McDonald's to open new Yagoona outlet 50 years after launching at the same site

• Australia's first Pizza Hut bulldozed in Belfield

With social media groups documenting the preservation of early Pizza Hut and KFC outlets in Australia, the grand-daddy site of the US fast food invasion is receiving a reboot from McDonald's.

The Yagoona plot in Sydney where Macca's opened its first Australian outlet in 1971 closed in 1994. An insurance company took up residence for a time, but in recent weeks construction work has started on the vacant block, with some tell-tale McDonald's signage.

McDonald's HQ confirmed it will open a new restaurant at the original site later this year, which happens to coincide with the first opening exactly half a century ago.

It won't replicate the early 1970s, an age of pebblecrete and ubiquitous arches (not necessarily of the golden variety). But there will be a nod, with a display of images of the restaurant, a Macca's timeline and a Happy Meal wall featuring toys from over the years.

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Leslie Walford attended the first launch. He seemed blissfully unaware of some of the McDonald's quirks that have since become part of our everyday life and lexicon. Indeed, much of his report was devoted to the historic lineage of the burger and seasoned raw meat introduced by the Tartars.

The US ambassador of the day, Walter Rice, was at the launch, along with a mystery clown "holding balloons and wearing red and yellow striped stockings". Evidently, there wasn't a Hamburglar in sight.