An unremarkable looking McDonald's restaurant in Manchester has the honour of being the first of its kind in Britain.
McDonald's is one of the most popular high street restaurants. With over 1,270 restaurants dotted around the UK, there are 28 branches in Manchester alone.
The fast food giant's began life in the US in 1940, when brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first restaurant in California. It took a mere 34-years before it came to these shores with the first UK McDonald's opening in Woolwich, London, in 1974.
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But it's not just London that has the honour of being among the firsts for the restaurant chain. Manchester holds the title of being the city with the first 'drive-thru' McDonald's in the UK.
Just pipping the likes of Dudley, Neasden (London) and Coventry to the post, the very first drive-through opened on Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield, in the summer of 1986. Unlike the other locations, little fuss was made of the event in the local press of the pioneering restaurant.
The only mention of the Fallowfield drive-through was a year earlier in 1985, when the Manchester Evening News reported that bulldozers had cleared the way for creation of the restaurant the following July. Originally, Manchester city council had rejected plans for the building of the drive-through but councillors finally relented.
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Permission was granted on the condition that the access point would not be on Wilmslow Road as McDonald's originally wanted, but via Willow Bank. McDonald's also had to provide "sufficient litter bins, landscaping and screening around the boundaries," as part of the planning conditions.
The Fallowfield restaurant was the first of several McDonald's drive-throughs that opened shortly after in the same year. Following the opening of a drive-through in Coventry in December 1986, the Coventry Evening Telegraph sent a reporter to try out the new concept.
It's fair to say the experience left the Telegraph's journo, David Beevers, rather cold. His report said: "This experience is little more than a glorified take-away.
"Fast food, fast delivered through a series booths. With a cheery 'Please call again' McDonald's polite staff are really saying 'There's your food - now you're on your own. Beat it."
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After receiving his order and driving off into the car park to eat it, he mused on the alien experience of ordering food at a drive-through. "A consumer test in the semi-darkness of a downtown car lot juggling large French fries, one regular cola and a Big Mac, automatically makes people think you're off your trolley," he added.
"Maybe they're right. I can't say I'm eager to repeat the experience."
Not that Mr Beevers' considered words mattered a jot. McDonald's now have over 900 drive-through restaurants spread out across the UK. But as for the very first, well, that will always be in Fallowfield.
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