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• #Hard rock cafe international chain tv

But we had no ability to analyze that information. “We had a traditional, competent accounting/financial department,” says Berk, “meaning that we had the capacity to pay bills, add the money at the end of the day, and say how much we made. Unfortunately, the existing finance department could not help Berk determine whether these brand extensions were helping or hurting. The next year, the company also agreed to team with the National Basketball Association to create NBA City, a chain of basketball “interactive” theme restaurants.

#Hard rock cafe international chain tv

Starting in 1997, the company launched Hard Rock Records, Hard Rock Live (a VH1-produced TV show), Hard Rock Beer, a concert series, and the first of several Hard Rock hotels.

Jim Berk, who took over as CEO of HRC just before the Morton acquisition, gets credit for streamlining management and standardizing operations, and for initiating the brand- expansion program. “It was like a 25-year-old start-up,” says Little. Hard Rock Cafes had never advertised, and had never extended the brand much beyond the ubiquitous T-shirts. It inherited separate management structures, different computer systems and operating procedures, and even different menus. Overnight, Hard Rock Cafe grew by 60 percent, from 15 company-owned and 26 franchised cafés to 31 company-owned and 38 franchised. Rank Group bought Tigrett’s restaurants in 1990, and finally reunited the HRC brand in 1996 when it purchased the Canadian chain and Morton’s restaurants (excluding Morton’s HRC Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas). Confusing matters further, an unaffiliated Hard Rock Cafe chain started in Canada. The lively, rock-memorabilia-packed restaurant chain and its brand grew fast, but in 1985 the two men parted ways, each taking half the company with him. The original company was founded in London in 1971 by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton. But first he has to cope with the fruits of Hard Rock’s tumultuous history.

Little plans to build a finance department dedicated to protecting and leveraging that asset. “They have the oldest and the best brand in the theme-restaurant segment,” says Ron Paul, president of Technomic Inc., a restaurant consulting firm based in Chicago, “and they have a cachet that it’s been hard for newcomers to duplicate.” Furthermore, he believes that Hard Rock has a tremendously undervalued asset–a premium global brand. Formerly vice president of finance at Walt Disney Imagineering, he is applying to Hard Rock the finance disciplines learned at Disney-superior staff, state-of-the-art technology, and a cautious approach to risk management. These circumstances don’t seem to faze Little. HRC’s parent company, Rank Group Plc, a London-based entertainment and leisure company with £2.05 billion in 1998 sales, just announced plans to shed more than £100 million in assets, and rumors are that HRC may be next on the block. Competitors Fashion Café and Motown Café are closing units across the country.Īt HRC, same-store sales (sales in cafés open more than one year) dropped 10.6 percent in 1998, and operating profits edged up just 2.1 percent, to $78 million. Planet Hollywood International, HRC’s biggest challenger, posted a $35 million loss for first-quarter 1999 on sales of $75 million, a drop of 22 percent over first quarter last year. But most are suffering from a saturated market and customer boredom. Some chains, like Dallas-based Dave & Buster’s Inc., which combines games with dining, are succeeding. Given recent developments in the “eatertainment” industry in general, and at HRC in particular, he should be.Īfter a growth spurt in the mid-1990s, the theme dining business is in a slump. Little, who joined HRC in August 1998, almost seems relieved. People just have to come here when they’re in town.” “It’s been busy like this since we opened.

Scott Little, CFO of Hard Rock Cafe International Inc., which last year had $398 million in sales, grins. Inside, the place is packed with customers who eat to the pounding beat of Sheryl Crow and Peter Frampton, surrounded by rock memorabilia and waitresses with spiky hair. Yet, despite the stifling heat, there are 15 tourists waiting patiently at the maître d’s desk. Based on the amount of foot traffic in the plaza, the restaurant should be as empty as a Florida motel without air conditioning. It looks like the Roman Coliseum with a Cadillac driven through the side. Across the man-made lagoon in the plaza’s center stands the largest Hard Rock Cafe in the world, open since December 1998. A few tourists amble sluggishly along Universal Studio’s new CityWalk, an open-air shopping plaza next to the famous theme park. It’s a typical July afternoon in Orlando.