Hard Rock Cafe set to open on Hollywood Boulevard

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

A new Hard Rock Cafe is set to open Monday on Hollywood Boulevard, representing the latest big-ticket tourist magnet to set up shop on the iconic, star-lined street.

The 20,000-square-foot cafe will seat about 500 customers, employ 240 workers and display more than 160 pieces of rock memorabilia.

Among the memorabilia decorating the cafe’s walls are a fedora owned by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and hand-written lyric sheets to ‘L.A. Woman,’ penned by the Lizard King, Jim Morrison.

Reed Bowlby, the cafe’s general manager, said the Hard Rock’s corporate executives had been looking for an appropriate location for a new restaurant in Hollywood for years. The cafe replaces a Virgin Megastore that closed last year at that location, only a few doors away from Grumman’s Chinese Theater. The nation’s first Hard Rock Cafe, at the Beverly Center shopping mall, closed in 2006.

The cafe is the latest multimillion-dollar development to open on Hollywood Boulevard in the past decade.

In 2001, a $650-million retail, hotel and entertainment complex opened at Hollywood and Highland. Last summer, Madame Tussauds, a $55-million wax statue attraction, opened next to the Chinese theater. A new $600-million high-end W Hotel began operations in January near Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.

Hugo Martin

(Photo: Memorabilia designer Carrie Ielfield puts the finishing touches on a display of a dress worn by musician Katy Perry before the restaurant’s opening. Credit: John W. Adkisson/Los Angeles Times)