Who designed the original McDonald's restaurant building that introduced the Golden Arches in 1953?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the original McDonald's restaurant building that introduced the Golden Arches in 1953.

Meston was an architect working in Southern California when franchisee Neil Fox asked him to design a highly visible restaurant for Phoenix. Meston and his assistant Charles Fish created the red-and-white building with two tall yellow arches at either side, establishing a bold visual identity before the arches became a joined corporate logo.

The design reflected the era's roadside commercial architecture. The arches were not merely decorative: they made the restaurant recognizable to passing motorists and helped distinguish McDonald's from other drive-ins.

Meston is sometimes confused with Jim Schindler, who later developed the joined-arches logo used by McDonald's. Meston's contribution was the architectural concept and building design; Schindler's was the later graphic transformation of the arches.