I’m afraid you are confusing downtown McDonalds with either Bill Williams or Stuart’s, both drive-ins and both on South Main. The McDonald’s in question was in downtown Houston and was walk in. It was a stone building with a small cacti garden in front next to parking. I used to take dates there after downtown movies. It was located where the large downtown McDonalds is now.
When McDonalds was spreading across the country some people would open little burger places named McDonalds to extort money. Knowing this it was the policy of Ray Crock to challenge such places in court with the demand that they change their name. One Day attorneys arrived at the Houston McDonalds and demanded that they change their name. I was told by my father that they were quite rude and arrogant about it and had they been reasonable something could have been worked out.
ultimatlty they sued and, using their tried and true method, proceeded to claim the Houston McDonalds was a fraud created solely to extort money from a national chain. I have it on good authority that the judge, I forget his name, told them that he had courted his wife there in the 1920’s and did not appreciate lies in his court and ruled against Ray Crock. For years there were McDonalds everywhere but Houston. Eventually, McDonalds paid a reported twenty million for the building and name.
