48 Hard Rock Locations in 14 days
Article by Patrick Muesse
"How long do you think it will take to visit ALL of the Hard Rock Café locations in the US and Canada?” That question from my friend Holger Bachmann from Germany started it all. “About 2 weeks if you keep on driving non-stop” I kind of jokingly responded. “Let’s do it!!!” was his response and the now legendary road trip was brought to life. What started out as a little trip with a few visits in the southeast, grew to an all east coast tour and ended in the “let’s do it all” tour.
Holger arrived in Miami on Sunday, January 26th at 3:00 in the afternoon. We immediately went to the Alamo rental car office at Miami International airport and picked up our Mitsubishi Montero SUV. A great car that turned to be our home for the next two weeks. We headed back to my house to drop off my car and load up the car with blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, trader pins, clothes and plenty of road maps. (Thanks AAA)
Day 1 - 01/26/2003
Tour - Start in Kandell
We left Kendall and hopped on the Florida turnpike in hopes of arriving in Key West, the official starting point of our tour, before Super Bowl kickoff! (Hey..I wasn’t going to miss a major sporting event, even for Hard Rock!!) Although I missed the first half of the game, we made it down to Key West and checked into our hotel (one of the few we had along the way). We scooped up our Hard Rock Café Tour Journal and with camera in hand, went down Duval street to the Southernmost Hard Rock Café. At the Hard Rock in Key West we had our first of many Tupelo chicken dinners, a few beers and enjoyed the second half of the Super bowl. Shortly after the game was over, we headed back to our hotel and went to sleep. Holger was tired from his long flight from Germany and I needed to get some rest in preparation for the long journey ahead.
Day 2 - 01/27/2003
Five o’clock in the morning came around too quickly as an impatient Holger “coughed” me awake! Although he didn’t realize it was that early, we figured the earlier the better to avoid all Monday morning rush hour traffic and headed off the island by 7:00am. A quick stop back home to drop off the Key West pins, we made our next destination, the Hard Rock Café Miami by 11:00am. We purchased a few pins, Holger got his Miami swipe, and then we headed off to Ft. Lauderdale. An hour later we arrived, just in time for lunch. After our next meal of wonderful Hard Rock food, we left the Ft. Lauderdale café at 2:20pm and headed north towards Orlando. Before we left, the servers signed our journal, wished us a safe trip, took a few pictures and warned us not to freeze too much up north! Little did we know…
220 miles later, we arrived at the Hard Rock Vault in Orlando. With the thermometer dropping to 48 degrees, I was beginning to understand what they meant in Ft. Lauderdale. I had just taken the Vault Tour a few days prior when Ilene and I attend the Winter Carnival Event. We did a little shopping and headed over to City Walk. We parked at Universal Studios and went into the Hard Rock Hotel Merchandise store. From there, we headed across the gardens to the Hard Rock Café and the Live Venue. We ate dinner and headed out towards Atlanta. This was going to be the last café we shared with other guests for a while as the next few cafes had few, if any customers when we got there.
Day 3 - 01/28/2003
Holger drove from Orlando towards Atlanta, while I did my sleeping shift in the back seat. At 2 am, it was “shift change” time and I took over the wheel and Holger crawled into the back seat for his sleeping period. Our original plan was to pull off somewhere, where both of us could sleep at the same time, but as we talked, we realized that we were both too excited and still fresh so we decided to alter the plan and do shifts. We also started think that with this extra time, we would arrive in Atlanta WAY too early, like 4 am, so, rather than sit in front of the Hard Rock Café there and wait 6 hours until they open, we changed the route and headed towards Gatlinburg.
By now the temperature was dropping into the upper teens/lower 20s and we were freezing with the cold! I was glad that I changed from my jeans to my sweat pants before I started driving. Shortly after Holger fell asleep, I noticed a pair of head lights in the rear view mirror. The car pulled up next to us and tailed us for the next 15 minutes. After that time, he turned on the blue flashing lights and waved me to pull over. I woke Holger up and, instructed him to look for my wallet which was in the pocket of my jeans in the very back of the car. Holger, who was still half asleep, certainly woke up quickly when the officer started to shine his flashlight in his eyes.
After a short chat with the nice highway patrol officer, he suggested that we take a hotel room and get a good night’s sleep before continuing along our way. We thanked the kind officer and continued on our way.
