What is now an omni-present corporate clone where moms take their toddlers for a Happy Meal or commuters grab a breakfast sandwich was once the social epicenter of teenage life in Orem.

When the national fast-food chain opened its Orem store on the corner of Center and State streets in August of 1975 it was only the second Golden Arches in Utah County. That fact combined with its close proximity to Orem High School made it the hang-out of choice for Orem teens and twenty-somethings who ate, partied and worked there, said Barbara VanLeuven, an OHS Tiger alumnae who started flipping burgers at the new restaurant during her senior year.

It's the place teens would go after the big football game, for dates, or to attend one of the many special promotional events staff planned at the restaurant, she said. Back then, there weren't the same corporate restraints on what employees could do or what kind of events could be held at the restaurant; it was operated more like a mom and pop-type diner, she said.

"When the movie 'Grease' came out, we had a big 50s night," she said. "A couple of times [the owners] let us sleep over night and watch movies ... we would watch fireworks from the roof ... Everyone knew each other."

Best friends worked with each other and younger siblings often got jobs working alongside their older brother or sister, VanLeuven said. Employees dated each other, some relationships evolved into marriages. There were also tales of kids making out on the break room sofa and one infamous incident in which several teens were caught skinny dipping in the SCERA pool after closing the restaurant.

KayLynn Palmer, who started working at the McDonald's when it opened at the age of 20, said the employees were close-knit and would often get together after hours to go roller skating, dancing or pile in car to go to the drive-in movie theater.

"We would bring in TVs and watch the series 'Soap'," she said. "People met their husbands and wives. I went through a marriage, baby and divorce all at McDonald's."

Debbie Lauder Woolf, a close friend of VanLeuven, said she and her husband Tim figured out they had strangely met at the McDonald's before they knew each other without realizing it.

"When we were dating, his voice sounded familiar ... This was one or two years after I worked there," she said. The couple eventually deduced that Tim had come in regularly to eat there with his ski patrol buddies in the years she worked behind the counter.

"I recognized his laugh," she said.

Brent White, a classmate of VanLeuven who is now lives in southern California, worked at the restaurant beginning his junior year of high school and on into college. He said the dating scene was huge and the social atmosphere was even larger.

"You knew what was going on, knew what had happened between this guy and this girl, and that this group of guys was going racing," he said. "It was kind of '50s retro."

White remembers the ugly '70s orange and brown polyester uniforms they wore and to this day, when he walks into a McDonald's location, recalls the distinct odor of the fast-food joint.

It was during their stint at Mickey D's in the '70s that signature McDonald's items such as drive-thrus, birthday parties, Happy Meals, chicken nuggets, and breakfast menus came into being.

One night, the employees all got together after closing hours and prepared a massive formal dinner, White said. Another time, eight employees conspired to take a kid named Scott's bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle and literally carried it into the shed in back that housed grease cannisters.

"The guy came out after his shift and there was literally no way we he could get it out," White said. "It was the best and most memorable pranks I've ever done in my life."

Woolf recalls someone dropping a smoke bomb into her Toyota Corolla.

"My heater didn't work all winter," she said.

Another time she was doing inventory at night and accidentally dropped her pen into a vat of French fry oil.

"I instinctively put my hand in," Woolf said. "I sat with my hand in a glass of ice water the rest of the night."

Yet some of the old crew were saddened when they learned recently that the restaurant's current owner is planning to tear down the existing restaurant this summer and build a larger, more modern store complete with a Playland on the same spot.

For VanLeuven, it made her want to renew those past friendships and associations with friends and co-workers with whom she had shared so many fun and memorable moments.

"All these emotions are going through me," VanLeuven said. "... It's not really sad but that it kind of ended those things that people didn't know about."

Woolf and VanLeuven say they still have dreams that they're still working at McDonald's. White said his McMemories are something he'll always carry with him.

"Now, it's a job. You go there because you have to work ... It wasn't work for us. It was our social life," VanLeuven said. " ... You felt that if you didn't go, you would miss [out on] something."