New West Branch McDonald's gets a cheerier look

The new McDonald's restaurant here, replacing one in which depression-era President Herbert Hoover's image has been peeking over diners' shoulders for 15 years, has a more cheerful look.

Creative Management of Iowa City opened the new McDonald's, with its hot pink and deep orange colors, on Thursday. It's been compared to the set of the 1960s TV comedy show, "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in" or a 1960s ice cream parlor.

Images of the 31st president look down from wall murals and from circular translucent panels in a room dividing screen. Hoover is hard to miss with his rounded shirt collars, thick hair, and intense gaze.

The McDonald's was built by Creative Management, the Iowa City-based McDonald's restaurant franchisee, last fall as part of its modernization program. Renovating the old restaurant at 610 S. Downey St. to current needs would have been more expensive than building all-new.

The restaurant is just a short distance across I-80 and a sharp stylistic contrast from Herbert Hoover Presidential Library & Museum. The museum is in West Branch because Hoover was born here in 1874.

Creative Management President Kevin O'Brien attempted to describe the restaurant's decor, then seemed to give up.

"It's like nothing you've ever seen before," he shrugged. "You just have to see it."

Timothy Walch, former director of the Herbert Hoover presidential library, says the late president might have been pleased by the McDonald's that honors him if her were alive today.

Walch said Hoover liked salty foods, was known to grab quick snacks from some of the first automated vending machines called automats at the early Horn & Hardart cafes, and was the type of person who probably ate quickly in order to return his focus to the conversation at hand.

If Hoover had misgivings about McDonald's dining, Walch said, it would probably be about over-consumption. He said Hoover, who led humanitarian nutrition efforts in Europe after W.W. I, "was very attentive to physical health, exercise and calorie counts."

Walch played a role in the incorporation of a Hoover theme into the first West Branch McDonald's about 16 years ago. The O'Brien family that was expanding their McDonald's franchises to West Branch wanted to tie the restaurant thematically to the community. Walch recommended the Herbert Hoover theme because of the tight historical connection.

"We thought this might be a way to attract people traveling across the country, and get them to head north of Interstate 80 to the museum and to shop in West Branch," he said.

The restaurant's Herbert Hoover displays included pictures and an enclosed case with articles of Herbert Hoover relevance, although none were originals. Museum brochures were displayed for diners to peruse over their Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets.

Many McDonald's diners have, in fact, taken time to visit the museum and library. Getting travelers to veer off the interstate and their trip itinerary for an hour or two is harder than it sounds, Walch said, because many travelers have a limited amount of time allotted for their trip.

Promoting a presidential library in a McDonald's isn't the oddest thing a presidential library director ever did to attract visitors, according to Walch.

"All the presidential library directors are very entrepreneurial," he said.