How a 1953 hit recording helped bring nationwide attention to one of America’s most remarkable hotel restaurant art programs

During a nationally publicized promotion in 1953, Doris Day presented Albert Pick, Jr. with a copy of her newly released Columbia recording Purple Cow. In return, Pick presented the Warner Brothers motion picture star with an official Purple Cow restaurant menu from the Albert Pick Hotels chain. Contemporary newspaper accounts reported that Miss Day’s recording had been inspired by the Purple Cow restaurants themselves.

Introduction

By the summer of 1953, the whimsical Purple Cow had become far more than a restaurant mascot.

Within the Albert Pick Hotels system it had evolved into a complete visual identity appearing on restaurant murals, menus, glassware, china, uniforms, promotional material, signage, and advertising throughout the chain.

At the center of this remarkable artistic program stood Chicago muralist Louis Grell (1887–1960).

Although none of the Purple Cow murals were signed, Grell’s authorship is documented through contemporary Albert Pick Hotels publications, surviving family archives, newspaper accounts, a signed preparatory work and extensive historical research.

One of the most fascinating chapters in this story occurred during the summer of 1953 when one of America’s most popular entertainers—Doris Day—released her Columbia Records recording A Purple Cow.

What followed demonstrates just how recognizable the Purple Cow restaurants had become throughout America.

Louis Grell Creates the Purple Cow

Beginning in late 1939, Louis Grell created a remarkable series of oil-on-canvas murals for the Albert Pick Hotels’ Purple Cow restaurants.

Each restaurant contained numerous humorous mural panels accompanied by short rhyming jingles.

Many locations also included murals celebrating local landmarks, history, and traditions unique to their city.

Research now documents approximately 96 individual Purple Cow mural panels, with additional examples continuing to emerge.

Yet Grell’s influence extended far beyond the walls.

His whimsical Purple Cow imagery became the foundation for an entire corporate identity.

Restaurant menus repeated his distinctive cow heads and figures.

Restaurant glasses reproduced simplified versions of his mural characters.

Purple Cow china, cream pitchers, promotional items, children’s accessories, printed advertising, uniforms, and restaurant signage all reflected the visual language established by Grell’s mural program.

Long before the phrase “corporate branding” entered common use, the Albert Pick Hotels had developed one of America’s most cohesive restaurant identity systems around Grell’s Purple Cow designs.

Hotel Durant, Flint, MI Purple Cow interior showing Grell’s murals.

Grell’s HOW SHE CAN COOK mural printed onto this glass.  Notice the heart-shaped cookies hanging from the tree.

Doris Day’s Purple Cow

On June 15, 1953, Columbia Records released Doris Day’s recording A Purple Cow, written by Paul Francis Webster and Fred Spielman with accompaniment by Paul Weston and his Orchestra.

The novelty recording quickly became one of Columbia Records’ most successful releases that summer.

What makes the recording particularly significant today is that two contemporary sources independently connected the song to the Albert Pick Hotels’ Purple Cow restaurants.

Original Columbia Records label and promotional flyer.

The Flint Journal Documents the Inspiration

On August 6, 1953, The Flint Journal published a photograph of Doris Day exchanging gifts with Albert Pick, Jr., President of the Albert Pick Hotels Corporation.

Its caption states:

“EVEN TRADE—Doris Day exchanges a copy of her newest record, ‘Purple Cow,’ for a ‘Purple Cow’ menu offered by Albert Pick, Jr., president of the Pick Hotels Corp., owners of Hotel Durant. Miss Day’s new number was inspired by the ‘Purple Cow’ restaurants found in the Pick chain.”

This remarkable contemporary newspaper account establishes a direct public connection between Doris Day’s recording and the Purple Cow restaurants themselves.

Equally fascinating is the object Albert Pick, Jr. chose to present.

Rather than offering a souvenir or publicity photograph, he handed Doris Day an official Purple Cow restaurant menu—an object whose cover prominently featured artwork derived from Louis Grell’s Purple Cow designs.

The Flint Journal, August 6, 1953.

The Albert Pick Hotels Tell the Same Story

The story did not end with a newspaper article.

Shortly afterward, the Albert Pick Hotels featured the same event in Pick Topicks, the corporation’s official publication distributed throughout the hotel system.

The accompanying photograph carries the caption:

“Albert Pick, Jr. felicitates Columbia recording artist and Warner Brothers screen star, Doris Day.”

The accompanying article reveals just how important the corporation considered this partnership.

Topicks proudly announced:

“Among the newest song-hits that have gone scampering over the nation… is ‘The Purple Cow,’ featured by… Doris Day.”

The article then makes perhaps its most important statement:

“She has already made a Columbia record of the song, and in her numerous disc-jockey show appearances mentions that its title was inspired by the Pick Hotel Corporation’s Purple Cow restaurants.”

This statement is extraordinarily significant.

