<p class="ingestion featured-caption">The exterior of a McDonald's in South Dakota in 1970.Hulton Archive/Getty Images</p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong><strong>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/weirdest-coolest-glamorous-mcdonalds-restaurants-in-the-world-2020-5" rel>first McDonald's franchise</a> opened in</strong></strong> Des Plaines, Illinois, on April 15, 1955.</li><li>By the 1970s, McDonald's had grown into an increasingly popular fast-food establishment.</li></ul><p>Less than a decade into its operation under businessman Ray Kroc, <a href="https://www.insider.com/vintage-photos-mcdonalds-restaurants-food-menu-1980s">McDonald's</a> in the 1970s was already a thriving company and had served millions of customers.</p><p>Richard and Maurice "Mac" McDonald opened the <a href="https://www.insider.com/mcdonalds-history-started-barbecue-restaurant-1940s">first McDonald's in 1940</a> as a barbecue restaurant, and Kroc opened its first franchise location in Des Plaines, Illinois, on April 15, 1955. That year, <a href="https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-us/our-history.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">he also founded McDonald's System, Inc.</a>, which would become the McDonald's Corporation we know today.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-mcdonalds-was-like-1950s-2020-7" rel>By 1958</a>, McDonald's had sold 100 million burgers, and the restaurants had taken on a signature design style that prominently featured the chain's iconic "golden arches." In 1961, Kroc bought the McDonald brothers out, and by the 1970s, the company was going from strength to strength.</p><p>Here's what it was like to eat at McDonald's in the 1970s.</p>