A development application has been received by Northern Beaches Council for a Hard Rock Café to open on the Corso and frankly, we're pretty excited about it. The 1990s stalwart of birthday parties is famous for its OTT rock'n'roll décor, neon guitars, surf'n'turf and giant slabs of ribs (vale, mozzarella sticks, may you live on in our millennial arteries forever).
According to the Good For Manly community website, run by deputy mayor of Northern Beaches Council Candy Bingham, the proposed development will be housed in the former Billabong retail space adjacent to the Steyne Hotel. The Hard Rock is slated to operate daily from 7am until 3am with capacity for 534 people.
The proposal also includes a liquor licence until 2am, with live music throughout the week. There is even a plan to put a giant neon guitar body at the entry, luring locals and tourists like moths to the rock'n'roll flame.
Details on approval are thin on the ground at the moment and will be largely dependent on local enthusiasm. While some businesses and Manly residents support the proposal, others on the Good for Manly Instagram page have less than optimistic things to say: "It’s literally a tourist trap. The northern beaches is a unique place in the world. Celebrate that and it’s individualism before going so commercial." The Hard Rock would be within walking distance of a Häagen-Dazs, Dominos, and a Ben and Jerry's.
But if locals are as nostalgic as we are, this should be a slam dunk for the area. The Hard Rock group currently has two venues in Australia, one at Darling Harbour and another on the Sunshine Coast.
