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Older McDonald's Locations

Posted: 04 Dec 2005 13:54
by StoreLiker2005
Hi Gang,

Does anyone remember when the McDonald's at 9100 SE Powell Blvd in Portland, OR has opened? My mom remembers it as opening circa 1963.

Also, when this restaurant was new, it had no drive-thru originally. Therefore, until about 1978, you had to get out of your car to order something. Its original road sign was a big McD's M going down all the way to the ground, and in the middle is a parallelogram-shaped box with the words McDonald's HAMBURGERS -- OVER (XX) BILLION SERVED (where XX means the total amount of hamburgers sold, this would change to a higher number accordingly).

I was born in 1981, so obviously, by then, the view of this particular McD's would already have had its expansion with a drive-thru window (called the "McDrive" in selected states) but retaining its trademark Golden Arches. I think this outlet was upgraded around 1978 to include the McDrive. The original '60s portion which still stands today building is now currently a museum.

Benjamin (StoreLiker2005)

McDonalds

Posted: 29 Mar 2006 20:05
by storeliker
McDonalds nowadays can be found in gas stations too, most have play places, most of the properties are early seventies into the nineties if they have the trademark roof. I had a job where i went into every single one on a regualr basis alomg with 76 stations in Bay Area, to take pics and evaluate.
Most McDonalds may look the same on the outside by almost all have different interiors and all do in Bay Area. For example Walnut Creek has a Hollywood theme, Newark Ca has a big map on the wall of the USA and dates and places where certain items were created. In fact in Hayward there is one that says " Original Home of the Mini Mac" in sign instead of the billions served allthough those havent been in production for years.
My favorite was the Newark Ca one with big map. In sure this has been done elsewhere. My favorites are the really small ones with the trademark roof, like the one in San Pablo BLVD near Berkeley where they still had the characters circa 70's on the walls and a real small one in Fremont on Grimmer that was really small.
Interesting thing is all themes are different and have heard not one is same (but sure there are many with the "southwest desert" feel.) I guess there was even one with reclining seats and built in ashtrays on the arm rest in the midewest somewhere.
Please post your McDonald interior things or trivia or memories.

Posted: 30 Mar 2006 00:29
by rich
The first generation McDs had no drive through (that started in the mid-70s) and no seating (that came after Burger King became entrenched, in the late 60s/early 70s). They did fully enclose the order area, under the front overhang during the winter and heated it with overhead electric space heaters.

McD's was relatively late going into food courts (and even seem to be a rarity now), gas stations, etc. They've rarely been an innovator.

The trademark roof you refer to would be the shake roof they adopted in the early 70s; some McD's like that date back to the beginning of their operation and lost their original, large, interior-lit golden arches in the early 70s. One of the 1st McDonald's in the Cleveland area was on Vine Street, near lake Shore Blvd in Willowick, which is an example of this. That store added seating after the success of Burger King down the street and later added a drive thru.

Posted: 30 Mar 2006 01:27
by Groceteria
rich wrote:McD's was relatively late going into food courts (and even seem to be a rarity now), gas stations, etc. They've rarely been an innovator.
I worked in one of the early mall locations (Four Seasons in Greensboro) when I was in high school. It had opened a few years earlier, in about 1976, and was one of the lowest performers in the area. Except, of course, in Novemeber and December. It was an interesting store, with a sort of cartoonish sidewalk cafe motif (and yes, that's me in the second picture):

Image Image

I believe the Four Seasons store closed in the late 1990s. It was huge, and I'm sure the rent was pretty steep as the mall went more upscale. I'm not sure if they relocated to the food court (added in the late 1980s/early 1990s) or not.
rich wrote:some McD's like that date back to the beginning of their operation and lost their original, large, interior-lit golden arches in the early 70s.
There are still some of these early conversions of "red and whites" around and they're fairly easy to spot if you know what you're looking for. The dining rooms often seem small and oddly oriented, because they weren't envisioned when the original site was planned.

They also sometimes have an odd restroom set-up because they still use one or both of the original restrooms which were initially on the outside rear of the building. The dining rooms are now sort of wrapped around them. Of course, the ADA changed a lot of that too.

A lot of these have been replaced. The last one I remember seeing was on Bascom Street in the San Jose/Santa Clara/Campbell area.

