Des Plaines, Illinois, hosted the first McDonald’s restaurant franchised by Ray Kroc in 1955.
Kroc opened the restaurant at 400 North Lee Street on April 15, 1955. It became the first location operated under Kroc’s McDonald’s franchise organization and helped establish the standardized restaurant system that later powered the company’s expansion.
The site is often called the first McDonald’s restaurant because of its importance to the modern corporation, although the original McDonald’s restaurant was founded by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. Kroc’s Des Plaines location was a franchise, not the original restaurant.
The building was later reconstructed as a museum known as the McDonald’s Store No. 1 Museum, preserving its role in the company’s branding and franchising history.