Hard Rock Café

6801 Hollywood Blvd. Ste 105
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 464-7625
Hard Rock Café in Hollywood
twitter.com/HRCHwdBlvd
Parking: Parking: Underground Parking at Hollywood & Highland – $2 for 4 hours with Validation
Days: Monday-Friday
Times: 4-7pm
Drink Deals: $3 Draft Beers; $4 Well Drinks; $5 Select Wines the Glass
Food Deals: N/A

A Hard Rock Café is a Hard Rock Café and that’s why they’re loved world-round. Or so work-buddy TAG tells me. Being from Mid-Size Midwest town, I only really thought of Hard Rock Café as a kind of pricey place to eat whenever we had Chicago field trips (and oh what fun those field trips were?!). However, TAG grew up going to Hard Rock Cafés in the various cities her family visited because the menu stayed the same and they knew they’d get the same quality-food. She admits now that’s not all too adventurous, but it did provide a good context for our Happy Hour visit.

Inside the Restaurant

See, JG and I have hit so many Happy Hours in the Hollywood-area that even with the openings and closings of lots of bars, we sometimes do run out of places to go. Still, there are un-tapped resources at Hollywood & Highland – but I often regard that whole scene as the part in PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE where the pet store is on fire and Pee-Wee keeps saving all the other animals before he saves the snakes. Hollywood & Highland with its crazy characters and many tourists is kind of like the snakes for me.

Enough on that tangent, but you catch my drift. Despite Hollywood & Highland being the last place I like to end up, I was happy to remember Hard Rock’s week-night Happy Hour when TAG and I were in need of a Friday-night Happy Hour that we could get to by 6:45 and still have time for a drink. And we did just that – got to Hard Rock in time for just one drink.

Happy Hour is served at the bar only

The drink deals are great (at the bar only) – a nice selection of $3 draft beers, $4 well drinks, and $5 select wines by the glass, but the food-deals are non-existent and on top of that, the food is pricey. Which suckeolis because you can go upstairs to BoHo and have some seriously good eats at a fraction of the price during Happy Hour. But since it’s at Hollywood & Highland and since it’s so touristy and because its part of a chain whose brand identity doesn’t include Happy Hour – it makes sense… I guess.

Nachos ($10.95 - not on Happy Hour)

So TAG & I ordered a beer each for $3 – Blue Moon for her, Shock Top for me – and we decided to split an order of the regular-priced nachos at a non-Happy Hour whopper-price (for what’s theoretically an appetizer) – $10.95! Our waitress was quite nice and pretty helpful and when we asked if she could come back before last call, she said she would. She didn’t make it back until 7:10pm and couldn’t even cheat the cost of my 2nd beer (it was $5.65) in the system because it automatically ended Happy Hour pricing at 7pm. Boo! Hiss (like our cat JJ says when we cut her nails)! I guess that’s a chain for you.
The space is probably like any Hard Rock Café that you’ve been to before – a great selection of loud music, fun memorabilia from folks I’ve heard of (Frank Zappa!) and those I haven’t (like Wisin & Yandel, a Puerto Rican Reggaetron duo), a wide floor plan full of pretty much non-locals.

Not a bad spot at all – and if you’re a fan of the chain, I think you’ll be totally at home at their Happy Hour. Or if you’re on a Happy Hour Tour in Hollywood, stop by for a beer. Just remember to save up for the 34oz. beer mugs for $7 at Snow White Café and some room in your belly for the delicious & more affordable BoHo.

Better deals (and self-portrait opportunities at 7-Eleven :)

--JB

Rating: 2.5 Martinis