Las Vegas Weekly

Hard Rock Cafe Strip zooms in on rock and roll history

Comfort food and interactive technology on the menu at 42,000 square-foot restaurant

This artist rendering of the new Hard Rock Cafe - Las Vegas Strip shows the 60-foot guitar that will also house the building’s elevator. It does not show the giant Coca Cola bottle that will be its neighbor.

At 42,000 square feet, Las Vegas' new Hard Rock Cafe will be the second largest of over 100 locations around the world.

The new Hard Rock Cafe includes a retail shop, concert venue and private meeting space.

The Las Vegas Strip just got a little more rock ‘n’ roll.

Hard Rock International opened its second Las Vegas location this weekend, bringing its comfort food and rock star relics to the Strip for the first time.

Anchoring MGM Grand’s Showcase Mall, the new three story, 42,000- square foot café will be one of the company’s largest locations, second only to the Hard Rock Café Orlando.

Hard Rock’s Strip location features a 950-seat restaurant, a live concert venue and the world’s largest Rock Shop complete with Hard Rock merchandise.

The café is bringing more than another chain restaurant to the Strip; Hard Rock is opening with new technology to expand the reach of its extensive rock memorabilia collection.

Located in the restaurant’s lobby is the company’s trademarked, interactive Rock Wall, which allows visitors to blow up images and videos in Hard Rock’s collection to a larger than life size. The 18-foot wide by 4-foot tall touch screen gives users the chance to browse memorabilia at the company’s 156 venues around the world.

Inside the main dining area, each dining booth features a 19-inch touch screen, giving diners a more personal look at some of Hard Rock’s 70,000 (and counting) pieces of rock history. The screens run Hard Rock’s Memo 2.0 application, which allows users to browse memorabilia by featured artists, genre, type, decade and location.

With the application’s deep zoom feature, users can take in every scratch on John Lennon’s glasses, every knick on Jimi Hendrix’s 1956 Gibson Les Paul and every thread on Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” wedding dress. A back-story is paired with every piece, giving diners a mini rock history lesson with their meal.

As planned, Hard Rock hired just north of 500 full and part time employees for its Strip location. Hard Rock Cafe Paradise Road General Manager Greg Thomas will be leading the staff at the Las Vegas Boulevard location along with other Hard Rock Las Vegas veteran staff members. The Paradise Road location adjacent to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino will remain in business.