From "Hooters Says Bring the Kids/The chain known for skimpy uniforms and 'bikini nights' is trying to change its image. Hooters onesie, anyone?" (NYT).
"Although the Hooters in East Brunswick is not among the restaurants controlled by Kiefer, it is taking a page from the family-friendly approach now endorsed by the original team.... Yet it still holds the occasional 'bikini night,' with servers doing their jobs in swimwear. 'It’s a current topic of debate,' Kiefer said of the bikini nights. 'You’ll never see one of those in one of our stores and, hopefully, we’ll get everybody in line with that, too.' The décor of the East Brunswick location shows that the makeover is far from complete, with framed photos of servers in racy costumes on the walls and a TV playing a slide show of the bikini nights on a loop. The waitstaff uniforms have more material than they once did, but the servers are still outfitted in low-cut V-necks and tight orange shorts...."
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They really were the first Sports Bar concept, and I have a fondness for those guys.
Under private equity control things go bad, because they're just trying to squeeze all the money they can out of the business. Buy it, wreck it, dump it.
Why is our financial system set up for massive private equity firms to buy out businesses with borrow money and tax breaks? Answer - because they've bribed Congress. Its not like the customer get better product.
I've seen that process at work when we went to our local vet, no part of "Chain".
And their logo is the answer to the riddle, "When is an owl also a fig leaf?"
Under private equity control things go bad, because they're just trying to squeeze all the money they can out of the business. Buy it, wreck it, dump it.
That of course is not how it usually works because that's a terrible business model and garners ill will among community stakeholders. There are enough examples to prove your point valid but there are numerous examples of PE that do in fact fix businesses and then spin off into ESOPs or sell for a profit to new owners.
But those aren't the moves that get you a feature in the NYT.
Save all the "magic of the free market" bullshit for someone who doesn't know how things really work - in the real world.
Family friendly, that's why they called it 'Hooters' and dressed all the waitresses up in tight T-shirts. C'mon, man.
--- "Although the Hooters in East Brunswick is not among the restaurants controlled by Kiefer, it is taking a page from the family-friendly approach now endorsed... "
No NYT here, soo sad. Perhaps someone could tell us if the story confirms that this reporter went to the wrong Hooter's but was too lazy or too close to deadline to correct his method.
Although the sex appeal and double entendre was part of the original business model the cause/effect between pe and sex assumes facts not in evidence. Now the model sounds kinda like when Vegas tried to attract families. That didn’t end well but here I bet dad won’t have any problem getting jr to go along …
I always thought Hooters was ridiculous. OK food at higher than average prices so you can look at boobs.
Bring back Hooterville.
Their wings suck. They always sucked. Everyone who's said they only went there because of the wings lied. There. I said it.
Twin Peaks seems to have attracted the customers that once went to Hooters. I think Hooters would do better to take them on with a menu that's slightly cheaper, faster service, with still good quality food and service.
Regardless, my time wanting to go to either place has passed. My local bar/pub hires mostly women as wait staff and they can remember the table's entire order without writing it down. They are encouraged to chat up the regulars, they don't charge for water or tea, and it is a busy night when your cup is empty for more than 3 minutes. Can't turn your head without seeing a tv showing sports. Not being overtly sexual, women customers (many single from divorces and looking) are all around if that's what you are into. My wife and I just love the menu options.
I have seen PE go both ways with the people involved in each case close enough to me that I could be considered in both cases “a source familiar with the matter,” one, a factory that was stripped to boost the multiple, and one that took the business and with investment and attention, expanded the market and retains after several years, most of the employees, at least the ones who haven’t retired. Lesson? It’s a bit of a crap shoot, but either take the money and look away, or do a lot of research.
Bring back Hooters Air.
Hate all you want. They originated the concept (many TV, different sports all the time) that became the sports bar, nearly contemporaneously with Buffalo Wild Wings but geographically apart when they started. The original more "cheerleader" type uniform was tame compared to what it became. I'm curious what these guys putting their own money on the line can do to reverse what is a dismal state of the restaurant business in the USA today.
No. They weren't the first sports bar concept.
Leland, Red Robin is trying that strategy now. Stand by.
No they were second (I don't see TGI Fridays as a sports bar like google does), which I called "contemporaneously" because it was just months after the first BWW opened, but they rolled the concept out nationally before BWW. That part was in the documentary The Restaurants that Built America. I have a strange fascination with them because so many known chains originated in San Bernardino, CA where I was born and raised. We used to drive through the original McDonalds restaurant on E street when I was a boy. Octagonal.
