restaurant building.
The site later became a museum as well as a functioning restaurant. Its exhibits cover the McDonald brothers, early equipment, restaurant advertising, and the development of the Golden Arches. This makes the location especially important in McDonald’s visual-brand history.