Cold Hard Rock Cafe Shot Glass FAQ's

More than you ever wanted to know... 

Shot Glasses

The Hard Rock Cafe shot glass collection is ginormous.  That's right, ginormous.  Between the different sizes, logos and variant printings, there are a few decision that should be made by a new collector before starting.  For instance, will a collection include all cafes?  How about all logos?  All sizes?  When starting out, it's a good idea to have a plan and stick to it or the next question becomes - how to display and store them all?

The shot glass itself is normally made of glass.  Yeah, yeah, duh.  However, there are a few shots in the collection that are made out of plastic, ceramic or pewter.

The glass itself has different sizes.  There is the 2 inch, 4 inch, flared, spirit, jumbo, and 7 inch.  Depending on the definition for shot glass, there is also something we call mini mugs.

Then there is the shape of the shot glass:  for the 4 inch there is the regular cordial of course, but some have been released with a more tapered form.  Then there is the 4 inch mini hurricane series.  The 2 inch can be smooth or beveled.

Further to the shape of the glass is the bottom of it, which for the most part is smooth (also known as flat).  However, there is also the Taiwan and Key Hole bottoms.  For some older Canadian editions, there is also the Banawe imprint.

The Logo

There are literally hundreds of Hard Rock Cafe shot glasses to collect, thanks in part to the different logos.   Hard Rock Cafe has changed their corporate logo over the years and has also mixed it up by cafe:  for special occasions, events or just for the heck of it.  The Hard Rock Cafe started off with restaurants but now has/had hotels, casinos, museums (Vault), bar and renegade locations (which have either been bought out or continue to exist privately).  All said and done, a collection can look pretty colorful...

Typical logo:

The most recognized HRC logo is the yellow circle. 

However, there are a number of variations on it.  Depending on when and where the shot glass was made, the color of the yellow can change dramatically.  Like any type of collection there are other differences in the printing, such as the color of the Hard Rock lettering, the size and printing of the word "Cafe", the black lines around the yellow circle and just to make things more special, the size and/or placement of the logo itself on the shot glass.  And don't forget, there are a few misprints along the way.

Of note, the Hard Rock Cafe has started to move away from the yellow circle logo on most of their merchandise and introduced a new logo in 2007, typically referred to as the Red Circle logo (see below).

Other logos:

Besides the typical yellow logo, Hard Rock (HR) also has hotels and casinos.  Although prominent in the beginning with merchandise geared to these venues, HR seems to be moving away from these logos and they are becoming harder to find.  However, there are a number of  Hotel and Casino logo shot glasses to collect.

After that, HR has a Bar logo.  Bristol and Malta are the only locations with the red Bar logo but only Bristol ever released a shot glass.  Unfortunately, the bar scene has not been too promising for HR and Bristol has since closed.  Hyderabad had a bar for a short period of time but didn't use the red Bar logo and instead had the regular red circle logo where the word "Cafe" was replaced with "Bar".

The Vault was an experience that just didn't hold up in Orlando.  Although the music memorabilia collection is what makes Hard Rock, Hard Rock... the museum of un-displayed items didn't work out but the Vault did get a few shot glass logo designs for the time it was open.  London also has a Vault location but has not released a shot glass.

Probably the biggest launch of a special logo was for the 30th Anniversary of the Hard Rock Cafe.  In 2001, the HRC released a ton of merchandise with the 30th Anniversary logo and shot glasses were no exception.  Almost every cafe released a shot glass bearing the special logo.  As mentioned, just to add to the collectibles, there were 2 different 30th Anniversary logos - one red and one black.

With the success of the anniversary logo, other grand designs have been released.  The city t-shirt series, launched in 2004, takes the special yearly t-shirt design and puts it to glass.  Typically, the USA cafes are the most involved in these releases but  other non-USA cafes picked up on the trend too.

Event logos are released during a pin or shot glass collectors event.  Most have typically followed the artwork made for the pin design but a few were designed by shot glass collectors.

Special logos are released by individual cafes normally.  Some of this is done  in conjunction with a group of cafes (same design between a handful of cafes).  In other circumstances, the individual cafe has put out their own design and was only available through that cafe.  For the majority, these releases are from Franchise and non-USA cafes.

The Hard Rock Cafe website occasionally sells glassware and will release the same logos as the cafes but with no city name on it (blank).  The on-line store has also introduced special designs limited to sale only from the website.  On a few occasions, the HRC website has sold merchandise from a closed cafe, most notably the Cape Town red letter shot glass, which was never sold in the cafe.

Fake logos are those not sold by Hard Rock Cafe or through a restaurant type location.  Also known as Fantasy, Helio and Attendee Only.

Renegade logos are those released by a non-Hard Rock Cafe owned location.  Physically there is a restaurant called Hard Rock Cafe that resembles, for the most part, a real HRC location.  The merchandise is very similar to authentic locations.

Logo Notations:

Yellow Circle

Some examples of the different yellow circles:

Asian, regular, large "cafe" and the new red circle

Save The Planet (STP) Generations

Discontinued but still popular, there are 3 Generations of USA STP shots:

1rst Generation - the word "CAFE" is colored in yellow

2nd Generation - the word "CAFE" is clear and large

3rd Generation - the word "CAFE" is clear and small

Save The Planet (STP) Standard

No "Generation" differentiation: STP is still commonly used at some international cafes

For a complete listing of all STP shot glasses, check out the STP page.

Red Circle - New HRC Logo

Regular and Large Font

Logo may be completely filled in or have a clear outline and may be bright yellow or dull finish

In the case of Hong Kong - the "red circle" is brown 

And just because, Bangkok also released a Blue Circle

Fonts:

As sure as the logo changes, so does the type font or font color and/or size for the city names:

Hard Rock Cafe regular logo shot glasses have 2 main fonts:

Arial

Times New Roman

Hard Rock Cafe regular logo shot glasses have 2 main font colors:

Red

Black

The red color font has been discontinued at all cafes. 

Of the red letter shot glasses, a few cafes have released a large font size variant:

Dallas

New York

One of the last locations to release red letter shot glasses was Osaka, Japan.  A black letter font started selling in 2007, much later than most cafes.

Typically, the font is in UPPER CASE but the odd location has released a Mixed Case version:

Oasis

London Casino

Most fonts are also printed with the letters in close proximity to each other (similar to the text on this page).  In some cases, the letters are spaced apart, one of the best examples is a black letter version from:

Jakarta

Lists:

 

Letter Color:	Logos:	Size:
Black	Red Circle	2 Inch
Red	Holiday	4 Inch
		7 Inch
		Jumbo