I hadn’t been in a Hooters in years but, back when my friend and I used to go, it was pretty much as advertised: chicken wings, beer and women in tight shirts & shorts. The clientele was what you’d expect – young males of drinking age.
Recently, I went back and was surprised to see that, easily, 50% of the tables were occupied by married couples with children. In fact, I saw children’s menus behind the hostess counter. With crayons. Nothing else changed, it was just that now people were bring their 4-12 year olds for chicken wings, (root) beer and women in tight shirts & shorts.
Last week, my Cultural Geography instructer brought Hooters into the conversation somehow and mentioned this shift. He said that it was almost uniquely Chicagoan but didn’t volunteer any reasons why this would be. I’m not up to a cross-country tour to check his facts so I’ll ask – are Hooters restaurants nationwide populated by kids or are they still as I remember them in 1994?
While I’ve never been inside a Hooters (and the only one near me closed a few months ago), some of my friends have mentioned that Hooters has pushed the “family” mentality for at least a few years now in most of their restaurants.
There was an interesting article in some magazine (I was reading it in a doctor’s office) several years ago that entailed the “Battle of Hooters.” Basically, as I remember, two Hooters factions wanted different directions for the company. One (which might have been the founders) liked it the way it was, and the other (latecomers, but much better-heeled), thought that they should tone things down a bit—that way, they’d attract a more family-oriented crowd. That side won.
Weird, but I guess their uniforms have gone from daring to kitsch. Most waitresses at my fave upscale restaurants wear short skirts and low-cut tops (albeit in black).
I find that interesting only because I didn’t notice any real difference to the business model other than kid’s menus and crayons. But it’s been so long that maybe I just missed it.
They do serve liquor now which wasn’t the case back in the day (beer & wine only).
Oh come on! You could probably get federal funding for a congressional fact finding tour of every Hooters in America. They’d pay you to check out every one in the country and report on the ratio of children to adults. You could even expand it to see what it’s like in the other countries where they have restaurants. And don’t forget the casino hotel in Vegas!
I used to take my car to a Jiffy Lube right next to a Hooters. I’d go late on a Saturday morning, drop off the car and walk over and have lunch and a beer. I can say that on a Saturday morning there are plenty of kids there.
And for this to be a truly scientific survey, you should also visit actual strip clubs in each city for comparison purposes. You know, in case some irate constituent goes off on how Hooter’s is like some damned strip club and you can reply no, I’ve been to all the strip clubs, trust me, it’s nothing like a strip club.
I haven’t seen kids in the Santa Monica, CA, Hooters, but let me just say that the idea makes me sad. I go to Hooters expecting children to not be there. If kids started popping up there and they started fancying themselves a family place, I probably wouldn’t ever go back.
As it is, that Hooters still serves lots of beer, the girls still wear tight shorts and tank tops, and the clientele is still mostly young and male.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a Hooters, but if I recall correctly, I’ve visited three of them (2 California, 1 Pennsylvania). In all three, the waitresses wore shorts and t-shirts or tank tops. Some had exposed bellies, some didn’t. All (at least the ones where you could tell) wore bras. There are a LOT of bars and restaurants with skimpier outfits, and I certainly didn’t notice the waitresses at Hooters being any larger-busted than usual.
I do wonder, though, if Hooters is positioning itself as a “family restaurant” that caters to people with kids, if that will lead to another round of lawsuits from men seeking employment as servers. IIRC Hooters argued that it was for all intents and purposes selling sex appeal with the food and drink being a sideline. Somehow that argument seems less likely to fly with the courts or the Justice Department for a “family restaurant.” I can’t imagine Hooters is eager to describe itself as selling sex to children.
Maybe to avoid the potential lawsuits the creators of Hooters can make a restaurant for women called Weiners or maybe Buns. Lots of really buff guys in tight T-shirts and shorts that show off their packages. They would specialize in sausages. Lots of brats, polish, kielbasa and foot longs.
