McDonald’s Museum

This rather shabby museum in San Bernardino, California is the location of the first McDonald’s restaurant.

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The brothers started with a BBQ restaurant.

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After a few years, they realized that 80% of their sales came from hamburgers. They pared their menu down to hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, shakes, pop and apple pie.

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Ray Kroc came along and bought the franchise rights and forced the brothers out of the business. Apparently, when he bought the rights, he was upset that the McDonald brothers intended to keep their restaurant open. He forced them to change the name of their place to “The Big M,” and built a competing McDonald’s one block away. Both restaurants are now gone.

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Inside and outside, the place is an unorganized jumble of McDonald’s and Route 66 stuff, with random photos and descriptions. I wouldn’t advise a long trip to visit, but if you find yourself with an hour or two to kill in San Bernardino …

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The Juan Pollo chain of chicken restaurants owns the site of the original McDonald’s and uses part of the museum building as corporate offices. This vehicle was parked in back.

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