Oldest McDonald's restaurant

History

The Downey, California, McDonald's was first owned by Roger Williams, whose sister was married to the chain's very first franchisee, Neil Fox, and his partner Bud Landon. Both Williams and Fox had worked for Occidental Petroleum, and they used their knowledge of picking spots for gas stations to select the restaurant's location. Like all franchisees of the McDonald brothers, they had to use the building design created by Stanley Clark Meston. When Ray Kroc bought the company from the McDonald brothers, this location was unaffected because its franchise agreement was with the brothers, not with Kroc's McDonald's Systems, Inc. This meant it never had to follow the modernization rules Kroc's corporation imposed on its other restaurants.

Its menu stayed different, too, and never included items like the Big Mac that the corporation invented. Because of these differences and because a corporate McDonald's opened less than half a mile away in the mid-1970s, sales were poor. The McDonald's Corporation finally bought the restaurant in 1990, at which point it was the only McDonald's left that was not part of the chain. With low sales, damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and no drive-thru or indoor seating, the restaurant closed and was set to be torn down.

But it made the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 1994 list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Public outcry and preservationists pushed McDonald's to restore it over two years, and it reopened. Today, a replica of the original San Bernardino McDonald's next door houses a museum and gift shop. A drive-thru window was finally added in 2016.