Phoenix hosted the first McDonald’s restaurant with the famous yellow arches in 1953.
Architect Stanley Clark Meston designed the arches for a McDonald’s restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona. The structure used two large yellow arches positioned at the sides of the building, making the restaurant highly visible to passing motorists.
The Phoenix location is distinct from the oldest surviving McDonald’s restaurant in Downey, California, and from Ray Kroc’s first franchised restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. Those places are frequently mentioned in McDonald’s history, which can cause the cities to be confused.
The arches initially functioned as architecture and roadside signage rather than as the complete corporate logo used today. Their strong visual identity later inspired the Golden Arches symbol that became central to McDonald’s branding worldwide.