Hard Rock Café ‘reviewing’ its London Piccadilly restaurant

Hard Rock Café UK is reviewing the operations and lease agreement of its London Piccadilly restaurant in a bid to improve its performance.

The group said it was reassessing the site, which opened in 2019 as the first new Hard Rock Café in London for over 40 years.

It comes after Hard Rock Café UK saw losses narrow to £1.08m in 2023, down from £9.4m in 2022, while revenue rose from £27.2m to £32.5m.

The group said most of its sites returned to pre-pandemic trading levels by 2023 with average customer spend in its restaurants rising 12%. However, operating expenses also rose 14% during the same period.

In 2023 Hard Rock Café UK recorded right of use leased asset impairment expenses of £600,000 on its Glasgow restaurant, which closed suddenly in February.

However, the company said it “is expected to continue to generate positive cash flows on its own account for the foreseeable future”.

Hard Rock Café UK’s accounts said: “Having taken into consideration the broader leisure and tourism markets that drives restaurant and retail income through sales growth; even in the face of difficult macroeconomic and geopolitical factors affecting the global tourism economy, the directors believe the company’s financial performance will continue to improve to pre-pandemic levels.”

The first Hard Rock Café, which is decorated with rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia, opened in London near Hyde Park in 1971. The brand has since opened in Edinburgh, Manchester and Newcastle and operates more than 60 locations worldwide.

Plans to open a Hard Rock Café in York were abandoned earlier this year, although the group said it was still interested in opening a location in the city.

Ireland’s only Hard Rock hotel in Dublin closed in August four years after its launch, while the Hard Rock hotel in London shut down in 2023.