Hard Rock Cafe Dublin — Restaurant in Dublin

Ohh no, ohh no, ohh no no no. Poor Hard Rock, poor poor hard rock. They took your soul.

The body of HRC is being kept alive by machines. Intubated and comatose. It lays as a solemn shadow of a once great institution!

My wife and I and our two boys 7 and 10 treated ourselves to a meal in Hard Rock today whilst visiting Dublin.

All visitors to Dublin know, it’s a living breathing vibrant city and every successful business within is just as vibrant!

Well… When you step into Dublins HRC you’re immediately hit by a gear change, a geriatric shudder, a slipped foot clutch stall KER-CHUNK!!

“Hi”, fling… menus, slap slap. “You want a drink?”. “Ready to order?”.

The Menu is half what it was. No more share platters, no more potato boats! I don’t know if it’s true but in my mind HRC invented the potato boat. I lived for them. Also, why in all hell is a football superstar the face of HRC promotion now? Football and Rock? Ugghhh! We all ordered something we were not sure about. We got our drinks, Pepsi not Coke. Hardly an offence but worth a mention.

Listen the food arrived in a timely manner, the plates were heated over fresh magma just like the old days and we ate it all.

We did not try the deserts as we didn’t want to see Messi’s face again.

The place was about empty I should add, at 1400 or there abouts. The other tourist hotspots still had hawkers on the street pulling in punters.

I think we will have to stop or HRC visits. We do try to visit them in every country we visit. They are too expensive now. Small menus. Staff are not like...

If you love good food, good service and great rock music, go somewhere else. Firstly, this is the HARD ROCK cafe, yet they had an elderly Irish folk band playing live - tin whistles and traditional folk songs! - there are so many other places in Dublin you can go to hear that... Where is the rock music?? Secondly, the food is average and expensive for what it is - it had also been left under the kitchen hot-lamps so long it was dry, and the waiter had to warn us not to touch the plates because they were now so hot... They didn't have any jugs for table water, so only brought two glasses for a table of six people. And once they've served your table they rarely come back. Trying to catch the attention of a waiter to order a drink or get the bill is almost impossible - you might as well be invisible. I had to wave my hands over my head for three minutes before one of them eventually noticed and came over, only to be greeted with a surly "What do you want"? And despite being on their website, they don't give you the loyalty Rewards points... (and I might as well mention this too - their sign to the loo has an apostrophe in it (spelled loo's)...???.. As a comparator, the Gresham Hotel, Dublin's premier 4 star hotel, sells a hand made burger and chips for €16.50 - less than the Hard Rock cheapest burger, there is impeccable service, and no god awful tin whistle music! Save your money and go somewhere...

We were told to wait about 45 minutes down at the bar for a table to become available. This is perfectly normal and we were happy to wait, our problem was that though there was 10 plus tables available at the bar we were told we would have to stand until we were called. This is probably because these tables were reserved. My problem is that there is just not enough bar seating to hang around for 45 minutes. The bar wasn't even busy.

The TV at the bar showing a live feed of the music performer had a delay of about 10 seconds making for some funny entertainment.

Finally we got to eating and I noticed my SO's salad was very boring with no effort put in to presentation. The cheese was the same basic grated Cheddar you'd see at a filling station deli (we all know the chicken fillet cheese look). Not only this but the bill for this dish was €22 + €3.50 for a tiny side of fries. To top it off the waiter was constantly trying to convince us to buy more alcohol through our whole meal.

My own meal was nice so this is the reason for the two stars.

I live in Dublin so going to Temple Bar is not something I do a lot. I wanted to experience The Hard Rock Café as I heard so much. This experience was very disappointing and I'll be passing on my review to others.

To finish I've attached a photo of the pints I was being served. I don't know why they weren't filling to the top. Might save them beer over...