Thursday was the 85th anniversary of a sizzling moment in San Bernardino history: the May 15, 1940 opening of McDonald’s.
Not McDonald’s as we know it. But still McDonald’s.
Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald had launched a drive-in restaurant, The Airdrome, in Monrovia in 1937 out of an octagonal building. Three years later they picked the building up and moved it to San Bernardino, placing it on a lot on the southwest corner of 14th and E streets.
It was this McDonald’s that debuted 85 years ago at 1396 N. E St. The restaurant, called “a drive-in cafe” in a May 1940 news clipping, had a jukebox and a cigarette machine. Also, a barbecue pit. There was no seating. Food was brought to your car.
“Carhops donning satin majorette uniforms delivered patrons barbecued ribs, beef and pork sandwiches, hamburgers, milkshakes and other items,” wrote The Press-Enterprise’s Jacquie Paul in a 1999 story.
What, no McFlurries?
The story chronicled a 1999 reunion of 1940s employees that took place at the museum on the site of the original restaurant.
Dottie Gladwill, photographed in 1999, holds a photograph of herself from 1940 when she was a carhop at the original, pre-fast food McDonald’s in San Bernardino. (File photo by Mark Zaleski, Press-Enterprise/SCNG)Dottie Gladwill, then in her late 70s, told the P-E that she was a carhop on opening day. Her first customer ordered a hamburger and a chocolate malt. Gladwill, who was nervous, grabbed the malt too quickly and spilled it down the front of her uniform.
Soda jerk John Woolard said he worked opening day too, hired on the spot hours earlier after proving to Maurice McDonald that he could whip up shakes and malts.
After eight years in San Bernardino, the McDonald brothers decided to focus on hamburgers and quick service. After revamping their kitchen for maximum efficiency and booting the carhops, their new McDonald’s reopened on Dec. 22, 1948.
A full-page ad in The Sun that day announced “the spectacular opening of the first ‘drive-in hamburger bar’ in America!”
This McDonald’s was a sensation. So much so that in 1953, that original octagonal structure was demolished and replaced by a larger building: the first golden-arches style McDonald’s. And that building, in turn, was razed in 1972, replaced by — boo! — an office.
Albert Okura, then the owner of the First Original McDonald’s Museum in San Bernardino, holds a plaque in 2019 commemorating the site’s history. Okura had already replaced two stolen plaques when this one was returned. (File photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)But the 1950s McDonald’s sign remains in place, and the office behind it is famously an unofficial McDonald’s museum.
And the first step toward McDonald’s came 85 years ago. Eat a sandwich, or spill a chocolate malt on yourself, in its memory.
Inspirational SB
Fellow columnist Gustavo Arellano of the Los Angeles Times was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, specifically for his series about traveling the Southwest to talk about 2024’s political divisions with Latinos. One of those installments was reported from San Bernardino.
Arellano shared lunch with Michael Montaño and Steven Oquendo, the cousins who own Mitla Cafe. (The three ate at Chubzies Burgers because Mitla was closed that day.)
Arellano was a runner-up rather than the winner, but let’s give the onetime All-America City a moment to bask in the Pulitzer spotlight anyway.
Mitla’s claim to fame, of course, is that its hard-shell tacos were copied by the founder of Taco Bell. Now Mitla can also brag about inspiring Pulitzer-finalist journalism!
Who’s he?
By contrast, others of us in the columnist trade are struggling to achieve a local profile. During a break at the April 29 San Bernardino City Council meeting, I introduced myself to a man who’d spoken during public comment to get his name.
He provided it, then gave me a capsule biography of his many activities over the decades. Young reporters at The Sun, he added, had quoted him inaccurately in the past — in the same breath informing me that it didn’t bother him.
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The guard said: “That’s David.”
Resuming his exit, the man replied: “I don’t care. I’ve been on national news.”
I hope the national news quoted him accurately!
brIEfly
A porta-potty was heisted the morning of May 11 from a sidewalk in the 300 block of San Bernardino’s North E Street, with surveillance footage showing the loo tipped on its back and placed inside a U-Haul, according to a story on the news site Inland Empire Community News. The toilet was later spotted at a homeless encampment 10 blocks north — near the McDonald’s museum, incidentally — and was retrieved. And, presumably, emptied.
David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, portably. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.
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