3805 E Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, California 91362
1978 to 1980
Swing Manager
The Backstory
This was a very fun time of my life. McDonald’s helped teach me some responsibility while attending Westlake High School‘s first graduating class in 1980. I loved riding my 1979 Honda Express II moped to work in the fog to open the store for breakfast.
I have fond memories of riding mopeds with my friends through Malibu Canyon to Zuma Beach on the weekends. I later earned enough money at McDonald’s to buy my first car, a new 1979 Toyota Celica Liftback.
Legendary first baseman Steve Garvey used to frequent this McDonald’s so I’m sure I got to ask him, “Do you want fries with that?” at some point during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ World Series run.
We played a lot of touch football and coed softball. In fact we won a championship in both leagues.
I was big into amateur filmmaking at the time, and McDonald’s was the perfect set. My friends and I made three really bad 8mm films, which I might decide to post here someday:
- Mr. Bill as The Trainee
- McDonald’s: Turned Inside Out
- Night Shift (The McDonaldland Horror)
It’s a wonder we never got fired…