Rather than appearing only in a single newspaper article, the Albert Pick Hotels themselves informed employees throughout the hotel chain that Doris Day was publicly telling radio audiences across America that her recording’s title had been inspired by the Pick Hotels’ Purple Cow restaurants.

Topicks continues:

“Miss Day… was, of course, most appreciative of the attentions accorded her, as well as the opportunity to become better acquainted with the namesake of her famous song-hit.”

That statement takes on special meaning when viewed in its historical setting.

During her stay Doris Day was a guest in the Congressional Suite of Chicago’s Congress Hotel.

The promotional exchange took place inside the hotel’s famous Glass Hat Lounge, whose walls in 1953 featured Louis Grell’s recently completed Glass Hat mural. The year before, Grell had also completed monumental lobby murals for the Congress Hotel.

In that context, becoming “better acquainted with the namesake of her famous song-hit” likely referred not merely to the words “Purple Cow,” but to experiencing the Pick Hotels’ celebrated Purple Cow identity firsthand—the restaurants, their artwork, their atmosphere, and the visual world Grell had created for the corporation.

Topicks concluded by recognizing the importance of the promotion:

“This timely and widely-publicized liaison between the Pick Hotels chain and Columbia Records… has done, and will continue to do, much to increase reputations and revenue on both sides.”

The corporation further predicted that both the hotels and Columbia Records would benefit from the nationwide publicity generated by the Purple Cow promotion.

Taken together, The Flint Journal and Pick Topicks provide two independent contemporary sources documenting the same event while revealing how significant the Albert Pick Hotels considered the partnership.

Pick Topicks article. “Our Purple Cow Cavorts–And How!

A Menu Preserved by the Grell Family

One particularly remarkable coincidence connects this national publicity campaign directly to the Grell family.

The Purple Cow menu Albert Pick, Jr. presents to Doris Day appears to be the same menu design Louis Grell later mailed to his cousin Peg Wood in Beatrice, Nebraska.

Peg carefully preserved the menu for decades.

Today it survives in the Richard Grell Archival Collection.

The menu presented to Doris Day during the publicity exchange can therefore be directly compared with an original family example preserved entirely independent of the promotion itself.

These surviving menus also demonstrate how thoroughly Grell’s mural imagery influenced the visual identity of the Purple Cow restaurants.

Their covers closely resemble Grell’s mural designs, while the reverse sides list Purple Cow locations throughout the Pick Hotels chain together with the humorous mural jingles that decorated the restaurant walls.

Menu presented to Doris Day.

Menu from the Richard Grell Collection.

Belden Hotel in Canton, Ohio “IN THE MOOD” Grell mural the menu closely resembles. Notice the polka-dot skirt.

Louis Grell’s Influence Extended Far Beyond the Murals

Today it is increasingly evident that Louis Grell’s contribution to the Albert Pick Hotels reached far beyond painting restaurant walls.

His Purple Cow imagery shaped the public face of the corporation.

Guests encountered Grell’s artwork before entering the restaurant on exterior signage.

They saw it on menus.

They drank from glasses decorated with simplified versions of his mural characters.

They dined from specially designed china.

Children received Purple Cow souvenirs.

Advertisements repeated the same visual themes.

Restaurant employees worked within interiors completely unified by Grell’s whimsical creations.

Few artists of the period exerted such comprehensive influence over the visual identity of a national hotel restaurant chain.

The Purple Cow was not simply a series of murals.

It became one of America’s earliest examples of a fully integrated hospitality brand built around the vision of a single artist.

Kids bib.

Durant Hotel Grell mural and similar on a glass.

The Glass Hat Lounge at the Congress Hotel in Chicago was the setting!

Glass Hat shown to the right in both images above.

Glass Hat with Grell mural on the wall

Why This Story Matters

For decades, Louis Grell’s Purple Cow murals were largely forgotten.

Today, surviving murals, photographs, restaurant menus, corporate publications, and archival discoveries are allowing historians to reconstruct what was once one of the largest themed restaurant art programs in America.

The Doris Day promotion demonstrates just how successful that program became.

A nationally known recording artist released a hit song centered on the Purple Cow.

A major American newspaper reported that the song was inspired by the Albert Pick Hotels’ Purple Cow restaurants.

The Albert Pick Hotels themselves proudly promoted that association throughout their organization.

Behind those restaurants stood Louis Grell.

His murals, characters, and artistic vision helped create an identity so recognizable that by 1953 the Purple Cow had become part of American popular culture.

Today, that remarkable story is finally beginning to be told.

Sources

• The Flint Journal, August 6, 1953, p. 25
• Pick Topicks, August–September 1953
• Kettering University & Factory One, Flint, MI
• Chicago History Museum, Albert Pick papers
• Richard Grell Archival Collection
• Dayton History
• Columbia Records promotional materials

Research Philosophy

The Louis Grell Digital Archive is committed to presenting documentary evidence as accurately as possible. New discoveries are evaluated using primary sources whenever available, and interpretations are revised as additional evidence emerges. Where questions remain unresolved, they are identified as subjects for continued research rather than presented as established fact.