We have a Hooters out by the multiplex here in Lansing, and several times I’ve been to the movies with guy friends and suggested chicken wings afterward. Every one of them has objected:
“It’s demeaning to women… if my sister was working in a place like that, I wouldn’t want guys staring at her.”
“I’d feel uncomfortable going in a place like that, where I’m expected to look at the waitresses in that way.”
WTF? My family went to Hooters all the time when we went on vacation. They serve awesome wings and french fries, and the atmosphere is friendly; I always just figured it was a fun place to get a meal. As a woman, I’m comfortable enough with my self-image and my body not to worry if my eyes alight on a pair of tits. And I figure that the girls there are doing it because they want to, not from some dire financial need - if that was the case, they’d be doing something a lot more extreme.
I have no problem with Hooters, except that I think that, given the reputation of the place, I should feel intimidated by the women there and if I’m not, they aren’t doing their job right.
Actually, I don’t really think it’s demeaning, unless the women feel demeaned themselves by having to work there. And I don’t get that impression. But the last time I ate there, the wings were horrible, so I haven’t really been that recently.
It’s just a restaurant with pretty waitresses who dress in slightly revealing outfits. Demeaning to women? If a full nude strip bar is a 10, a Las Vages cocktail waitress is a 4 and Hooters is a 2.
Ah, the USA, land of repressed sexuality. Gotta love it. I’m sort of guessing that the guy’s comments in the OP may really be covering for the fact that most guys seem to be embarrassed by how easily they are affected by displays of sexuality, especially when there is a neutral female there to observe.
Gotta say, though, I’ve never been in a Hooter’s and have never quite gotten the point. Sorry, but it just seems a bit too tame after some of the other places I’ve found myself in over the past few years.
Several Houston topless bars I’ve been to have pretty good food, and if I’m in an oglin’ mood there’s a lot more to see (and do) there than at Hooters. If all I want to do is eat fried foods, OTOH, I’m not too concerned about the physical attributes of the server.
The Hooters franchise was started in my “home town”*. When they first opened we’d go there, it was fun, I was single, the waitress were flirtatious. But it was no more risque than what’d you see a couple miles further down the road at the beach, and certainly a lot less sexual than a lot of other businesses in the area. People would think nothing of going as a family, it wasn’t just some lecherous place. The main reason that I don’t like to go there is that I don’t like the food.
Then I moved to the midwest. In Cincinnati, where it used to be difficult to buy a Playboy (lest the rest of the community roast in hell, I suppose). Here it was considered a semi-big deal. Just this week I asked a colleague, who is also male, if he’d ever been to “Famous Dave’s”. He asked if this was the place next to Hooters. I said, yeah, that’s the one. He replied that they couldn’t go to lunch at a “place like that”. I was a little bit confused (not in the least since they are actually separate restaurants in the same building). But I guess around here it is the closest equivalent to a strip club, since there really aren’t any strip clubs. So I guess it sort of depends on how repressed you are.
*If you want to visit the original restaurant, it’s in Clearwater on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard between 49th street and Belcher Rd.
Maybe he thought it was a corallary to Hooters and that it was staffed by men walking around in shorts and wife-beater Ts.
I’ve personally never been to Hooters - I’m certainly not particulary interested in going, and no one has ever suggested it, though it was a possibility for the last Spiffled. The group ended up being to big to fit in the place, but if that where it was, I cerainly wouldn’t have been offended. Besides, DoperBabes would put Hooter chicks to shame.
I wouldn’t be offended, but going to Hooters would never be my idea.
I’m not “repressed”, I just don’t want to waste my money. My guess is that Hooters follows the Britney Spears formula- you don’t have to be good at what you claim to be selling as long as you shake your tits in the customer’s face. When you go to the type of bar where all of the bartender are hot chicks you know the drinks are gonna be watered down.
I don’t have a problem per se with a restaurant that hires busty women to work as waitresses. The problem I have with Hooters is that the management does not protect its staff from harassment by customers – or by management. At a strip joint, if you so much as touch the stripper, or step over the clearly-defined lines with the waitresses, you’re out of there on your ass instantly. At Hooters, not only does management not prohibit abuse of the waitresses, but they even do it themselves.
It’s not the concept that’s bad, it’s the implementation.
