The US McDonald's Which Was Turned Into A California Historic Landmark

When you think of historic sites, your mind might jump to places like the Statue of Liberty or a Civil War battleground — but head to Pomona, California, and you'll find a former McDonald's restaurant that also has a comparable status (although, to be fair, its historic landmark status is on the local level, not the national one).

Located on Pomona's East Mission Boulevard, you'd be forgiven for not realizing that the building was once a McDonald's. With a slanted red roof, red-and-white stripes on the building, and a retro-space-age red arch with a yellow signboard, the site doesn't look anything like a contemporary McDonald's. It opened in 1954 as the chain's seventh restaurant, back when the whole company was based nearby in San Bernardino. It was one of the first locations that brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald franchised out. Architect Stanley Clark Meston designed the building with golden arches alongside the slanted roof; both the arches and roof would've been vibrantly lit up in neon at the time. However, it was only a McDonald's until 1968. After that, the arches were destroyed, and a taqueria took over; since around 2004, it's been home to donut shop AMA Donuts.

Even without those arches, in May 2026, Pomona's city council voted to give the building historic landmark status. That means it's protected from demolition — while there were no imminent plans to do so, the current owner had intended to sell it, leaving its future ambiguous.

The basic reason for protecting the former Pomona McDonald's is that, despite its current shabby state, it's a notable piece of architecture. It's seen as a top-notch example of so-called "architectural branding" — in which the building itself is meant to serve as an advertisement for what it houses. Stanley Meston's design for McDonald's locations was meant to be eye-catching, specifically to people driving past, where small, subtle details would go unnoticed: Hence the bold colors and swooping arches. The design was intended to be replicated across many McDonald's restaurants, so passers-by would learn to associate the specific design elements with McDonald's as a brand.

As for the Pomona location, it was seen as worth keeping because, despite losing some features, it still resembled the original design closely enough. Many of the original Meston-designed McDonald's locations were torn down or renovated when McDonald's changed its preferred restaurant design around the '70s and '80s. Now, the Pomona location is the second-oldest surviving McDonald's out there — the oldest one is not too far away in Downey, California (though the original San Bernardino location was demolished). The Downey location was restored in the '90s and still has the arches on the building. Significantly, it still operates as a McDonald's — but it also needed protection from its local city council, which designated it as a landmark to protect it from being demolished by McDonald's itself. (Yes, really.)