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(CNN) — Before being a global chain and internationally recognized brand, the Hard Rock Cafe was a single restaurant in London.
It was founded by two American businessmen, Peter Morton and Isaac Tigrett, and opened its doors in 1971. Morton was born in the industry – his father founded the popular American chain Morton’s Steakhouse.
London had no shortage of restaurants or museums. But Hard Rock’s genius was in pairing the two.
In the 1960s, ‘Swinging London’ was the coolest city in the world, so anything that happened there, especially if it was related to the music scene, quickly made headlines around the world.
If a British restaurant conceived by Americans seemed like a strange concept, Morton and Tigrett leaned on their background instead of running away from it.
The Hard Rock symbolized post-World War II Americana. The menu was full of burgers, fries, and milkshakes, the color scheme bright red and white.
It was an allusion to an allusion, the epitome of a kind of optimistic, shiny America that existed more in pop culture shows like “Happy Days” than in real life.
But it worked.
Half a century later, the Hard Rock Cafe brand has grown beyond restaurants and hotels.
Depending on who you ask, it’s either a delightful nirvana for music lovers or an old-fashioned restaurant that exists to sell produce. Either way, the brand has securely established its legacy.
Aerosmith presented Les Paul with a guitar birthday cake at Hard Rock in New York City.
Ed Bailey/AP
Putting the “rock” in Hard Rock
Each Hard Rock is filled with music memorabilia, much of it donated by the stars themselves.
Merchandise became an important centerpiece of the brand, and not just on the walls. After all, a person can only eat one cheeseburger at a time, but they can buy a whole stack of souvenirs at once.
It took nearly ten years for the restaurant to expand internationally. A Los Angeles outpost, the first in the US, opened in 1982. Locations in Tokyo, Paris, Athens, Hong Kong, New York City and more followed.
Many of the Hard Rock Cafes also had stages where local and international musicians could perform.
Often the best acts were rolled out for openings at new branches.
Paul and Linda McCartney’s band Wings were tapped to play at the London West End venue’s opening night, while jazz legend BB King inaugurated Hard Rock Beijing in 1994.
Chinese soldiers march past the Hard Rock Beijing in the 1990s.
Greg Baker/AP
However, it is not only famous rock stars that have made their appearance in the restaurants and casinos.
For Jesse Dracman, who worked for two decades at the Hard Rock Cafe Surfers Paradise in Australia’s Gold Coast region, the opportunity to interact with guests — from celebrities to everyday people — was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. work .
“I’ve tried to treat every customer equally,” he says. “Once there was an elderly lady who was eating alone there, so I started talking to her. Turns out she’d seen the Beatles in England when she was 17.”
Among the famous clients he went out of his way to treat like regular people were Vince Neil, Jimmy Barnes, and Gene Simmons.
Now Hard Rock’s celebrities aren’t just rockers.
Funk Band the Bar-Kays perform at the Hard Rock Memphis in 2014.
Gareth Patterson/Invision for Hard Rock International/AP
Rise of the super fans
One day, Lou Nuccio traveled from his native Bayonne, New Jersey, to New York City for lunch with his father.
“I ate at this crazy place with my dad. They had a Cadillac coming out of a wall and it was pretty cool,” he says.
That crazy spot was, of course, the Hard Rock Cafe, which was located on 57th Street in a busy part of downtown Manhattan.
From that moment on, Nuccio was addicted. While working at a logistics company, he saw Hard Rocks in almost every place he traveled to. At every opportunity, he picked up some of the commemorative pins the brand sells. He says he now has about 6,500 of them.
However, the sense of fun and community that Nuccio found at Hard Rock didn’t really extend beyond the restaurants themselves until the advent of social media.
“The community is made up of collectors and travelers,” he says. “I am both. But (collectors) are the people who really fuel the engine. The big milestones are what people love. When you visit, you have a visit (tracker) and they log you in, and if when you reach a milestone you get a special pin. When you have visited 25 cafes you get a milestone pin.”
In addition to pins, many fans collect shot glasses and T-shirts.
Some of the bigger Hard Rocks host swaps where superfans can meet. Nuccio also travels to many of them and documents them on his website, tagging fellow collectors in photos.
Being a megafan, especially one with a large online following, has its perks. On his last trip to London, Nuccio was given a personal tour of the ‘rock shop’ cellar vault, which houses top items such as one of John Lennon’s favorite army jackets.
Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney’s band Wings played in the London cafe in the 1980s.
Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
After the lights go out
Regarding the feud, Tigrett told Texas Monthly in 1987 that Morton was “entirely money-oriented” and preferred to work on the social side of the brand. However, Morton just told the magazine, “I just go about my own business.”
Finally, in 2007, Morton and Tigrett sold the company to the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Now the tribe runs more than 180 Hard Rock restaurants, cafes, hotels and casinos.
Although representatives of Seminole Gaming have turned down interview requests from CNN, the brand’s website says several Hard Rocks are under development in China.
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