Less than 30 minutes into dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles — the last iteration of the once-popular chain of music-themed restaurants in Southern California — no fewer than three team members asked my boyfriend and me where we were visiting from. They were dumbfounded when we answered that we live about 15 minutes away.
After all, beleaguered Hollywood Boulevard is ground zero for tourists, especially at the Hard Rock’s location inside the Hollywood and Highland shopping and dining complex, steps away from the old Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Outside, vendors peddle souvenirs and sunglasses, and a man with a python around his neck shills for photographs. The Walk of Fame, with stars for beret-donning actor John Travolta and Guns n’ Roses guitarist Slash, is underfoot.
Although the restaurant was busier than I expected it to be on a weeknight, mostly with families who no doubt were staying nearby or visiting for the World Cup, the Hard Rock of today felt nothing like it did during its heyday. As a Gen Xer, I came of age in the era of themed restaurants — and perhaps none was cooler than the Hard Rock Cafe, which by the mid-1990s was a thriving chain filled with ephemera from the biggest musicians from the 1960s onward. Think: Madonna’s dress from the “Like a Virgin” video and John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to “Imagine.”
Back then, having a piece of Hard Rock merch was like owning one of Taylor Swift’s guitar picks. I, for one, had a Hard Rock pin and a menu from a visit to the London Hard Rock during middle school that I kept on a bulletin board in my bedroom until I graduated from high school. Although I was decidedly uncool growing up, those trinkets made me feel worldly…