Well it was opened last week, the Bucharest Hard Rock Cafe, being the 80th something in the world. It comes from the original concept, it has all the specific stuff, even the Rock Shop. So let’s see how it was like on 26.01, about one week after the big opening.

Access and Entry

The location is great, in the Herastrau park in Bucharest, a central area and close to the lake. A great location, in my opinion, easy to reach and which allows for good access, with parking and all.

From the entry, Hard Rock Cafe looks very friendly and a professional place. Everything is in order, everything is clean and you are welcomed with a smile – very nice.

Atmosphere and first impression

Right on the entry, you are being asked if you have a table reserved. Well, I did not have because I called the place before and they told me they do not accept reservations yet. Therefore, how am I supposed to have a table ? No, I don’t, and they mention it is full so if you want you can sit at the bar until a table is getting free. A nice thing is that you get a kind of device which will let you know when your table is free, so you don’t need to pay attention to everybody leaving. Good stuff.

The bar is place right in the middle of the HRC and it overs good view to the entire place, to the stage and to all the “stuff” hanging on the walls. You can see guitars, pictures of famous artists and such.

Hard Rock Cafe is half smoking / half non-smoking, which is a good thing – you will get the same atmosphere wherever you are sitting.

The bar offers a good range of cocktails, some classic ones and some which you can only find in HRC. They have a good range of drinks and they also have Clausthaler, which is a bonus from my point of view :) They do not have Leffe, which is a minus in Roxana’s view – but she will settle for the draft Guiness. :)

The restaurant

As our table was free (after about half of hour of waiting), we ordered some food. You have a nice variety to choose from, most of all being American specialties – chicken wings, pork chops, beef, hamburgers and salads. There is also a good range of starters and deserts.

After the ordering, comes the hard part – the waiting. This is one big MINUS they get, we had to wait for about one and a half hours. The waiters appologised, the manager appologised and they admitted they have a big staffing problem in the kitchen. Everybody was complaining about this aspect, some people next to us got their meal for free because of the long waiting time.

All in all it was not so bad, as you can watch the videos on the dozens of LCDs in the restaurant, but if you are hungry you might get very nervous. They promised to solve this is a couple of weeks, hopefully they will.

The food is very good – specially the beef (Grilled Fillet Steak) was delicious and the serving is quite ok (even though at one time they sort of forgot about or drinks) and everybody is friendly and smiling.

Overall

In the end, it was a very positive experience. The place looks great, the food is good and the drinks are also nice. The atmosphere is exactly a Hard Rock Cafe fan would expect. I am also looking forward for some live concerts in there and I will definetelly come back.

They need to put some more attention on the food timing and maybe they will have a reservations system as well.

More info about the Bucharest Hard Rock Cafe can be found here.