The brothers' drive-in, at 1398 North E Street, served a long menu delivered by carhops. In 1948 they shut it for three months and reopened with a pared-down menu built around 15-cent hamburgers and an assembly-line kitchen they called the Speedee Service System. The idea attracted a milkshake-machine salesman, Ray Kroc, who became their franchising agent in 1954 and bought the business from them in 1961 for $2.7 million.
Richard and Maurice McDonald had moved from New Hampshire to California hoping to work in films. They opened a hot-dog stand near Monrovia in 1937, and on May 15, 1940, a larger drive-in in San Bernardino. It was popular with teenagers and served a long menu, from barbecue to hot dogs.
By 1948 the brothers had grown tired of the costs and the slow service, and they redesigned the business. They cut the menu to nine items, fired the carhops, and laid out their kitchen, according to their own account, on a tennis court with chalk before building it. Each worker did one task, like a factory line, and customers ordered at a window and carried food away in paper bags.
The golden arches arrived in 1953. A year later Ray Kroc, who sold Multimixer milkshake machines, visited to see why one restaurant needed eight of them. He opened his first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955 and later bought the brothers out. The original restaurant in San Bernardino was eventually demolished; a museum run by a local businessman now stands on the site.
Key people: Richard McDonald, Maurice McDonald, Ray Kroc