It was a Hooters that got in deep trouble for promising a waitress a Toyota and gave her a Toy Yoda. This is pretty much part and parcel of the Hooters experience.
I have no problem with hooters, I think it is a great place to have a beer and relax after work or watch a game. But I do not approve of people who feel the need to come in with their small children. Not because of the dress of the women, but because it is full of loud guys drinking. It is not Dennys for Gods sake.
Do people actually go to Hooter’s for the food? I always assumed it was to watch the gals jiggle. It’s fine for them as likes it, but the whole concept just seems sleazy and tacky to me.
There was a news story around here a few years ago about a high school girl disgusted by her male classmates’ “Hooters: More than a Mouthful” t-shirts. She made her own t-shirt that read “Cocks: Nothing to Crow About.” The school administration promptly banned all t-shirts with slogans or pictures. :rolleyes: Double-standard much?
A few years summers back, Ms. Lorenzo and I were in downtown Milwaukee on a Saturday afternoon seeking lunch. Only two places within walking distance were open at 3:00 p.m.: a McDonald’s overrun by flies, with a dining area that looked like a landfill and in/op air conditioning; or Hooters. We chose Hooters. The servers were as advertised but the food was awful.
I have not been back to a Hooter’s since and probably won’t ever. The food was that bad.
I’ve been to a couple, and not once - not once!! - has one of the lovely ladies shaken anything in my direction. They treat me like something their car just backed over.
Now, with all of these busty babes walking around showing skin, I really was a little taken aback that there was an actual family section. I used to think of it as a glorified nudie bar, but hey - if parents want to take their kids there, no big whup.
I don’t think I’d ever ask a female to come with me to get some nice wings at Hooters. Just doesn’t feel right, because … well, because there are half-naked women afoot. Even if it’s a platonic relationship we’re talking about, it still feels wrong, somehow. Now, if she did want to go there - and in fact had suggested it - I’d probably go along with it and make sure I minded my manners!
It just seems so pathetic. A restaurant where the big draw is girls you can leer at? I don’t know who’s more laughable–the guys who go there for a cheap ogle or the waitresses who put themselves out there to be ogled. Hell, if you want to ogle girls, be a man about it and go to a nudie bar. And if you want to make money off your tits, then be a woman about it and work in a topless bar.
If you like the food, then go for it. But I find it hard to believe the food is that good that you could overlook the sad reality of the place.
Newsflash - nudie bars can be a lot, lot, lot more expensive than a regular ol’ restaurant. At Hooters, there’s no cover, no two-drink minimum. So sorry if we’re not being “manly” enough for you by wishing to spend ~$15 for a meal AND a show (or even just having an appetizer or one drink), rather than plopping down all the cash needed for a jaunt to the nudie bar.
Plus there’s the whole issue of atmosphere. Since you’re comparing Hooters to a nudie bar, let’s look at their respective atmospheres.
Hooters = women in tank tops and shorts serving food and drink; men, women, and children of all ages are among the customers.
Nudie bar = women in thongs or less serving nothing except themselves; perverts and assorted riff-raff are among the customers.
Hooters = relatively clean, well-lit, safe
Nudie bar = usually dirty, usually dark, not terribly safe
We’ve gone to several of these in different cities - either just me and my spouse or the three of us. The food was OK, the service was OK, and what the servers were or weren’t wearing wasn’t much of an issue.
There’s a competing restaurant in Orange Park - called Dick’s Wings and [something] - they sell T-shirts that say: “I like Dick’s better than Hooter’s.” Their food isn’t much better and the servers aren’t scantily clad men. darn.
One of the Hooters chicks brought us a box of wings awhile back, trying to drum up business (I work at a store not too far from the restaurant). They sucked, and none of us could manage to eat them, so that’s probably one reason I’ve never gone there. I don’t find it insulting to women, but the excessive use of the colour orange does aesthetically disturb me.
I actually rather like Hooters, and I’ve been there more than a few times- up here in the hinterlands of Austin, until recently, there weren’t too many places close enough to the office for lunch. I’ve found that, typically, the women are friendly- and they always remember the lime for my Diet Coke.
I like their wings, too- and, unlike most places 'round here, I can get them nude (unbreaded, ya pervs!). They’re tasty. Most of the other menu choices, though, aren’t very good.
