First cafe-restaurants (1971–1990) The first Hard Rock Cafe opened on June 14, 1971, at 150 Old Park Lane,
Hyde Park, London, under the ownership of two Americans,
Isaac Tigrett and
Peter Morton. Hard Rock initially had an eclectic decor, but it later started to display memorabilia. In 1978, a second location was opened in
Toronto, Canada. The chain began to expand worldwide in 1982 when Morton opened Hard Rock Cafes in
Los Angeles,
San Francisco,
Chicago,
Houston, and Tigrett opened locations in
Jackson, Tennessee, New York, Dallas, Boston, Washington, D.C., Orlando as well as
Paris (opened in 1991, closed in 2024) and
Berlin. Hard Rock Cafe locations in the US vary from smaller, more tourist-driven markets (
Biloxi,
Pigeon Forge,
Key West) to large metropolises (
Philadelphia,
Baltimore,
New York City, Chicago,
Boston,
Washington, D.C.). Hard Rock Cafe typically does not franchise cafe locations in the United States. All U.S. cafes are corporate owned and operated, except for cafes in
Tampa and in the (now closed)
Four Winds New Buffalo casino. However, in the transition of the
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas property, originally owned and then later sold to
the Rank Group by founder Peter Morton, Morton retained hotel naming rights west of the Mississippi. When Morton sold his Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel to the
Morgans Hotel Group, he also sold those naming rights, which then gave rise to two US franchised hotels (without cafes) in
Albuquerque and
Tulsa. (The Albuquerque hotel no longer pays for the Hard Rock rights and reverted to its former name in June 2013.) Additional casino hotels franchised from Morgan's were subsequently opened in
Sioux City, Iowa, and
Vancouver, Canada.
Buyouts and expansion (1990–present) In 1990, the Rank Group acquired
Mecca Leisure Group and continued expansion of the concept in its geographic territory. Rank went on to purchase
Hard Rock America from Peter Morton as well as
Hard Rock Canada from Nick Bitove. After the completion of these acquisitions, Rank gained worldwide control of the brand. In March 2007, the
Seminole Tribe of Florida acquired
Hard Rock Cafe International, Inc. and other related entities from Rank for
US$965 million, forming the corporate entity
Hard Rock International, with Hard Rock Cafe owned as a subsidiary. Hard Rock International expanded into hotels and casinos with
Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, which operates separately from Hard Rock Cafe. In 2008, anonymous members of the wait staff in London criticized the Hard Rock Cafe business because of its practice of paying them less than half the official minimum wage in the UK, with the business allocating the
tips to staff wages, thus bringing their salaries within the minimum wage requirements. Most customers, it was argued, do not realize that they are subsidizing a low wage when they give the tip. In Argentina, the first Hard Rock Cafe opened in 1995 in
Recoleta, Buenos Aires. In 2016, a location opened in
Ushuaia, Argentina in the province of Tierra del Fuego, with another being opened in the city of
Puerto Iguazu in 2024. Canada had numerous restaurants but many of them closed, notably the one at Yonge-Dundas Square (now
Sankofa Square) in Toronto in May 2017, which had been the chain's second location, leaving just two in that country, Niagara Falls, Ontario, and the Hard Rock Casino in Coquitlam, B.C. At the
Canadian Tire Centre, the stadium formerly housed Ottawa's first Hard Rock Café when it opened as The Palladium on January 15, 1996, and for many years when it was known as the
Corel Centre. The café closed on August 8, 2002. == Music memorabilia ==