Rita Gilligan

Coming from a working-class Catholic background in Galway, Ireland, Rita moved to London in the 1960s to work in the hotel trade – that is until she answered an ad for a ‘matronly’ type to work in a new restaurant. That restaurant was the Hard Rock Cafe and since then Rita has met all sorts of celebrities, was the first Hard Rock waitress to wear the now-famous collectable pins, became Hard Rock’s Goodwill Ambassador and ‘cultural attaché’. In 1998 she was awarded an MBE.