Hard Rock's demise a sad sign of the times

Hard Rock's closure in Beirut is simply another indicator of the way things are going nowadays, and clear confirmation the party is over.

Last week it was announced that Beirut's Hard Rock Cafe was closing after 17 years. It is another indicator that Lebanon's economic feast is rapidly turning into a famine. The news - you will excuse the pun - struck a chord, as I remember when the global franchise landed in December 1996. The Hard Rock was a milestone of sorts in Lebanon's post-civil war rehabilitation and its opening was celebrated with the usual Lebanese pageantry.
I had been living in Beirut for four years and until then the only artery-thickening options were to be found at Pizza Hut, which arrived two years earlier to similar excitement, but the Hard Rock raised the bar.
Now of course we are all sick to death of global brands - the Zaras, the Starbucks and the Gaps of this world - and with hindsight, getting into a lather over a burger chain might seem rather sad. But for a nation that was trying to make up for lost time, the fact that international franchises were popping up made us feel normal.
There were of course other reasons to cheer. The late prime minister Rafik Hariri had just started rolling up his sleeves to put the country back on track. The Lebanese pound was finally stable and Solidere, the property development company founded by Hariri to oversee the reconstruction of central Beirut, had assembled out its cranes and bulldozers.
Yes, it might seem far-fetched today but Lebanon actually had a plan. Banking, retail and leisure would be the pillars upon which the new nation would be built and we all looked forward to the new Beirut, a city we were told that would be one of the jewels of the Arab world, a destination for Gulf tourists to relax, eat and shop.
Well, not all of us. Many claimed Hariri was using his "Horizon 2000" roadmap to burnish his Sunni credentials in multi-confessional Lebanon, while a group of disgruntled Beirut landowners led by Lady Yvonne Cochrane (née Sursock), complained about the way in which the land in the Beirut Central District had been ruthlessly expropriated. It is a sentiment that still lingers to this day, but most of us who wanted to get on accepted that there was no workable alternative.
When the Hard Rock opened just around the corner from the old St George Yacht Club, the restaurant trade had also caught this strong tide of optimism. This was the era of the Lebanese-American businessman Bechara Nammour, who rolled into town with his international know-how and was, for the next half-decade, the undisputed king of the hospitality sector, offering us a whole host of cheerful venues to make us feel part of the global party.
But now that party is over. The Gulf Arabs have gone, as has the 8 per cent annual GDP growth. And while the Hard Rock stores away its memorabilia, the restaurant trade has been forced to change its game plan. "The tourists have gone and so now we are targeting areas such as the Metn and the Kserwan, where Lebanese who live and work in Lebanon live," says Ziad Kamel, a member of the Syndicate of Restaurant Owners in Lebanon. "There, rents and leasing agreements are more competitive and society is more insulated. When there is a security incident in Beirut, people in the Metn don't care. They go out. It's almost another country."
Mr Kamel is staggered that the government still hasn't woken up to the basic realities of running a country. "The state doesn't appear to understand that jobs and the economy are a priority and in light of the present situation, one in which our fortunes are hostage to external decisions, we are taking our brands, our expertise and our best practice to the GCC, especially Dubai, where people know our brands and where there is disposable income. This is the future at least for the next decade."
 
Michael Karam is a freelance writer based in Beirut