DaveCafe Frequently Asked Questions…
For those fellow hardcore Hard Rock fans who want the geekier details about DaveCafe, I offer up this page of FAQ (even though the questions themselves are not really “frequently asked!”). If you have a question that’s not answered here, please send me an email
How long have you had this site?
DaveCafe has been around in one form or another since June, 1997. The site was moved to the “davecafe.com” domain on April Fool’s Day 2000. You can read a more complete DaveCafe history here.
Why do you maintain this site?
The sole reason I created DaveCafe was so that I could keep track of my Hard Rock Cafe visits and write a journal to remind me about the great stuff I’ve seen at the properties I’ve visited. I made it public because sometimes I’ll run into fellow fans who are interested in that kind of stuff. It’s not really meant to be a resource for Hard Rock information (there are plenty of other sites for that!), but since the Official Hard Rock site treats closed properties as if they never existed, it’s also handy for somebody searching for info on properties that aren’t around anymore.
Why did you omit the cafes in places like Mykonos and Frankfurt?
I do not include unofficial (renegade) cafes that were/are not sanctioned by the official Hard Rock Cafe corporation. Just because somebody decides to slap “Hard Rock Cafe” on the side of their restaurant doesn’t make it a Hard Rock Cafe. I want the real thing.
Why don’t you include Hard Rock LIVE venues?
To my knowledge, the only way to experience a LIVE venue is to pay to see a concert there. This makes it very difficult for a random traveler like myself to see them. If I ever DO make it to a LIVE venue, I’ll just include the information with the accompanying cafe listing.
Why don’t you include Hard Rock AIRPORT locations like Changi-Singapore, Malta, Cancun, etc.?
Well, Changi Airport Singapore is on the list because it’s a full-service cafe with its own pins and other uniquely-branded merchandise. As for Malta and Cancun airports, they are just small outlet extensions of the cafes in their respective cities… not full-service cafes with unique merchandise… so they are counted as such, and not put on my list as a unique location. This is following the example set by both the Official Hard Rock site and the Pin Club “Big List,” so I’m comfortable with it. I do mention them on their respective city cafe pages, however.
Are any of your pins, T-shirts, or shooters for sale?
Not really. Everything I’ve bought I bought for myself. However, I do have extras of some items hanging around… if there’s a piece you really, really need, then shoot me an email and I’ll take a look!
Why do some countries like the USA and Canada get their own region?
I decided to divide properties into regions to keep from having to hunt through one massive, unwieldily list. Where the divisions lay are arbitrary, but pretty much decided by volume of properties in a given area (since the USA has so many cafes, for example, I further divided it into smaller regions dictated by time zones). I’m the first to admit that it is not the best system, but I did the best I could to respect current terminology for existing geographical divisions rather than invent something new myself.
Are you a member of the Hard Rock Pin Club Passport Program?
Yes. Though only a fraction of my visits are registered there because many of my cafe visits happened before the program started. Other visits were at franchise cafes, which is difficult to prove when you’re traveling alone and don’t want to trust a stranger to take your picture and not run off with your camera!
Why are some of your “established dates” different from the official site?
Probably because I tend to think about locations by their addresses whereas Hard Rock Corp. tends to think about locations by their cities. For example, the official site has the Houston Hard Rock Cafe established on “November 6th, 1986.” But that really isn’t true for the current property. The original Houston cafe on Kirby Street was founded in 1986… the current cafe on Texas Avenue became the new cafe in 2000. Since these are truly two separate cafes (and not just a remodel or something) I don’t merge them into a single entity.
Why are your map locations different than what’s show on Google Maps?
Probably because Google Maps is wrong. In fact, I was surprised to find that the “labels” on Google Maps are wrong most of the time! As an example, the Hard Rock Cafe Indianapolis is shown across the street and down the block from its actual location…
This can be verified by looking at Google Maps “Street View”..
There are other problems with Google Maps as well (especially in China, where the satellite view and the map view are wildly off-sync)… but it’s still the best mapping tool I know, so I just try to adjust the location pins as best I can.
And speaking of Google Maps, hunting down cafes with the service has proven very interesting. Not only do I find surprising things I didn’t realize about the various locations I’ve been to, every once in a while something truly bizarre pops up. Like the afore-mentioned original Hard Rock Cafe Houston on Kirby Street being demolished at the time the satellite image was taken…
How did you make this site?
DaveCafe was designed myself using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. All photos were taken by me while visiting the properties in question. The display templates were hand-coded using TextMate and built for WordPress, a free “Content Management System” that I am loving more and more each day. All pages, maps, lists, etc., are dynamically generated by WordPress from data I’ve entered into it (which it stores in a MySQL database).