We arrived in the beautiful Smokey Mountains early in the morning and pulled into the Gatlinburg Hard Rock Café around 9 am. All we could think about was a steaming hot cup of coffee at this point. It was blustery cold out and we needed something to warm us up. Holger and I realized that it would be some time still before the Hard Rock opened up, so we found a little bakery where we got our coffee and some fresh baked muffins.
Finally, the Gatlinburg Hard Rock Café opened and we went inside, looked around and bought some merchandise. By noon we were back on the road headed for Nashville.
The hospitality of Greg Ferguson, manager of the Hard Rock Café in Nashville can’t be beat. Hands down, Greg holds the title of BEST there is. Holger and I were sitting at the bar when Greg walked by, obviously on his way out to go home. I called out his name and he came right over to us. He asked if we had bought any merchandise yet and if we brought pins with us. I told him I had some to trade and he went in the back to get his pins. By now, some of the staff brought out their pins and we all started to trade. Greg reached for his cell phone to return a friend’s call. His friend turned out to be Annie from New Jersey and it was great to take the phone from him to say a quick “hi” to her. Thanks again, Greg for everything!
We only stayed in Nashville for about an hour and a half and then we headed out to Memphis. We arrived there shortly before 9 pm. and ate another one of many Hard Rock Café meals. By 9.15 Holger and I were starting to drag, so we got back on the road and headed for a hotel. (Yeah, a real night in a real bed). We didn’t have a hotel reservation or anything, so we looked on the map and saw a Red Roof Inn in Tupelo Mississippi and, since Holger eats Tupelo chicken, we stayed there!!
Day 4 - 01/29/2003
The next morning we were up bright and early and hit the road shortly before 9am. We had already driven 2,134 miles and were on our way to Atlanta.
We got to Atlanta just after 2:30 pm. At least we didn’t hit any rush hour traffic! We’d both been there before, so it was a short stay and we had a 6 hour drive ahead of us to Myrtle Beach. So, we left Atlanta at 3:30 p.m.
Not much traffic along the way and we got to Myrtle Beach at 9 pm. We couldn’t believe how dead it was there. They “let” us have a drink and order some food and then bribed us to leave as they wanted to go home with no business. We were tired and took them up on their offer. We stopped at the grocery store and loaded up on some supplies. Holger wanted to buy Red Bull, the energy drink to keep him going. South Carolina has never heard of Red Bull, so he bought some moonshine, or something like that for the road.
Day 5 - 01/30/2003
We took our time on the drive to Washington, DC. We didn’t want to arrive too early because we knew we wouldn’t be able to get into the Hard Rock Café until 10am. I had the first sleeping shift, but, when I took over the wheel around 6am, we had a short, but terrible, snow storm, which Holger slept through. We pulled into the last rest stop before Washington, DC where we took a quickie “shower”, brushed our teeth and changed our clothes. We arrived at the Embassy of Rock at 10 am. Holger was the happiest customer they had because the clerk in the merchandise shop spoke German and the bartender was a German Bundesliga (soccer) fan. Even though he was a Bayern Munich fan (which Holger didn’t like, but at this point, didn’t mind) Holger was happy to talk Bundesliga while I traded pins. The next thing I knew, someone had called Floyd Terry who showed up just as we were ready to leave. We said a quick hello and we were off again on our way to Baltimore.
We got to Baltimore at 1:15 pm and had a tough time finding a place to park. I had a hot chocolate and the bartender gave me a motorcycle pin in honor of our trip! I think it took longer to walk back and forth to the car then the time we stayed at the Hard Rock Café. We left at 2:00 pm.
Ah, the City of Brotherly Love! We got into Philly at 4 pm. Actually, I think we got to Philly by 3, but it took almost an hour to get to the Hard Rock because of all of the traffic! We stayed less than an hour and headed to Atlantic City, where we were scheduled to meet up with John Berry and his wife. Our goal for the day was to hit these cafes and get to New York as fast and possible. We wanted to avoid ALL morning and evening rush hour traffic.
