The McDonald's Museum

Located in the town of San Bernardino is the Unofficial McDonald's Museum, an unlicensed collection of fast-food memorabilia which sits on the site of the first ever McDonald's restaurant.



Dick and Mac McDonald opened their eponymous San Bernardino barbecue restaurant in 1940 complete with sandwiches, shakes, and carhops. As their business began to grow they realized that their best-selling item was the hamburger, and that their clientele did not care to stick around when they were finished eating. It was these two realizations that sparked the fast food model most of us are familiar with today (they tore down the old, yet successful store and created the “Speedee Service System” and mechanized the kitchen of their roadside burger shack. Each of its 12-person crew specialized in specific tasks, and much of the food was preassembled. This allowed McDonald’s to prepare its food quickly—and even ahead of the time—when an order was placed. It was truly revolutionary and caught the eye of Ray Kroc- more about him later).

This is some of the actual flooring from that 1940's McDonald's.
The original restaurant building was demolished in 1971 and the site began to fade into history, finally being foreclosed upon in 1998. At that time, prominent businessman, active philanthropist, and Inland Empire personality Albert Okura, owner of the rotisserie chicken chain Juan Pollo, two other local museums, and the town of Amboy, CA, purchased the site. Okura had always been a huge fan of McDonald’s, and cites the chain as his inspiration to go into fast food. I wrote abut Mr. Okura while Getting our Kicks on Route 66 in March.
Okura moved Juan Pollo’s corporate headquarters to the site, and built a new building where the restaurant once stood to serve as a museum, right next to the original sign. Okura filled the space with toys, signs, old play place equipment, fiberglass statues, and any McDonald’s related, even assembling the world’s largest collection of pre-Kroc McDonald’s memorabilia. He then opened the doors as a museum. Today, the museum boasts an excellent collection of memorabilia from the motion picture The Founder, the story of Ray Kroc and the McDonald’s brothers, as well as collections of McDonald’s promo swag from around the world.



All the food is real and somehow preserved. Wild.
These are actual props from the 2016 movie The Founder starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc.
Outside the museum was a wacky collection of 'stuff'. I did love this ride on filet-o-fish, no doubt I sat on one just like it, many a time.



Intrigued by the McDonald's story, we stopped at the library on the way home and got a copy of the aforementioned film. Also described as "How Ray Kroc Became an American Villain. Considered a 20th-century hero by his contemporaries, the story of the McDonald’s mogul gets a 21st-century spin". I will not say much more, but I highly recommend the movie (which I researched to be pretty accurate). Those golden arches will never look as golden to me again, sadly.

As I have mentioned before, history is incredible and can be discovered almost anywhere. This was a fabulous stop on our local road trip. I'll share more tomorrow.

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