Detroit - The line wrapping around the outside of Detroit's Hard Rock Cafe on Wednesday made the newly opened restaurant look more like a hot new nightclub than a place to sit down and get some grub.
Hard Rock Cafe, 45 Monroe St. in Detroit, opened its new location Monday and has people already claiming the music-inspired eatery will help the image of D-Town.
"It's going to be awesome," said Kim Beach, a hostess at Hard Rock Cafe. "They're going to put a skating rink across from here and Borders just opened right next door."
Beach said the opening of this Hard Rock Cafe was the fifth biggest in Hard Rock history and brought in more than $40,000 in merchandise alone.
"It was wild," said Michael "Teddy Bear" Napper, a server at Hard Rock, of the grand opening Monday. "There were two lines - one for pins and one for food."
The atmosphere inside of the legendary, musical food chain was jam-packed with lively servers dancing to the blasting music.
"I like the energy, the food and the atmosphere," said Jewell Dickerson, an Inkster resident who visited Detroit just for the Hard Rock Cafe experience. "They have a real friendly staff and I'd surely come back."
And the rock-star memorabilia hanging from the walls gave waiting customers something to study.
Ted Nugent's 1963 Gibson guitar hung from one wall; on the next, a Goo Goo Dolls' five-stringed strummer rested. Madonna's white silk dress from her 1990 "Vogue" video hovered secretly in the corner by a backdoor entrance while guitars from The Who, Journey, David Bowie and ZZ Top resided between two separate dining rooms in glass cases.
With signed records and scarves from Jimi Hendrix, among numerous other artists, some could be worried the restaurant would lack in other areas, but patrons at Hard Rock Cafe seemed very content.
"I'm surprised," said MSU alumnus Jesse Sweeney about the food served at Hard Rock. "You'd think that with all the memorabilia up here they wouldn't need to have good food, but it's great."
Sweeney said the Hard Rock was a nice addition to Detroit and the city's renaissance.
"It's getting cool," Sweeney said. "People now call it the '313.'''
And Hard Rock Cafe general manager Greg Hard said that the natural music atmosphere of Detroit already makes it neat enough.
"I've been here for three months and I've lived in lot of other cities," Hard said. "I've never had a problem with 'coolness' in Detroit because the music, culture and history is amazing."
He said that, thus far, there's been no trouble filling the 300 seats inside the restaurant.