62 miles later, we were in Atlantic City. We stayed there about an hour and a half. We had dinner there and a short visit with John and his wife. We traded pins, and took some pictures in the snow. We still had to make it in and out of New York by the end of the day. We had gotten conflicting information on the amount of time it would take us to get to the HRC in NY, so we left by 7:30 (Thanks, Annie, for the invite for us to stay there)
Thanks to John’s great directions, we saved a lot of time and made it to the Hard Rock Café in the Big Apple by 10:04 pm. and BOY was it cold!!!! The temperature was at a warm and steamy 30 degrees! (But the wind chill made it feel like 30 BELOW) It was the first time for both of us to be back in New York since September 11th. Something was missing and it gave us both a weird feeling in our stomachs. You can definitely feel the loss when you DON’T see those two majestic towers peering up over the city.
We left the New York at 10:57 pm and our plan was to drive about a half an hour out of the city and get a hotel room. We were both exhausted and didn’t want to pay the premium prices for a midtown hotel. The only trouble was…there were NO Hotels to be found..ANYWHERE!! Only factories. We finally found a Super 8 hotel in Milford, Connecticut and took a room there.
Day 6 - 01/31/2003
By 8:55 am, we were headed towards Boston in freezing cold temperatures. We made it to Boston for lunchtime. One of the worst parking has to go to this location! No meters or free parking anywhere to be found. Finally, we found a spot several blocks away. The bar was packed, so we took a table and ordered food. (Tupelo chicken AGAIN!) After we ate, we bought our merchandise and headed to Canada. We left Boston at 1:40 pm.
At the Canadian boarder they told us to pull over and get out of the car and go into the immigration office. They wanted to see everything. Hotel reservations return tickets, road maps, car rental agreements, green card, and driver’s licenses. Everything but our blood type! We must have been in there for nearly an hour.
There was snow everywhere you looked. The temperature was down to about 18, cold, but not the coldest we found during the trip. But it was close.
We were in Montreal at 7:00 pm and enjoyed dinner and drinks with “Catherine Zeta Jones”. (Not really her, but a bartender/trainer who is known by that name. She really impressed Holger, at least for the next few days) We tried to get information from them to see how late Ottawa was open. The manager called for us and told us they were opened to about midnight, so we still had some time.
We left Catherine and the rest of the Montreal staff and headed to Ottawa. We got there at 11:05 and stayed long enough for a beer, a picture (for our swipe), and to buy some merchandise. It took about 5 minutes just for someone to come over to the merchandise counter to sell us anything as they’d already turned off the lights. One of my least favorite Hard Rock Café’s on this trip. Very small and NO atmosphere. 4 or 5 chairs at the bar, and NO Corona. We decided to try the local beer. Talk about "Ochsenpisse"! I couldn’t wait to get out of there. On a scale of 1-10, I’d rate this one a POINT 5.
We headed south to try to find a major highway. There is NO freeway, highway that goes from the capitol city to the biggest city. We had to drive about an hour to get to the freeway. We found a Super 8 hotel in Brockville and stayed the night there.
Day 7 - 02/01/2003
We had another packed day ahead of us, so we left Brockville at 7am. Our agenda for the day was to complete the Canadian Cafes, cross the boarder, and end up in Pittsburgh. We arrived at Yonge Street at 11am. We were the first customers in the Café. A few hours earlier, Ilene had called me to tell me about the Space Shuttle Columbia and we ended up watching the news reports on their TV. At 12:30, we drove down the street to the Skydome and only stayed there about 30 minutes. The place was fill with dirt because they were going to have some kind of monster truck rally and they were setting up. (Also gave them an excuse to put out a Skydome monster truck pin).
From Skydome, we headed back to the US boarder, stopping at the Niagara Falls Canada Hard Rock Café first. We got there at 2:35 pm and stayed about an hour. If you’ve never been there, it’s RIGHT across the street from the falls.
We made a brief stop at the duty free shop for some cheap cigarettes (YUK) and headed over the rainbow bridge to the United States side. Immigration was short and painless. The officer looked at our passports and asked how long we had stayed in Canada. We told him a day and he waved us in. Nothing like entering Canada.
We parked the car and walked over to the Hard Rock Café Niagara Falls, US. We didn’t do much sightseeing along our trip, but we took the walk down the path to see the Falls. It’s usually one breath taking sight, but, most of the water was frozen and there wasn’t much of a flow going down the Falls. I did, however, find a new job. If I had only charged $1 for every photo I took for a foreign traveler, I could have paid for at least half of this trip!!
