The Context

The Bush Foundation at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library located on the campus of Texas A&M University in Bryan-College Station, Texas built a pavilion that housed the Bush ’41 train engine and the Marine One Presidential helicopter. It’s an enormous facility with a retractable wall for accommodating large installations, sophisticated windows that darken as the western sun hits the large glass surfaces, and a specially designated location for a restaurant concept to welcome museum visitors, Texas A&M University students, and the broader community. It is a gorgeous, cavernous exhibition hall. The Foundation approached our creative agency to dream about what kind of concept could fill those few thousand square feet. When we arrived on site, we found a beautifully tiled (cream terrazzo) floor and walls under 12-foot ceilings. It was clean, modern, full of bright light – but it was a blank slate. The space felt ‘cold’ and institutional because it was completely empty. Sound bounced around the hard surfaces. Thankfully, the Foundation had its man: a local celebrity and restaurateur, Chef Tai, would operate the venue. Chef Tai knows how to run restaurants and delight his customers. The job at hand for our agency: concept an eatery, brand it, design the heck out of the space, and launch it into the world. We had four months to get all the way through naming, concept, design, media, interior design, and full installation before the big launch at the start of the new academic year: fall term 2024.

The Client

The Bush Foundation received a generous donation to build the restaurant concept, and they wished to honor the close friends of the Bush family – John and Daisy White. Following the brand discovery workshop, the Foundation approved the name Daisy’s Table for the project. The Bush Foundation would be our client, but Mrs. Daisy White would direct the day-to-day decisions; Daisy would have the final say in all matters. We were fortunate in this respect: Daisy is an accomplished event planner and an excellent communicator. We always had great feedback and correspondence. She made the project run as smoothly as possible.

The Need

The concept would be a hybrid – part cafe with table delivery of hot menu items and part grab-n-go market items for those on their way to other locations. Breakfast and lunch menus only. The space needed to be ‘convertible’ to event hosting for after-hours bookings. Alcohol would be served: beer and wine only. ADA ingress/egress considerations must be factored in as well. We could augment lighting as needed, but the floor and wall tiles could not be penetrated. Intentional decisions: there would be no available wall plugs for guests, as the cafe would discourage students ‘perching’ on location for hours at a time. Acoustic considerations also factored into all decisions – the space was a large, hard surface box that housed chillers and an opening to the industrial kitchen space. Think: loud, open, vanilla-colored hard surfaces. We knew we had to warm it up, fill the space with memorabilia and stories, and honor the Bush/White families.

The Vision & Brand Objective

The vision was for Daisy’s Table to be a new, delightful platform that would use Daisy’s friendship with George and Barbara to demonstrate their character in greater depth to visitors. This facet of the Bush legacy brings into starker relief their warmth, self-sacrifice, and loyalty, which the Bush Foundation is devoted to remembering. Celebrating the values and stories of people like the Bushes and the Whites furthers the Foundation’s commitment to developing the next generation of public servants.

Our main brand objective was to tell a story of friendship at President Bush and Mrs Bush’s table, and we knew that the opportunity to infuse the interiors with that message as well would really drive the narrative home.

The Approach

We partnered with Koll Interiors to identify quality furniture that would seat the most patrons inside and on the back patio. The classic, understated sophistication of the Bush family and the warmth of their friendship with the Whites would govern all messaging, identity-building, and visual assets/displays. It should also feel ‘fun/casual’ rather than austere and magisterial – a Presidential library certainly carries weight, but the cafe is for laughs and banter. We had unfettered access to the Bush archives for memorabilia. We needed to shrink the cavernous space to make the square footage more inviting and somewhat intimate. The governing framework for this project would be ‘close friends at table.’ If the images didn’t fall within this narrow framework, then we wouldn’t use them. This governed all aspects of the work: design, website, menu layout, looping video footage, soundtrack playlist, centerpieces, and window art. We custom-designed an enormous interior Corten steel structure that could house display objects, signed White House dinner menus, and the new Daisy’s Table menu. The steel structure included holes for hanging plants. We had an enormous planter shelf constructed from Corten metal for the patio to match the materials. The lush green helps create an inviting patio space, and a future awning will provide the shade and cooling fans.

The Result

Lastly, our creative director found something special. We stumbled across an early photo of President George H.W. Bush and his lovely young wife at the Stork Club in New York City, circa the mid-1940s. Our agency had the image enlarged, framed, and positioned next to an original Stork Club ashtray and a set of matchbooks we found online. This just felt like a wonderful final touch to a meaningful project that honored an American legacy family. We couldn’t believe we found artifacts that matched the image, but it looks great in the built-in banquette millwork.