ABSTRACT
The Hard Rock Café was founded in 1971 in London by two American expatriates, Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton. Their original intent was to fill a need not being met by London dining establishments and to have fun doing it. The Hard Rock Café became a reflection not only of the founders’ passion for burgers, beer, and rock and roll music, but it grew to represent, first, a generation of rock and roll fans and, eventually, an entire culture of fad, fashion, and music. “Hard Rock,” according to one of its corporate executives, “has always been and will continue to be music-centric.” “The core of Hard Rock is its restaurants.”1 Gradually becoming a “cool” place to “see and be seen” while in London, the restaurant grew in popularity as a result. Although most restaurants up to that time had offered some type of theme to enhance the dining experience, Hard Rock was the first to combine food, theme, and merchandise in a unified setting. The distinctive U.S.-style menu of burgers and beer, the sounds of rock and roll continually blaring through the restaurant’s public address (PA) system, and the location-based T-shirts reminiscent of rock concert memorabilia were all representative of a unique and growing popular culture. This revolutionary way of embedding a broader social context into a restaurant offering defined Hard Rock as a hyper-themed restaurant, and the nature and uniqueness of its rock and roll theme allowed the idea to grow uncontested as it gained worldwide notoriety for its unabashed adventurousness as well as for its signature logo-emblazoned T-shirts.
