(FORTUNE Magazine) – Hard Rock Cafe PLC Waiting lines of tourists, kids, celebrities, and just plain folks have been a trademark of these popular joints almost since the first one opened across the road from Buckingham Palace 16 years ago. At Hard Rock Cafes, which have since sprung up in Stockholm, Reykjavik, New York, Dallas, and Tokyo, patrons are served generous portions of ribs and burgers along with deafening blasts of American pop music amid a decor that includes such rock-and-roll memorabilia as an Elvis Presley jumpsuit and Jimi Hendrix's guitar. ''It's as close to fame as most people get in their lifetime,'' says Isaac Tigrett, 39, the colorful founder. Average daily seat turnover is nine times the industry median, and souvenir T-shirts and hats account for 43% of sales. For fiscal 1987, Hard Rock revenues jumped 58% to $32.5 million, and earnings leaped 125% to $4.6 million. In April the stock initially traded at 40 times earnings, but at a recent price of $6.50, it was just below the market multiple of 17.5.

Colonia Inc. Dallas may have faded forever from TV's top ten, but Colonia of Orange, Connecticut, expects its new men's cologne bearing the show's name to ring up heady sales this holiday season. In test markets the fragrance, moderately priced at $9 for a 1.7-ounce bottle, was a sellout. Initial orders, totaling $8.5 million, far exceed the company's forecast. Dallas is the latest in a four-year string of hits for Colonia. It's the U.S. arm of the House of 4711, a 215-year-old privately held perfume company in Cologne, West Germany. Sales shot up from $16 million in 1983 to $40 million in 1986, and President Lawrence Pesin projects that they will reach $46 million to $50 million for 1987. Colonia will spend $3.5 million to launch Dallas.

Bush Industries Inc. Bush struggled along for 16 years making portable towel stands and plastic hampers. Then, when consumer electronics were about to take off in the mid- 1970s, the Jamestown, New York, company dumped the hampers and carved out a niche in ready-to-assemble cabinets and carts for computers, stereos, and video equipment. Sold by department stores and mass merchants like Sears and J.C. Penney, Bush's products retail for 30% to 50% less than conventional furniture. In 1986 sales increased 60% to $65.4 million, and earnings per share advanced 45% to 58 cents. The picture remains rosy for 1987: Nine-month earnings jumped to $1.26 per share. The stock reached $27.25 precrash and recently sold near $16.

Thermedics Inc. This biomedical company was thrust into the spotlight briefly in 1986 when its device for helping an ailing heart pump blood kept a man awaiting a transplant alive for an unprecedented 41 days. Under development at Thermedics in Woburn, Massachusetts, are a battery-operated artificial heart and two detection gadgets: one that will sniff out cocaine and heroin and another that will be the first to sense any known form of explosive. Beginning in November consumers will get a whiff of Thermedics' talents as a mass-marketer as it enters the $4-billion-a-year fragrance business with Awear, a new method of test-sampling perfume -- not by spraying or scratching but with dime-size patches that stick to the skin. In 1986 Thermedics' revenues nearly tripled to $15.8 million. Analysts expect sales to exceed $25 million this year and say the stock has attractive long-term potential. It was trading close to its high of $17.63 when the market crashed and recently was near $8.