We stayed about an hour at the Café and headed to Pittsburgh. We left Niagara Falls at 5pm and arrived in Pittsburgh at 9:15 pm. This was the first NEW Café for me on this trip. I was looking forward to this visit. I couldn’t believe it! When we got there, there was a line outside the door. Something I don’t remember seeing at a Hard Rock for a L-O-N-G time. It was also one of the fastest served meals I can remember having. Before your fork is back on your plate, they are asking you if you want anything else to eat and presenting you with the bill. It’s all about turn-around and it was a Saturday night, so I really can’t blame them. We both liked this Hard Rock Café very much. This one has to win the Most Hopping Hard Rock Award. I think it was both our favorite Café during the trip. We left at 10:30 and headed towards Cleveland. We stayed at a Super 8 Hotel in Cranberry, Ohio. (Cute name!)
Day 8 - 02/02/2003
By 9 am, we were on our way to Cleveland. We arrived at the HRC at 11:05 am, right when they opened. We were the first ones in there. In Cleveland, I had the pleasure of meeting Joel Acker. (He designed a lot of the Cleveland pins) We stayed for lunch at left at 12:15pm. We hit the road on the way to Indianapolis.
We arrived at Indianapolis at 5 pm. I was scheduled to meet a friend, Brent Damron (Former HRC employee). Not only was Brent there, but a whole bunch of collectors showed up as well. “You must be those two German guys!” they all shouted. So we sat back, ordered up some food, and did a little trading and chillin. We left Indy at 6:30 headed to St Louis. We wanted to make that stop before the day ended so we were off.
Holger and I arrived in St. Louis, stop Number 27, shortly after 9 pm. It was in St. Louis where we met up with “BUBBA”, the barkeeper. Bubba seemed to have his own private stash of HRC memorabilia tucked under the bar and he showed it ALL to us! He was quite a character. Holger and I had such a great time there, and we knew that we were going to drive straight through to Chicago, we hung out there until last call. Thanks again to Bubba, and the Manager in St Louis. I give high ratings to this HRC.
We drove through the night, as it wasn’t worth taking a hotel for just a few short hours. Our next stop was the Windy City of Chicago.
Day 9 - 02/03/2003
We made it to Chicago before 9 am and had to wait a bit for them to open. We started walking around looking for a Starbucks for a hot cup of coffee. It took us nearly 40 minutes to find one! We had figured that a big city like Chicago MUST have a Starbucks on every corner. We also tried to figure out which one of the new tall under construction buildings was slated to be the new Hard Rock Hotel. By the time we finished, the HRC had opened their doors. I was amazed to see the renovations in Chicago. I have to admit, I really don’t like all of that chrome new look. Kind of lost its HRC appeal.
We left Chicago just at noon and headed out to the Twin Cities of Minnesota. During the 7 hour motor trip, we met up with several patches of snow and ice. Not the most pleasant of driving conditions. We got to Minneapolis right before 7 pm and I couldn’t WAIT for something to warm me up!! It was in Minneapolis that Holger found “the Most Attractive HRC Staff member, Nicki” We stayed there almost 2 hours, just enough time to thaw out. The temperature had dropped to 22 º., and snow was everywhere. I realized that the people of Minneapolis probably don’t even bother to waste their time cleaning up the snow. We had to drive over snowdrifts just to get in and out of the parking lot. Thank goodness we had an SUV!
Holger and I were headed to Denver and we were going to do one of our marathon drives, without a hotel. In between Minneapolis and Iowa we REALLY had the highway to hell. The roads were icy, snowy and slippery and big trucks were sliding all over the Interstate. We had a hard time keeping our car on the highway. Even though they kept putting rock salt on the roads to de-ice them, the roads would freeze back over. I think it took us 3 hours to go about 50 miles!! We were getting frustrated and falling WAY behind our schedule. I took over just outside of Nebraska and the road conditions had improved. That, coupled with the speed limit increase, we were starting to make up for lost time. My only problem was not being able to find a gas station! Almost had to push!!
