India’s first Hard Rock Café and one of Mumbai’s most loved live-music hot-spots downed its shutters in the month of November.
This maddening place is situated inside the Bombay Dyeing Compound at Worli. Hard Rock Café had to close down its franchise owing to rent issues after a successful span of 12 years. In addition to HRC, Shiro, a Bohemian restaurant and pub in the same compound, has also shut down.
The Worli branch of Hard Rock Cafe is spread over a sprawling 6000-sq ft that host parties and live music concerts. The place features a couple of stages and walls are decorated with collectables and remembrances associated with all-time musical greats that include names like Elvis Presley, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin, Hard Rock Café reinstated a new life in Mumbai’s music culture when it started its journey in 2006. Currently, there are seven Hard Rock Cafés in India, including one in Andheri.
Since the Bombay Dyeing authority controls the compound in Worli housing offices, clubs and restaurant, one of the company’s spokesperson stated that both the restaurants had been defaulters of rent payments. The press statement also added that Hard Rock Cafe and Shiro were tenants of Bombay Dyeing compound for over 15 years and Bombay Dyeing had tried to value their relationship with them. Although there are reports of constancy in the rentals, defaults in paying rent have forced the Bombay Dyeing governing body to take a stringent step against the stakeholders and asked them to vacate the said premises by terminating the documented contract.
In other news, JSM Corporation, the master franchisee for Hard Rock Cafe and Shiro in India, denied the allegations. asserting that there were no late payments from the end of the restaurant chain and the reasons cited for contract termination is purely commercial and the default or late payment allegations hold no merit. However, the Master franchisee for Hard Rock Cafe in India went on one step ahead stating that are looking for alternate premises for the purpose of relocation and reopening in 2019.