San Bernardino highlight
Site of the original McDonald’s
The site of the first McDonald's restaurant, opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino in 1940 and now home to a museum preserving fast-food history.
On May 15, 1940, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their original restaurant at 1398 North E Street in San Bernardino. Eight years later, they introduced the Speedee Service System: a streamlined kitchen layout with a limited menu and an assembly-line approach that revolutionized fast food. The concept proved so successful that franchising followed, and the McDonald brothers sold their restaurant to Ray Kroc in 1954, launching the chain that became a global brand.
The original building stood until 1972, when it was demolished as the city changed around it. In 1998, entrepreneur Albert Okura purchased the site for $135,000 and established a museum to preserve the building's history. The museum, open free to visitors on weekends and weekday afternoons, houses McDonald's memorabilia, the Speedee mascot displays, and collectible Happy Meal toys from around the world—a window into how a local restaurant idea transformed American eating.
The McDonald brothers' success came from simplicity: do one thing well, remove what does not serve that goal, and make it dependable. The same principle applies to life insurance: a simple term policy, sized to cover the years when a family's financial foundation matters most, and then letting it end when that need has passed.