Day 10 - 02/04/2003
I had made up all of the lost time and we arrived at the Hard Rock Café in Denver at 11:10 am. I had the pleasure of meeting Randy Remme there. It was the first time we had met in person and I thank him for coming out to meet us. We traded some pins, and left by 12:30. We wanted to get to Salt Lake City before they closed. Even though it was sunny in Denver, the weather forecast was calling for snow so we left earlier than I had liked.
The drive was fine, up until about an hour before we made it to Salt Lake City. The snow was falling so heavy that I could hardly see a thing. We got to the Hard Rock Café at 8 pm. Between the snowstorm outside and the time, there was very little business. The hostess asked us if we wanted a table, and we told her we wanted to sit at the bar. Our only problem was, we couldn’t FIND the bar!! We headed upstairs to the Brick house where there was only one other person there. Being German, we were ready for some beer, and the only way to get it was to buy a membership to the club. The bartender kept “suggesting” that we ask the lady at the bar (Whom we affectionately called “ice lady”) to sponsor us, but we felt funny doing that, so I bought the $5 membership and Holger was my guest. Right after that, some guy walked in who knew Ice Lady and they started playing pool and drinking. The more they drank, they started talking with us. By the end of the evening, Ice Lady and her friend were buying us Utah beer (Talk about Ochsenpisse!! BOAH!) We ended up having a really nice evening there. I literally had to drag Holger out of there! Ice Lady had invited us to come back to her house to spend the night, but I reminded Holger that we needed to stay on course. (Which I heard about over the next 2 weeks!)
On to Lake Tahoe! Still snowing when we left at 12:10 am
Day 11 - 02/05/2003
Out of the whole trip, I think I hated this drive the most. Up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill…snow and ice everywhere. That, and the fact that I was starting to miss my bed made the drive seem longer than it was.
We were so early arriving in Lake Tahoe, that we stopped at the lake to freshen up and take some photos. It was a Chamber of Commerce day, without a cloud in the sky. Holger lined up some of the HRC Teddy bears we had purchased along a rock for his famous Bears in Tahoe photo. We congratulated each other for making it through the snow and ice. We felt that from that point on, there shouldn’t be any more weather related problems and we were really on our way home, even though we were heading further west to California.
We finally left and arrived at the Hard Rock Café in Lake Tahoe at 11:00am. We only stayed about 45 minutes. Enough time for some merchandise and the swipe and got back on the road towards Sacramento.
Two hours later, at 1:00, we made it to the Hard Rock Café in Sacramento. We walked in and it was so crowded we went to the shopping mall next door and decided to go back after lunch time.
By three o’clock we headed west to San Francisco, the city by the bay, and now the Hard Rock by the bay, since they had moved. We arrived there by 4:38. I was surprised how small it was. I thought it would have been bigger. Half the size of the Café is the merchandise store. And, since it is California, we had to keep running outside for a smoke!! (yeah) We had a beer and headed south to Hollywood. On our way, we drove by the old Hard Rock Café which looked kinda sad sitting there empty. No cow in front ..nothing. The only tell tale signs that there was ever a Hard Rock there were a few stickers left on the windows.
The goal was to just drive a few more hours and stop somewhere between San Francisco and Hollywood. We both needed a good shower, and a good night’s sleep. We ended up staying the night in the Days Inn at Lost Hills. That bed felt great and we both fell asleep within minutes.
Day 12 - 02/06/2003
This was going to be a big day. The day with the most cafes in one day. Stop # 35 was Hollywood. Since we’ve both been there before, we only hit the merchandise counter, got some pins, our swipe and headed over to LA.
We got to LA at 12:30, under sunny skies and 74º. We stayed in LA less than an hour and kept going down the Pacific Coast Highway on our way to Newport Beach.
The weather was really cooperating and we made it to Newport at 2:30. We had lunch there as we sat outside on the patio. (The most expensive lunch too!!) But, it was nice. We left Newport Beach at 3:45 and kept driving south. Our goal was to do Tijuana while it was still light out.
Since we couldn’t take the rental car across the boarder, we parked just down the road and walked across the United States/Mexican boarder around 5:00 pm. Once again, we were the only customers and the bartender was so happy to have people at his bar that the Coronas were on him! I didn’t even get to use my Spanish (Dos cervezas por favor) It was very nice of him to do that. We didn’t stay long in TJ, and left there by 6:46. I lost a lot of time at the merchandise store. I was amazed to see that you could buy ALL of the Mexican café’s pins (Cozumel, Cancun, Acapulco, etc) right there. That, and the fact that the salesgirl was not the swiftest I’d come across, we spent a lot of time there. It was nice, though, to meet Steven Thesing who happened to show up by coincidence. We quickly took the pictures that we needed to get the swipe registered and walked across the boarder. No immigration problems there at all. We were happy that that was our last boarder crossing, and we still had 2 more cafes to go for the day.
