The Original McDonald's In The US Is Also A Museum

In 1948, brothers Maurice "Mac" McDonald and Richard "Dick" McDonald converted their San Bernardino, California, barbecue restaurant — McDonald's — they'd opened eight years earlier into a streamlined burger business. Selling hamburgers, fries, and shakes, the restaurateurs created the prototype for the fast food service industry model that still stands today. By 1961, one time shake machine salesman Ray Kroc had bought the brothers out and began building an empire that has become one of the biggest fast food chains in the world with more than 41,000 locations across the globe.

The McDonald brothers' original restaurant, occupying the intersection of West 14th and North E streets in the Southern California city, is long gone, having been razed decades ago. But on the site of the first McDonald's in the world, you can now find a museum dedicated to all things McDonald's. The overstuffed establishment has ephemera stretching back over 80 years. Still, the museum isn't actually associated with the McDonald's corporation. It was the creation of another man who also made his fortune in the fast food business.

Albert Okura, a second-generation Japanese American and founder of the rotisserie chicken chain Juan Pollo, bought the building that sat on the site of the original McDonald's in 1998 and converted it into a free McDonald's museum. He also used it as his office until his death in February 2023. He'd been inspired to pursue his own fast food dreams by Mac and Dick McDonald and was an amateur fast food historian.

The museum is organized by decade and displays many pieces — like old employee uniforms — from the 1940s. (Back in the 1950s you could buy McDonald's entire menu for under $2.) It also houses a massive amount of Happy Meal toys from around the world, many of which have been donated. The number of Happy Meal-related toys should come as no surprise since McDonald's is one of the largest toy distributors in the world. You can also find life-sized statues of company mascots Ronald McDonald and Grimace, the lovable purple, blob-shaped creature. If you get hungry after visiting the museum, you can head an hour west to Downey, California and eat at the oldest operating McDonald's in the world. It's been running since it opened in 1953, complete with fried apple pies (not baked) like they used to make.