New Hard Rock Cafe In Waikiki
Jack Lord’s badge from the old Hawaii Five-O is moving to Waikiki, but most of the rock and pop culture memorabilia from Honolulu’s Hard Rock Cafe won’t make the transition to the new 13,000-square-foot restaurant and retail store that’s opening at the end of this month.
Workers are putting the finishing touches on the new Hard Rock Cafe on Beach Walk Street, just off the main drag Kalakaua Avenue, as it aims to open by the end of next week.
The actual grand opening will take place early next year, possibly February, and will feature a major recording act, and perhaps some local ones, too, according to General Manager Barry Cales, who recently moved over from the Maui Hard Rock Cafe in anticipation of the Waikiki store opening.
The old Hard Rock Cafe restaurant, at the corner of Kapiolani Boulevard and Kalakaua, will serve its last burger today, although the retail side, the Rock Shop, will stay open until the new place opens.
The new 250-seat restaurant has been the works for at least three years. It’s the anchor of a new retail center called 280 Beach Walk, which was built on the site of the old Hula Hut night club. Only one other tenant, a Japanese surf shop called 24 Karat, is open.
Cales has hired about 80 new people, tripling the Hard Rock staff from 40 to 121 jobs, in anticipation of the traffic the new restaurant will generate.
But while all of the employees will make the one-mile trek down Kalakaua Avenue to the new place, most of the memorabilia will head instead to a warehouse near Hard Rock’s worldwide headquarters in Orlando, Fla.
Giovanni Taliaferro, Hard Rock’s corporate memorabilia designer, has tied a lot of the new memorabilia to Hawaii. For example, in addition to Lord’s Five-O badge, there’s a guitar he used to play at his Honolulu home with Elvis Presley when the King was in town. Taliaferro also included a pair of Emimem’s shoes, with a note that part of the rapper’s album “Relapse 2” was recorded at Avex Honolulu Studios in Hawaii Kai.
Taliaferro, who just finished designing a new Hard Rock in Dubai before coming to Hawaii, says that the Hard Rock restaurants used to be designed so that customers could expect to have the same experience whether they were in Honolulu or Orlando.
“Now everything is totally relating to the local market,” he said Thursday morning as a handful of people from local media were shown around.
One of the more striking designs in the new place is a “wave” of guitars that starts on a stone wall at the base of the ground floor stairs — the retail store is at street level with the restaurant on the second floor — and curves up to hang from the vaulted ceiling and stretch outside to the large open lanai. Another “wave” element is built behind the bar on the second floor.
Hard Rock is aiming for LEED certification, which would make it the first restaurant in Hawaii to be certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED ratings system. The building at 280 Beach Walk is also aiming for LEED certification.
Most of the materials used in the Hard Rock’s interior are either recycled or renewable, and the kitchen has been designed to be more energy efficient. There’s even a shower behind the scenes to encourage staff members to walk or ride their bicycles to work.
The new restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner, but will be available for private breakfasts, according to Jill Gilboy, Hard Rock’s sales and marketing manager. Companies can also rent out the entire restaurant for private parties, she said.
Meanwhile, the old Hard Rock building on Kapiolani Boulevard is for lease, and the new tenant can even keep the old woody station wagon that’s hanging over the bar.
Workers are putting the finishing touches on the new Hard Rock Cafe on Beach Walk Street, just off the main drag Kalakaua Avenue, as it aims to open by the end of next week.
The actual grand opening will take place early next year, possibly February, and will feature a major recording act, and perhaps some local ones, too, according to General Manager Barry Cales, who recently moved over from the Maui Hard Rock Cafe in anticipation of the Waikiki store opening.
The old Hard Rock Cafe restaurant, at the corner of Kapiolani Boulevard and Kalakaua, will serve its last burger today, although the retail side, the Rock Shop, will stay open until the new place opens.
The new 250-seat restaurant has been the works for at least three years. It’s the anchor of a new retail center called 280 Beach Walk, which was built on the site of the old Hula Hut night club. Only one other tenant, a Japanese surf shop called 24 Karat, is open.
Cales has hired about 80 new people, tripling the Hard Rock staff from 40 to 121 jobs, in anticipation of the traffic the new restaurant will generate.
But while all of the employees will make the one-mile trek down Kalakaua Avenue to the new place, most of the memorabilia will head instead to a warehouse near Hard Rock’s worldwide headquarters in Orlando, Fla.
Giovanni Taliaferro, Hard Rock’s corporate memorabilia designer, has tied a lot of the new memorabilia to Hawaii. For example, in addition to Lord’s Five-O badge, there’s a guitar he used to play at his Honolulu home with Elvis Presley when the King was in town. Taliaferro also included a pair of Emimem’s shoes, with a note that part of the rapper’s album “Relapse 2” was recorded at Avex Honolulu Studios in Hawaii Kai.
Taliaferro, who just finished designing a new Hard Rock in Dubai before coming to Hawaii, says that the Hard Rock restaurants used to be designed so that customers could expect to have the same experience whether they were in Honolulu or Orlando.
“Now everything is totally relating to the local market,” he said Thursday morning as a handful of people from local media were shown around.
One of the more striking designs in the new place is a “wave” of guitars that starts on a stone wall at the base of the ground floor stairs — the retail store is at street level with the restaurant on the second floor — and curves up to hang from the vaulted ceiling and stretch outside to the large open lanai. Another “wave” element is built behind the bar on the second floor.
Hard Rock is aiming for LEED certification, which would make it the first restaurant in Hawaii to be certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED ratings system. The building at 280 Beach Walk is also aiming for LEED certification.
Most of the materials used in the Hard Rock’s interior are either recycled or renewable, and the kitchen has been designed to be more energy efficient. There’s even a shower behind the scenes to encourage staff members to walk or ride their bicycles to work.
The new restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner, but will be available for private breakfasts, according to Jill Gilboy, Hard Rock’s sales and marketing manager. Companies can also rent out the entire restaurant for private parties, she said.
Meanwhile, the old Hard Rock building on Kapiolani Boulevard is for lease, and the new tenant can even keep the old woody station wagon that’s hanging over the bar.
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