McDonald’s #3
Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their first restaurant in Monrovia in 1937, moving it to San Bernardino in 1940. In 1948, they closed their restaurant for three months, reopening it in December as a walk-up hamburger stand employing their “Speedee Service System” to optimize food production. Success led the brothers to start franchising the concept in 1953. They commissioned commercial architect Stanley Clark Meston to design a new building for their second franchisee in Downey. By 1994, it was the World’s oldest remaining McDonald’s. After corporate McDonald’s shuttered the location, a campaign to save it resulted in its listing on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. With mounting demands to save the restaurant, McDonald’s spent two years restoring the restaurant and reopened it.
Downey, Los Angeles County
Photographer: Jim Albert