The venue was loud, boisterous, and the music memorabilia on the walls, including guitars from Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend, stirred my imagination to no end. After waiting out the line to get in, it was like having a front-row seat at a rock concert with a backstage pass. We were regulars there too, along with locals, tourists, and celebrities, including The Beatles. Opened in June 1971, their Hard Rock Café and governing motto of “Love All-Serve All” struck a power chord that resonates to this day. In Britain, they observed, there was “no place where a banker and a baker could commune.” Purposefully choosing London’s ritziest neighborhood, Mayfair, for the location, they created a brash Americana-filled “Tennessee truck stop” in a former Rolls Royce showroom across the way from Buckingham Palace. Then Morton met Tennessee native Isaac Tigrett, and the entrepreneurial expats began formulating plans for an adapted hamburger concept aimed at disrupting the prevailing snobbery of the time. The place was a hit with Londoners and even inspired an imitator, the Great British Success. I have great memories of the food and of the rocking vibe. Minutes from our flat, the Chelsea location was our instant go-to. Then 22, Peter Morton, of the Morton’s Steakhouse family, opened a hamburger restaurant called the Great American Disaster. Succulent salvation came soon after our arrival, from Chicago no less. Lost in translation, though, was the product, a mealy abomination that affirmed the popular joke that “the chefs in hell are British.” Dating to 1934, the Chicago-based company had expanded to the United Kingdom in 1954. One adjustment we had to make was getting used to the famously bad cuisine, Wimpy hamburgers included. ![]() Hard Rock International manages 262 locations around the world.In February 1970, just before my fifth birthday, we relocated from Los Angeles to London for my father’s career. Now Hard Rock International also owns the neon guitar that sat outside the entrance to the resort. Vital Vegas reports that about 20 percent was on loan and went back to the original owners. ![]() JC Hospitality, which will open Virgin Hotel inside the former Hard Rock Hotel, returned the majority of the memorabilia to Hard Rock International. The new agreement gives Hard Rock International the right to develop any Hard Rock-branded casino and resort within Clark County. Now Hard Rock International owns the “exclusive full rights to memorabilia, signage, and merchandise, along with intellectual property rights for affiliated restaurant and entertainment trademarks and website domain names.” Houston-based private equity firm Juniper Capital purchased the Hard Rock Hotel in 2018 from Brookfield Asset Management, which means the Hard Rock Hotel on Paradise Road wasn’t associated with Hard Rock International, which is owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. On Wednesday, Hard Rock International announced that it bought back the intellectual property rights for a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, opening the door for the brand to buy or build a new property in the city. 3 to make way for Virgin Hotel, which still plans to open in November or December. The iconic Hard Rock Hotel closed its doors on Feb.
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