Byward Market’s Hard Rock Cafe to close Sept. 1

Owner won’t renew franchise deal

After 17 years as a ByWard Market fixture, the Hard Rock Cafe will close at the end of the summer.

Management of the Ottawa location has confirmed the theme restaurant’s last day of operation will be Sept. 1.

While some locations are the property of the international Hard Rock chain, currently owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, others, like Ottawa’s, are franchises. The owner of the Ottawa location is longtime restaurateur Keith Taggart.

Heidi Frankish, one of the managers of ByWard Market Hard Rock, said her boss is simply ready to retire from the restaurant business.

“Mr. Taggart has just chosen not to renew his franchise agreement after many, many great years,” she said. “He’s just at a point in his life where he doesn’t want to continue to run a restaurant.”

The Hard Rock was the final restaurant for Taggart, who started the Hurley’s chain of eateries with business partner John Thompson in 1980. At its peak, the chain had 10 locations, with five in Ottawa and another five between Toronto and Calgary, before it eventually went bankrupt. Other restaurants Taggart has been involved with include Denim and Diamonds Saloon, the Bud City Smokehouse and BBQ, and Hooters.

Frankish said that after 17 years, the Hard Rock had reached the point where a significant new investment would have been required to renew the place, and Taggart, who recently turned 60, decided it was time to sell. She said the identity of the buyer is still confidential. It will be a restaurant, she said, but not a Hard Rock.

The closing will leave Canada with just two remaining Hard Rocks: Toronto’s Yonge Street location and Niagara Falls, Ont. The corporateowned Toronto Hard Rock was the world’s second location after the original Hard Rock, in London. By 1996, there were 11 Canadian Hard Rocks, including two Ottawa locations, the ByWard Market and the then-Corel Centre. Taggart and Thompson were involved in both of those.

Luca Derito, a manager of the Toronto Hard Rock, said that since the Seminoles bought the chain in 2007, corporate head office has been more aggressive in pursuing profits, which has led some franchise owners to drop out. He said the corporation has also shifted its focus, to some degree, toward growing its stable of Hard Rock hotels and casinos. On Wednesday, Vancouver residents learned they’d be getting the country’s first Hard Rock casino. Derito said there has been talk of a potential Hard Rock hotel in Hamilton.

Frankish said the sale of the Ottawa location was not related to any corporate changes.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with the corporate structure,” she said. “We have a great relationship with Hard Rock International. It’s a great management team. The Seminoles are marvellous owners. They’re very supportive.”

Frankish also gave credit to Taggart for giving the restaurant’s approximately 50 employees a year’s advance warning of the closure.