The Official All Star Cafe was a chain of sports themed restaurants developed by Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywood recruited

Wayne Gretzky Wayne Douglas Gretzky ( ; born January 26, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for four teams from 1979 to 1999. Nicknamed "the Great One ...

Joe Montana Joseph Clifford Montana Jr. (born June 11, 1956) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. Nicknamed "Joe Cool" and "the Comeback Kid", ...

Shaquille O'Neal Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal ( ; born March 6, 1972), known commonly as "Shaq" ( ), is an American former professional basketball player who is a sports analyst on the television program '' Inside the NBA''. O'Neal is regarded as one of the greate ...

Ken Griffey Jr. George Kenneth Griffey Jr. (born November 21, 1969), nicknamed "Junior" and "the Kid", is an American former professional baseball outfielder who played 22 years in Major League Baseball (MLB). He spent most of his career with the Seattle M ...

Andre Agassi Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former List of ATP number 1 ranked singles players, world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time Grand Slam (tennis)#Tournaments, major champion and an Tennis at the 1996 Summer Olympic ...

, and

Monica Seles Monica Seles (; hu, Széles Mónika, ; sr, Моника Селеш, Monika Seleš; born December 2, 1973) is a retired professional tennis player who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. A former world No. 1, she won nine Grand Sla ...

to invest in the concept. Restaurants featured "stadium cuisine" and sales of professional sports merchandise and souvenirs.

History

The chain's first location opened on December 18, 1995, at

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Two more locations opened the next year in Cancun and at the Showcase Mall on the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of the Las Vegas cit ...

. Planet Hollywood International announced on September 25, 1997, the formation of a joint venture for an Official All Star Hotel. With theme restaurants' novelty wearing off and Planet Hollywood's reorganizing by December 1998, Planet placed the chain up for sale. Also, the plans for a Chicago location were canceled. From 1997 until 2001, Official All Star Cafe locations also were to be operated alongside

Planet Movies by AMC AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain fou ...

entertainment complexes at select locations in the United States. An Official All Star Cafe was also located at

Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex is a multi-purpose sports complex located in the Walt Disney World Resort, in Bay Lake, Florida, United States, near Orlando. The complex includes nine venues and hosts numerous professional and amateur s ...

in 1997, its opening year. With its parent company's first bankruptcy filing of October 11, 1999, one location was closed, leaving nine corporate locations. In February 2000 after exiting bankruptcy, Disney offered to purchase the location at its sports complex. The last Official All Star Cafe, the one at Disney's Wide World of Sports, closed on September 23, 2007.

Hotel

The Official All Star Hotel was a joint venture of Planet Hollywood International (20%),

Vornado Realty Trust Vornado Realty Trust is a real estate investment trust formed in Maryland in 1982, with its primary office in New York City. The company invests in office buildings and street retail in Manhattan. Investments Notable properties owned by the ...

(40%), and Hotel Properties, Limited (40%). Hotel Properties, Limited is a Singapore company involved in entertainment, lodging, and retail whose managing director at the time,

Ong Beng Seng Dato' Ong Beng Seng ( born January 1946) is a Singapore-based Malaysian billionaire businessman and husband of Christina Ong. He is the founder of the Singapore-based organisation Hotel Properties, and a shareholder in many businesses. ''Forbes ...

, was then a major stockholder of Planet Hollywood and an investor in rival

Hard Rock Cafe Hard Rock Cafe, Inc. is a British-based multinational chain of theme restaurants, memorabilia shops, casinos and museums founded in 1971 by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton in London. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and r ...

. Planet Hollywood would have received trademark royalties for use of "Official All Star" as a percentage of merchandise sale and hotel room rate at the hotel. Planet Hollywood, Vornado Realty Trust, and Hotel Properties formed on September 24, 1997, a joint venture for an Official All Star Hotel. The joint venture would revamp the

Hotel Pennsylvania The Hotel Pennsylvania was a historic hotel at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza) in Manhattan, across the street from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Opened in 1919, it was once the largest hotel in the world. ...

over a two-year period. The plans were halted by mid-1999 as Planet Hollywood sold its stake to a New Jersey-based real estate investment trust.

References

Restaurant chains in the United States 1994 establishments in the United States Sports-themed restaurants Defunct restaurant chains in the United States Wayne Gretzky Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999 {{US-restaurant-stub