Posted: 30 Mar 2006 14:00
by jamcool
The first McD's drive thrus were at McDs near military bases...it used to be that you could not be in uniform outside the base unless driving your car. Therefore with drive thru you could still get a bite outside the base without changing clothes.

The red/white "golden arches" design was "officialy" retired in 1968, when McDs went to the shake roof, or more correctly "mansard" building design - some of those still had the arches on the roof. (68 was when the current big "M" logo was born)

Today McDonalds seem to come in all shapes/sizes...even the 50s design has been reused in several areas.

Re: McDonald's - 9100 SE Powell Blvd, Portland, OR

Posted: 30 Mar 2006 18:25
by Dave
StoreLiker2005 wrote:... and in the middle is a parallelogram-shaped box with the words McDonald's HAMBURGERS -- OVER (XX) BILLION SERVED (where XX means the total amount of hamburgers sold, this would change to a higher number accordingly)....
I remember that before they got to a billion, the signs just said "Millions and Millions Served" - then they went to the signs where the number was changed.

I was by a McDonald's the other day that was closed for remodeling and happened to notice that it still had a sign with the changable numbers, stuck on "99 Billion".

Posted: 21 Apr 2006 19:22
by Leuqarte
I remember both the Four Seasons location when I lived in the Greensboro area, and have seen the Bascom location in San Jose, where I live now...

The Almaden / Almaden location in San Jose - has the arch design on the buidling itself, with what seems like an add-on modern section...

McDonalds

Posted: 21 Apr 2006 23:23
by storeliker
Another old one like the one on Bascom is one in Fremont on Grimmer.

Posted: 08 Aug 2007 00:28
by Dean
Bit o' trivia/interesting McDonald's site...

I'd say ~late 70s, the chain built a free-standing site in the City of Industry CA solely to film commercials. It is still standing to this day. They actually have built a large "studio" next door as well.

It is off Gale Avenue, near Azusa Avenue, in an industrial park. I believe the cross street is Bixby.

Posted: 09 Aug 2007 11:37
by Jeff
Dean wrote:Bit o' trivia/interesting McDonald's site...

I'd say ~late 70s, the chain built a free-standing site in the City of Industry CA solely to film commercials. It is still standing to this day. They actually have built a large "studio" next door as well.

It is off Gale Avenue, near Azusa Avenue, in an industrial park. I believe the cross street is Bixby.
Its actually on Green Drive, a 1/2 Circle shape street between Bixby and (west of) Azusa off Gale.

Its still there and its been remodeled to look like a McDonald's today. Its awesome to see.

Posted: 10 Aug 2007 14:21
by krogerclerk
A recent constructionn project in downtown Rome, GA uncovered an early Southern McDonald's location, in the late 50's to early 60's, Rome would have been the closest town of size to Atlanta, with about 32000 and a streetcar network and the largest between Atlanta and Chattanooga. At the time the town had a network(ABC) station that relocated to Chattanooga. Didn't hear about it until after it was reconstructed, so I got no pictures. The earliest Rome location I remember would have been constructed in 1969-1972 as an early mansard roof with dining room design. The East Ridge, TN McDonald's was a combination of the old walk up with mansard roof and brick, I'm guessing it was remodeled from the red and white painted cinder block to match the mansard design. It eventually was expanded to have a dining room but never got a drive thru, relocating instead closer to the I-75 interchange.

Posted: 10 Aug 2007 16:11
by Dean
Some more trivia...

The ORIGINAL McDonald's, started by the McDonald brothers is/was in San Bernardino CA.

The site of Ray Kroc's ORIGINAL franchise/when he purchased the company is/was in Illinois.

The San Bernardino site is now a musuem...maintained by local chain chicken Juan Pollo.

Posted: 12 Aug 2007 07:46
by Dave
There was a McDonald's in Richmond that had a second McDonald's in its basement set up for training purposes. I don't now how large or complete it was.

Posted: 12 Aug 2007 17:47
by Jeff
The McDonalds in City Terrace on Eastern Ave (Los Angeles) is 2 levels, with the Drive-Thru area and storage on the lower level. The meals are placed on a conveyer and lowered one level. Pretty neat to see.

The oldest existing McD's in operation is Downey....and I passed it today.

McDOnalds

Posted: 14 Sep 2007 03:51
by storeliker
The McDonalds in Hayward Ca says (or used to say) Home of the Mini Mac in there sign.
The Newark Mall has a McDonalds by it that has a map of all the MicDonalds "firsts"