Posted on August - 09 - 2010
Fallen arches: Memphis’ first McDonald’s is razed
Photo by Justin Shaw // Buy this photo
Memphis’ first McDonald’s restaurant, which operated from 1958 to 1979 on Summer Avenue, falls to a demolition crew Monday.
Memories of 15-cent hamburgers receded deeper into history Monday when a crew demolished Memphis’ first McDonald’s restaurant building.
The structure that came to be vacant and dilapidated served hamburgers and fries from 1958 to 1979 at 4287 Summer.
The 2,900-square-foot building most recently housed Rogers Used Cars, from 2002 to 2006, and a Fantastic Sam’s before that.
Jim Burge, 63, watched track hoe operator William Temple of Dozer Works crush the place where Burge had once enjoyed 15- cent hamburgers and 10-cent fries.
“I’m sad to see it go because of the historical impact, but happy to see it go because of the neighborhood,” said Burge, who owns the Peanut Shoppe next door.
As a sign of how times have changed, McDonald’s on Monday credited the sales of its frappes and smoothies — each $2.79 — for the chain’s biggest monthly sales increase in a year.
The stretch of Summer Avenue also reflects changing eras. The corridor now shows a mix of vitality and commercial distress that draws solid restaurants and hardware stores but also pawn shops and payday lenders.
In the 1950s, Summer was the spot for entrepreneurs to build the city’s first McDonald’s and the world’s first Holiday Inn.
Minutes before demolition began Monday, shattered holes in the exterior glass walls testified to the vagrancy that had become a problem there.
In fact, the Health Department’s Rebel Doherty arrived before demolition began and politely instructed Dozer Works’ David Boswell, “Before y’all do demolition, let’s get somebody inside to be sure somebody’s not in there passed out.”
Boswell assured Doherty he already had checked.
When it opened 52 years ago, customers ate outside on benches under a canopy, Burge said.
Later, the chain expanded the building with glass walls on the front three sides. That same glass made spectacular crashing sounds Monday morning as the track hoe easily pushed through the walls.
Since McDonald’s vacated the place three decades ago, no logos, signs or other restaurant remnants seemed to surface in the rubble.
The signature structural appearance had survived: A roof that sloped upward from back to front. Long gone were the two golden arches that rose from the ground, through the roof and back to the ground again. (For a glimpse, check out the photos in the “history” link of peanutshoppe.com.)
But Boswell did carry over to Burge a stack of keepsakes: Red-and-white ceramic tile that McDonald’s used in its interior.
In 2006, Shirley Rogers moved her Rogers Used Cars from out of the leaky building to down the street a few doors. She smiled in recalling one $15,000 memento she experienced of the McDonald’s era.
“We had to replace the sewer line. Grease,” she said.
The demolition occurred Monday because the building had reached “its end of life,” said Jeremy Poag, whose mother, Chloee K. Poag, and her siblings, Beulah Kasselberg, Diane K. Perel andAlfred G. Kasselberg, own the property.
“It was an outdated-style building. They figured it’s a good time to take it down,” he said.
The family does plan to redevelop the site in the near future, Poag said, adding, “It is going to be reborn as a retail commercial space.”
— Tom Bailey Jr.: 529-2388
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