Hard Rock Cafe
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Another local landmark is counting down its final days. The Hard Rock Cafe at Bayside Marketplace is officially shutting down. A WARN notice filed with the state on June 20 shows the restaurant at 401 Biscayne Blvd. will permanently close on August 19, laying off 117 employees: 34 servers, 19 line cooks, 12 bartenders, nine bussers, and management.
The café opened on September 21, 1993, and spent 33 years selling pricey burgers and logo T-shirts from a waterfront space in Bayside, the tourist mecca and outdoor mall on Biscayne Bay.
When the WARN notice circulated on @whatlayoff’s Threads this week and hit 25,000 views in under a day, the comments ran from ex-employees with fond memories to people surprised the place was still open. “That location in Bayside Miami has been dead for a long time. I’m surprised it didn’t close sooner,” one commenter wrote. Another remembered working there for a decade fresh out of college. A third, who transferred from Orlando, lasted two weeks. “It was already old and dusty as hell 20 years ago when I worked there briefly,” he wrote.
Hard Rock Cafe photo
Not just a Miami problem
Miami isn’t even the only Hard Rock Cafe in Florida shutting down this year.
The Key West location closed in May after nearly 30 years in business. Hard Rock Cafe Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, filed its own WARN notice the day before Miami’s, with 61 jobs gone by August 23. Chicago’s location shut in March 2025 after nearly 40 years. Pittsburgh in February. Paris in November 2024.
More than a dozen locations globally have closed in the past two years.
The closures reflect how Hard Rock International makes money now.
In 2007, the Seminole Tribe of Florida bought the brand for just under $1 billion, when the company was struggling during the Great Recession. The Seminoles built a casino-and-hotel empire under the brand, and now Hard Rock International operates 15 casinos and 36 hotels worldwide. In 2025, it generated $7.9 billion in revenue, up a third from two years prior, according to The Economist. The Hard Rock Bet gambling app, launched in Florida in 2023, is now live in ten states.
Hard Rock International has not issued a statement on the Miami closure or whether employees will be relocated.
Hard Rock Cafe Miami. 401 Biscayne Blvd, Miami; cafe.hardrock.com/miami. Closing August 19, 2026.
