STORY

The first HARD ROCK CAFE opened in London on June 14th 1971, initiated by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton, two Americans very fond of music (see photograph on the left). The world wide expansion started in 1982: cafés in LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, New York, Dallas, Boston, Washington, Orlando, Berlin and Paris were opened. In 1985 Morton and Tigret split up their enterprise geographically. A year later, Tigrett sold his parts to "Mecca Leisure" which was taken over by the "Rank Group", an organisation founded in 1990. Later it got hold of Morton's rights and also of Nick Bitove's rights on "Hard Rock Café Canada", thus acquiring world-wide leadership of this brand, which became a generally acknowledged and registered label.

In december 2006 the Seminoles from Florida buys the 'Hard Rock Café International, Inc. and this part of the Rank-Group, Plc for 965 Million $!

Comprising 126 cafés in 45 countries on five continents, the Hard Rock Café has become a global phenomenon. In every HRC you can get good food at decent prices - and the Rock Music is omnipresent. In addition to this the HRC turned into expositions of Rock Star Souvenirs. Eric Clapton likes the cafe so good, he hanged his guitar on the wall. Pete Townshend made the same and so developed an enormous collection of memories. The collections of all HRC together consist of more than 64000 items: original guitars, costumes, gold and platine records, posters and many other things.

More is to come: In 1995 a first Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. With success, since that time developed many mores locations. No success had the Beachlub in Choctaw (USA/Mississippi), founded June 2003, and the Vault in Orlando (USA, Florida), founded in 2003. They would closed within the first 2 years after opening. Now is coming a new projekt: The Hard Rock Music-Park near Myrtle Beach (USA/South Carolina).

The aim of all HRC is to offer american food and friendly, decent and obliging service. "Love all - serve all" is their motto, thus making sure that everybody is welcome anytime, independent of age, sex ore race of a person. The menu is the same in every HRC even if the preparation may vary slightly from one place to another. Regarding the friendlyness of the staff this is also true: Europeans can still learn a lot from the Americans in this respect!

On the other hand there are many "Renegade" HRC which do not belong to the Rank Group or HRC International. Nevertheless they use the same logo. Most of them have been opened before the Rank Group took over the label. The HRC Frankfurt for instance was the second HRC after London when it opened in february 1978. Like about 10 other HRC in the world it does not belong to the official chain. By now I have visited two of these HRC. I think that even if they do have a certain attractivity, they are just not the same. Except for the logo and some of the merchandise items they have nothing in common with the "real" HRC. Look at the photographs and form your own opinion.