“My early Hard Rock touch points were also as an expat traveling overseas,” shared Hipsh, who grew up in the Florida Panhandle. Power’s 2019 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study in the upscale hotel category, which measured 85 different hospitality brands for guest satisfaction, advocacy, and loyalty.ĭale Hipsh, Senior Vice President of Hotels, is emblematic of the proud and impassioned leaders behind Hard Rock’s enduring appeal. Surveying eight key markets around the globe in a 2018 commissioned study, leading consultancy Egg Strategy found that 82 percent of the world “knows and thinks favorably of Hard Rock.” The brand was also ranked number one in J.D. Celebrating its 50th anniversary in June 2021, Hard Rock serves more than 120 million customers each year and enjoys enviable global recognition. Acquired by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 2007, Hard Rock International (Hard Rock) today encompasses owned, managed, and licensed hotels, casinos, rock shops, and cafes in 76 countries spanning some 256 locations around the globe. Their visionary brand, meanwhile, has since evolved into an unstoppable force. The partners eventually went their separate ways, with Tigrett later founding House of Blues. The rock and roll powered Hard Rock’s class-conscious mission consisted of “not exploiting culture but earning the right to represent it.” As revenues skyrocketed, their high decibel hamburger haven soon evolved from a restaurant into “a cultural phenomenon based on music.” Tigrett, an avowed “groupie,” courted his industry connections to build the brand-signifying collection, which now exceeds 83,000 A-list acquisitions displayed at locations around the world. 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. In February 1970, just before my fifth birthday, we relocated from Los Angeles to London for my father’s career.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |