With its long-standing association with American rock ‘n’ roll, something that finally coalesced into a guitar-shaped hotel and casino in South Florida, the Hard Rock Cafe is one of the most recognizable chains in the world. However, the fifty-year-old company is actually a British export, having been founded in London way back in 1971. Is it still the icon today that it claims to be though?
Memorabilia
As brands become more corporate, they have a tendency to shed their early fans in favor of a more mainstream audience. The Hard Rock is a perfect example. Now with a huge range of restaurants, hotels, casinos, and even stadia to its name, its modern visage is almost impossible to compare to its earliest ventures, i.e. the cafe in Mayfair, London, that puts rock memorabilia on the walls.
Of course, for the people who still regularly call it home, none of that matters. The Hard Rock will likely always be considered an icon of the music world, even if investor meetings get in the way of open mic nights. Its fame around the world does vary just like any other franchise (it’s conspicuously absent from parts of Australia and Canada, for instance) but a growing online brand is maintaining its global relevance.
Cyberspace
On that note, the Hard Rock Cafe seems to be moving into the online casino industry, without shedding any of its prior interests in hospitality. The company already has 11 brick-and-mortar casinos, including one that opened in 2021 in Gary, Indiana, and another on the Las Vegas Strip, but it has been able to operate in cyberspace since 2018 when the Hard Rock casino started serving New Jersey.
Competition for customers in this space is fierce, especially in the United States, where the casino industry is still rather new. In an effort to get ahead of its rivals, the Hard Rock has started offering welcome bonuses to new players, which currently include no deposit spins and a $1,000 deposit match. In their post on the topic, the BonusFinder website indicates that this is fairly standard practice for US websites. Sites such as this provide all the necessary information for consumers to make informed decisions about the best option for them on the market.
Canada
With world domination seemingly complete, where does the Hard Rock go from here? As mentioned, there are still some gaps in its global coverage but the first steps toward fixing that are underway. By 2025, there should be a new Hard Rock in Canada, in London, Ontario. The franchise has previously had ten different establishments north of the border, all of which are now closed.
The Hard Rock also has plans to create around eight more hotels, casinos, and restaurants before the middle of this decade. This will include bases in smaller regions such as Serbia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname, which will end up with two Hard Rock Cafes sometime in 2023. There are also plans for a Rockford, Illinois arm of the brand to accompany the Hard Rock in Chicago.
Overall, while the Hard Rock Cafe might be about as indie as McDonald’s in 2023, it’s still one of the most popular alternative hotel chains in the world.
