Satisfying the needs of a rising car culture that demanded convenience, San Diego businessman and restaurateur Robert Oscar Peterson opened his first drive-thru Jack in the Box in 1951. Located at the corner of 63rd Street and El Cajon Boulevard, it was the first restaurant to use new two-way intercom technology. A giant jack-in-the-box took customers’ orders through a speaker box, and about three minutes later, they could pick up their 22-cent hamburgers at the drive-thru window. Perhaps not coincidentally, 1951 was the first year the term “fast food” appeared in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.