page_title: Hard Rock Cafe
section_title: Casinos and hotels
hierarchical_section_title: Hard Rock Cafe / Expansion into other businesses / Casinos and hotels
caption_attribution_description: English: Hard Rock Cafe at Jonker Street, Melaka, Malaysia.
context_page_description: Hard Rock Cafe Inc. is a chain of theme restaurants founded in 1971 by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton in London. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and roll memorabilia, a tradition which expanded to others in the chain. In 2007, Hard Rock Cafe International, Inc. was sold to the Seminole Tribe of Florida and was headquartered in Orlando, Florida, until April 2018, when the corporate offices were relocated to Davie, Florida. As of July 2018, Hard Rock International has venues in 74 countries, including 185 cafes, 25 hotels, and 12 casinos.
context_section_description: In 1995, Peter Morton spent $80 million to open the Hard Rock Hotel near the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. A subsequent $100 million expansion in 1999 nearly doubled the hotel's capacity.
  In May 2006, Morton sold the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas to Morgans Hotel Group for $770 million, including the rights to the Hard Rock Hotel brand west of the Mississippi, including Texas, California, Australia, and Vancouver, British Columbia. The hotel began another expansion in 2007 at a cost of $750 million. The project added 875 rooms in two towers and expanded meeting space. In March 2011, Morgans surrendered control of the property to partner Brookfield Asset Management, citing the high debt on the property in the face of the economic downturn. In April 2018, the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas was sold to Richard Branson with plans to renovate the property under the Virgin Hotels brand.
  Today, the Seminole Tribe of Florida owns and operates all units except the Las Vegas, Sioux City, Tulsa, and Vancouver properties. In 2004, Hard Rock International and Sol Melia Hotels and Resorts launched Lifestar Hoteles España SL, a joint venture that intended to manage Europe's first Hard Rock Hotel in Madrid, but it was never opened as a Hard Rock property upon the dissolution of the joint venture in 2007. The other joint venture hotels are in Chicago, New York, and San Diego (the San Diego property includes Hard Rock condominiums). Hard Rock also operates hotels and resorts in Orlando, Florida (a joint venture with Loews Hotels); Bali, Indonesia; and Pattaya, Thailand, (a joint venture with Ong Beng Seng/Hotel Properties Limited). Hard Rock International continues to expand internationally (including hotels, casinos, resorts, and condominiums) through several joint ventures (Becker Ventures, Ong Beng Seng/Hotel Properties Limited and Loews Hotels), including hotels in Chicago, Bali, Orlando, Penang, San Diego, Singapore, and planned openings in Abu Dhabi, Cancun, Dubai, Hungary, Panama, Punta Cana and Puerto Vallarta, as well as hotel-casinos in Hollywood, Florida; Tampa, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Catoosa, Oklahoma, just northeast of Tulsa.
  (The Hard Rock Casino in Biloxi, MS is owned by Twin River Management Group, Inc.)
  The Hotel Zoso in Palm Springs, California was converted into a 160-room Hard Rock Hotel and opened in 2014. A location in Atlantic City, New Jersey was planned in 2010, but those plans were canceled in 2012;  however, in 2017, they acquired from Icahn Enterprises the closed Trump Taj Mahal, which in 2018 was reopened as Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City. All-inclusive resorts operate under the Hard Rock brand in the Dominican Republic and Mexico. In 2013, the Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park opened as a joint slot machine and track venture., near Cleveland, Ohio. Then in early 2019, it was announced that JACK Cincinnati Casino in Cincinnati was sold for $745 million to Vici Properties and Hard Rock International, with Vici acquiring the land and buildings for $558 million and Hard Rock buying the operating business for $187 million. Hard Rock would lease the casino from Vici for $43 million per year, and would rebrand it as Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati.
  Canada had numerous restaurants but many of them closed, notably the one at Yonge-Dundas Square in May 2017, which had been the chain's second location, leaving just two in that country, Niagara Falls, Ont., and the Hard Rock Casino in Coquitlam, B.C.
  In 2015, Hard Rock announced a new hotel in Bogotá, Colombia, which will open in 2019. The company had plans to open in the biggest financial district in Colombia, the Centro Internacional, but it revised those plans. The hotel will be located in the exclusive Zona Rosa de Bogotá, home of luxury boutiques.
  In July 2019, Hard Rock International announced plans for a casino in Rockford, Illinois, about 75 miles west of Chicago along I-90. Two other proposals were made for the city's lone casino license, but the city council only recommended the Hard Rock proposal to the Illinois Gaming Board, who will
caption: Hard Rock Cafe Melaka
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3264", "Image ImageLength": "1836", "Image Make": "samsung", "Image Model": "SM-J320G", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "J320GXXU0APF3", "Image DateTime": "2016:08:07 12:55:43", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "238", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[2, 11, 41037737/1000000]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[102, 14, 5479373/100000]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "6", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[4, 55, 31]", "GPS GPSDate": "2016:08:07", "Image GPSInfo": "832", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "0", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "0", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1168", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7803", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/877", "EXIF FNumber": "11/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:08:07 12:55:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:08:07 12:55:43", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ApertureValue": "23/10", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "0/0", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "33/10", "EXIF SubSecTime": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "100", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1836", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "IMAGE 2016:08:07 12:55:43"}