Now that we were back in the United States, we headed to San Diego. We arrived there at 7:10pm and stayed slightly under and hour. We wanted both wanted to have dinner in La Jolla, as we both thought it was the nicer café.
We got to La Jolla at 8:21 and ordered yet another Hard Rock Café meal. We were running out of options of things to eat. I think by now we had already ordered everything at least once and were on our way back down the menu. We had dinner and left the café at 9:37. We were going to head towards Nevada, and decided to get a hotel room for the night. We stayed at the Best Western Hotel in Victorville.
Day 13 - 02/07/2003
Viva Las Vegas!! Brunch was at Mr. Lucky’s as we were looking for some menu options at this time. We got to the Hard Rock Hotel at 11:00 am and without even a pull on a slot machine, we ate and walked over to the Café. Between both stops, we left Vegas at 12:54 pm headed to Phoenix. (Almost running out of gas..again! Ended up stopping somewhere in the dessert for $3 a gallon)
We arrived in Phoenix at 6:15 pm. This was the new location and I hadn’t been to this Phoenix café yet. We stayed for about 2 ½ hours. The café was setting up for a concert later that evening, and they started to collect a cover charge from everyone, so we left around 8:40 pm.
Holger and I were now on our marathon drive until we hit Texas. We drove straight from Phoenix to Dallas, a distance of 1086 miles.
Day 14 - 02/08/2003
We pulled into Dallas at 2:10 pm, just as they were in the middle of the monthly collectors meeting upstairs in the Cheese Club. We walked in and saw Virgil standing at the food counter with Chris Wood. Virgil looked mildly surprised to see me standing there. We went briefly upstairs and I showed Holger the Cheese Club. We said “hi” to the people who were there and headed back downstairs for lunch. Virgil came and sat with us for a little while and called the GM over as well. After lunch the Tommy, the GM, Holger, a waitress, Elvis and I took a picture. (See Holger’s website for a photo) We left at 3:42 on our way to Austin.
This was my first trip to Austin, but Holger had been there a few months earlier. Austin reminded me of a college pub. It had a different type of atmosphere, younger crowd. I walked out of there yelling “Hookem Horns”. We got there at 6:45 and left at 8 pm. With all of the excitement, or maybe lack of sleep, I forgot to pick up a shot glass from Austin. (Hint hint)
Last stop for the day was San Antonio. We got there at 9:15 pm. This Café was one of our favorites. We love the location and the café itself is one of the top 10 in our book. We stayed at the café for 2 hours. It had started raining and we couldn’t think of a nicer place to be stuck.
We took a hotel room at the Comfort Inn in San Antonio for the night. Once again, the bed and hot shower felt good.
Day 15 - 02/09/2003
The rain was still coming down and we were a bit surprised that it was still chilly in Texas. It was about 45 degrees and the guy at the hotel said that it had snowed the day before. First time in San Antonio in years.
We checked out early and were on our way to Houston. We got to Houston at 11:43 am. We had lunch there and the staff all autographed a menu for us. This was my last Hard Rock Café lunch. I was yearning for my wife’s home cooking at this point. We left Houston at 1:31 and headed to the Big Easy.
We got to New Orleans, again in the rain, at 7:11 pm. It was very nice at this café. James, the GM joined us at the bar for some good conversation. He even bought us dinner!! Thanks James. We had done 48 Hard Rocks in 14 days and we on our way back home. (It was 13 days, 23 hours and 33 minutes to be exact)
After leaving the Café in New Orleans we drove all night to get back to Orlando where we received the “50th Café visited” pin from Hard Rock Café management in person. After a brief stop in Ft. Lauderdale we arrived back in Kendall at 6 pm.
All in all, we drove 12,273 miles, stopped 42 times for gas, used 640.6 gallons of gas for a total of $1,029.
It was a once in a lifetime trip with memories to last a lifetime as well.