The story of fast food as we know it traces back to May 15, 1940, when the McDonald brothers launched their very first restaurant in San Bernardino, California. What they created that day, however, looked almost nothing like the global empire we recognize today.
That first McDonald's was an open-pit barbecue joint — an outdoor spot where the meat was slow-cooked using hickory chips shipped in from Arkansas to give everything a distinctive flavor. A handful of stools lined the outside counters, but the vast majority of customers simply ordered from their vehicles and had carhops deliver the food right to them. Despite having a loyal following, the barbecue itself never really caught on in a big way.
What did catch on, however, were the hamburgers — originally just a side offering. No matter how hard the brothers pushed their barbecue, customers kept gravitating toward the burgers instead. Eventually, the McDonald brothers gave in to what the people wanted and pivoted their entire operation toward hamburgers.
Looking for a way to outpace their competitors, the brothers took inspiration from Henry Ford's assembly line factory model and applied it to food preparation. Their "Speedee Service System" assigned each employee to a single station, where they could rapidly put together burgers in a uniform fashion. The result? Customers could often walk away with their meal the moment they handed over their cash. This revolutionary concept of "fast food" turned the McDonald's restaurant into a massive sensation — even though the menu remained quite bare-bones: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, potato chips, pie, coffee, milk, and three varieties of soda (served in just one cup size). When they swapped out the chips for fries and introduced triple-thick milkshakes, business absolutely exploded.
From those humble beginnings, McDonald's grew into a franchise operation and ultimately one of the largest fast-food chains on the planet. Its only remaining link to that original barbecue restaurant? The sporadically available McRib barbecue sandwich.