Pomona decided its original McDonald’s deserves a break today.
On Monday, the City Council granted the 1954 building landmark status, which will keep it from being demolished. Pomona’s McDonald’s was among the first half-dozen franchises by founders Richard and Maurice McDonald from their first location in San Bernardino.
“It’s the second-oldest McDonald’s building still in existence,” Steve Lustro, a council member, said. “It has the potential to become something with the right owner and the right vision.”
The property owner, Young Hee Chang, did not formally object. If she had done so, the council could have overridden her protest. City Planning Manager Geoffrey Starns told council members: “The building is so important historically that losing it is not something the council would want to see.”
With Monday’s action, the McDonald’s becomes Pomona’s 31st city landmark, a list that includes adobes, civic buildings, schools, residences, commercial buildings and a cemetery. It’s the first to involve French fries.
Most early McDonald’s were later demolished without a second thought, including San Bernardino’s McDonald’s No. 1 in 1972. In Downey, the third McDonald’s built is the oldest survivor. It remains a McDonald’s, replicating the original experience with walk-up service and an order window.
In Pomona, the former McDonald’s at 1057 E. Mission Blvd. opened Sept. 3, 1954 as the seventh in the chain and lasted 14 years, closing in 1968.
Since then it’s been a series of budget eateries, operating since 1986 as AMA Donuts. It’s recognizably an old-style McDonald’s with a red and yellow freestanding sign, plate glass windows, sloped roof, red and white tiles and partial arches.
It was built before Ray Kroc entered the picture and predates Big Macs, Happy Meals and Shamrock Shakes. Although it’s been closed for nearly six decades, a few of you remember it.
Mary P. Wallace used to take her toddler son in 1960. “His favorite was a stop at McDonald’s for French fries to eat (or gum) and a chocolate malt,” she told me by email. “I remember those times every time I am traveling along Mission.”
“We used to live down the street from this McDonald’s in 1958-59. It was the first place I had a McDonald’s cheeseburger,” Paula Barkley wrote. “My Nana and I walked there, I was 5.”
Jo Anne McKaughan and Suzi Pettey each said that in the 1950s, this McDonald’s had a bargain day: 10 burgers for $1. Normally they were 15 cents each.
“My mom would buy several bags and we’d have them for dinner almost every night. Inexpensive way to feed a family of six!” McKaughan said.
“We used to go there: 10 cent-hamburgers, 15-cent cheeseburgers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” confirmed Donald Storey.
When the city’s first McDonald’s of the Ray Kroc era opened in the mid-1960s on North Garey Avenue, Roger Haworth recalled, the Mission Boulevard original was still in business. “It caused some confusion,” said Haworth, who worked at the new one. “Slightly different prices and menu.”
My favorite Facebook comment was the incredulous response by Oscar Nolasco, who seemed to be channeling his inner Huell Howser.
“Hold up, second oldest McDonald’s??? That’s a new one to me. You mean the second oldest McDonald’s made in history was here in Pomona?” Nolasco marveled. “Oh gee I didn’t actually know that.”
That’s why I’m here.
If you’re wondering where the third-oldest McDonald’s building is, that’s undetermined. Chris Nichols, a preservation advocate, told me it might be a still-operating McDonald’s from 1962 in San Jose.
Back to the council meeting. Disappointingly, no one from the public attended to speak up for the building. And David Lee, the real-estate agent representing owner Young Hee Chang, said its future is unclear.
Lee said his client would like to sell the property, including the 1950-built market next door. But he said the former McDonald’s is “an old building” with peeling paint that has suffered vandalism by homeless people.
Lee said he’d approached McDonald’s and “they’re not interested.”
Council members had some sympathy but also said the owner needs to step up.
“You can paint it,” Elizabeth Ontiveros-Cole said. “Property owners need to take care of their buildings.”
Lorraine Canales said the owner should work with the Police Department and its homeless outreach team to make “a better environment” on the property.
Lustro said he’s struck by how intact the building is from its McDonald’s days.
“The original sign, its profile is still there. The arches, they can be rebuilt,” Lustro said.
He likened the situation to the former Covina Bowl, built in 1955, closed in 2017 and reimagined by Trumark Homes as a 132-residence development that retained the 60-foot sign, the building shell and the original coffee shop.
“There’s potential for something similar to happen here,” Lustro said, such as making the McDonald’s a common area for a residential development.
A 98-townhome project has been proposed for the empty lot behind the McDonald’s and the market. City planners have suggested to the developer that he go bigger and buy the market and the former McDonald’s too.
“It’s having the vision to see what’s possible,” Mayor Tim Sandoval said.
Sandoval, who met me and others at AMA Donuts last month to hear about the site’s history, said he hoped the council’s action would lead to something tangible rather than be a feel-good moment that evaporates.
“Is there a way to make this a space where people from all over the world want to come here because it’s one of the few left standing?” Sandoval mused.
He continued: “That’s important to some people. They want to see the history of this country. There’s a whole culture of post-World War II America that Pomona still has. And that building is one of them.”
Maybe an owner with enough lettuce will find the special sauce to make it work.
brIEfly
Sandoval said he hopes the McDonald’s building can be fixed up from its current “eyesore” state. “What I don’t want to see,” Sandoval said at Monday’s Pomona council meeting, “is David Allen having to write an article 30 years from now about how it still looks the same.” I don’t want to be writing such an article in 30 years either. Or, perhaps, any articles, full stop. But who’s to say? At 92, maybe I’ll have gotten my second wind.
David Allen ages Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.