Before the Golden Arches became world-renowned, the original menu was extremely simple.
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| A McDonald’s menu from 1943 shows the wide selection on offer to early customers, and nothing costs more than 60 cents. |
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| Customers queue at the original McDonald's diner in San Bernardino, California. |
When McDonald’s was first founded in the 1940s by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald, it was actually a barbecue-centric restaurant, serving items like ribs and barbecued pork sandwiches. But once Ray Kroc took the restaurant over, he streamlined the menu and cropped it down, which dates from the 1950s:
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| Early menus continued to offer just a handful of items, which proved hugely popular with customers. |
Ray Kroc got involved in 1955 and opened the first McDonald’s franchise east of the Mississippi in Des Plaines, Illinois:
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| A poster advertising the opening of the first store. |
