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| 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 $! |
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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.
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Isaac
Tigrett |
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Peter
Morton |
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