House of Blues
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The House of Blues (HOB) is a chain of music halls and restaurants founded in 1992 by Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett and his friend and investor Dan Aykroyd. It is a home for live music and southern-inspired cuisine, whose clubs celebrate African-American culture, specifically blues music and folk art. The charter HOB in Harvard Square which opened its doors on Thanksgiving Day 1992 has since closed (although the original hands-in-concrete driveway still remains on the property), but plans are in the works to reopen in Boston in a larger venue. Jim Belushi is also closely associated with the enterprise and is present at most openings. James Cafarelli designed and built all the Houses of Blues except the most recent two.
HOB has expanded into the casino business, working with Harrah's Entertainment to open a club in the Showboat Hotel-Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In November, 2006, Mohegan Sun in Connecticut announced that their Project Horizon expansion would include a hotel expansion featuring 300 House of Blues themed hotel rooms, as well as a House of Blues music venue with seating for 1,500 people. The project is expected to be completed in 2010.
The franchise has expanded to a number of major American cities. The location in the Los Angeles Sunset Strip (actually in West Hollywood) is said to be lined with tinfoil from the house where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil. All the unique decorations and design is credited to Cafarelli who is a restaurateur in New England and has designed and built over 250 different restaurants and clubs all across the country.
Current locations of the House of Blues include Cleveland, Ohio; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; New Orleans, Louisiana; West Hollywood, California; San Diego, California; two venues on casino property including Las Vegas, Nevada (at Mandalay Bay) and Atlantic City, New Jersey (at the Showboat Casino); and two venues on Disney property, one at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and one at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. (Disney was at one time a partial shareholder, according to DisneyWar by James B. Stewart.) The Chicago location is adjacent to The House of Blues Hotel, which is managed by Gemstone Resorts International, LLC. House of Blues has never been a publicly traded company. Live nations, who recently bought HOB is however.
A House of Blues venue in Philadelphia is slated for opening in the summer of 2007 [1]. Plans for the immediate future also call for locations in Dallas, Houston and Milwaukee[2]. Plans for a House of Blues in Washington, D.C. have met with opposition, with detractors likening the House of Blues chain to national big-box chain stores such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Borders.[3]
On July 5, 2006, it was announced that Live Nation bought House of Blues.
