---
title: "Which came first, LEGO or McDonald's?"
description: "LEGO vs McDonald's: LEGO came first, by 8 years — 1932 against 1940. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/lego-vs-mcdonalds/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, LEGO or McDonald's?

**Which came first, LEGO or McDonald's?: LEGO**

1932 — 8 years before McDonald's

LEGO came first, by 8 years. Ole Kirk Christiansen started making wooden toys in Billund.

## Side by side

|  | LEGO | McDonald's |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1932 | 1940 |
| Category | company | company |
| What happened | Ole Kirk Christiansen started making wooden toys in Billund. | Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a restaurant in San Bernardino. |

## LEGO

The company began in 1932 making wooden toys; the name comes from leg godt, Danish for "play well". The interlocking plastic brick in its modern form was patented on 28 January 1958, and the tolerances have been held so precisely since that a brick made that day still clutches a brick made today. LEGO is now the largest tyre manufacturer in the world by unit count.

## McDonald's

The brothers opened in 1940 as a barbecue drive-in and reinvented it in 1948 with the Speedee Service System — a tiny menu, no waiters, food assembled on a production line. The company itself dates its founding to 15 April 1955, when Ray Kroc opened his franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois. Both dates are defensible and the corporate one is not the restaurant one.

## Common questions

### Which came first, LEGO or McDonald's?

LEGO, by 8 years — 1932 against 1940.

### When did LEGO start?

1932. Ole Kirk Christiansen started making wooden toys in Billund.

### When did McDonald's start?

1940. Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a restaurant in San Bernardino.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)