Once upon a time, a magazine called Playboy pushed young men to their erotic limit by showing them pictures of women's breasts. The Overton Window of erotic limits has moved several buildings over, Playboy is a relic, and fewer and fewer people get worked up over mammarial indiscipline. The thrill isn't quite gone, but we're getting there.
The wings at Hooters are frozen, pre-breaded grease sticks. The waitresses would have to be topless for me to order them (and eat one or two before dispatching them to the restaurant's dishpit garbage pail)
Hooters' wings suck. They are breaded and then tossed in the buffalo sauce. Real Buffalo Wings are fried naked, tossed, and then fried a little more.
Now there is zero reason to go to Hooters.
In related news, I just "re-Hooterized" my basement
He aims to return Hooters to what he described as its core identity — a casual place with a family-friendly vibe. Hilarious. Such bullshit. It was always about the waitresses and their boobs. It's why they call in Hooters.
The only thing worth a damn at Hooters are the fried pickles.
The restaurant industry has never fully recovered since COVID. Who really drops $100 to go eat out all the time? Especially when you can go to Costco and get buy the same quality for 1/3 of the price.
My wife asked to go there to see how the other side lives. We thought the food quality was superior to many national sports bar competitors, and she wanted to go back. We went 2-3 times, but it wasn't special.
The Hooters clothes and 'female sexual empowerment' strategy aren't different from general local bars and cafes that specialize in the weekend party/dating crowd. The issue is likely national franchising with ads and exposure to both left and right communities that make a big deal about it for one reason or another.
The Yelp/Google reviews were "3 stars", as some loved it and many hated it, giving 1 star ratings.
NYT: Males in feminine clothes? Social sims. Surprise.
I’m in Boston where graduations are happening. There is still a vibrant dining culture cultivating great chefs, there’s still plenty of investors funding new options and plenty of diners with $$ to spend. I’m waiting for my check after devouring a splurge of fried clams. With a peroni my bill might be sixty dollars…we’ll see.
why are men interested in getting a boner at the dinner table?
My one visit to a Hooters was around 2000, as part of a bachelor's night out before a wedding in Austin.
I wasn't impressed by the food or the help, who were OK but nothing to write home about, and some showed signs of hard living. The whole sports-bar aspect went over my head.
IIRC after that we went to an actual titty bar, which didn't hold a candle to Cheetas in Atlanta. I remember "Mia."
The restaurant business is doing very badly these days. The only way to survive is to be unique and offer something that a certain group of people crave. Becoming just another "family friendly restaurant" just puts you in a very large group of restaurants that are already failing.
Trevor Lefkowitz should be a consultant for Hooter’s Management. Maybe relabel them as Mountains of the Valley.
Or just call it Mahesh.
It's a restaurant and they're not talking about improving the quality of the food.
The only thing I dislike about Hooters is that the waitresses all wear panty hose. Yuck.
Maybe they were too risque by 2021 can we haz pics
"He aims to return Hooters to what he described as its core identity — a casual place with a family-friendly vibe."
With lots of nipples, albeit covered, protruding through white blouses.
It's Hooters, for chrissake. They didn't call it "Boobies," but that's the whole point (or two points).
If you're going to go "family friendly," just re-brand as something new and different. Why even try to overcome the "Hooters" baggage?
There's money in the IP that's why.
Wilbur said...
The only thing I dislike about Hooters is that the waitresses all wear panty hose. Yuck.
In some places that's a requirement for food servers. Don't ask me why.
I went there once, oddly taken there for my departure lunch by three female co-workers -- and they chose it! I, too, found it to be better food than one expects from such places, and it was kind of nice that the waitress sat down to talk to us. Although, unexpectedly, ours was the only one in the place that wasn't typically endowed according to the motif of the place (IYKWIM).
It was a sad day when Hooters went tits up...er, I mean went bust
"Hooters Says Bring the Kids”
“Daddy, what’s a hooter?”
I first went to a Red Robin around 2000 in Foster City. It was a good lunch time break from the office, which was a well-paid contract, so we didn't mind the high prices. I went 15 years later to one they opened in the Houston area with my family. It was far too expensive for essentially fast food and slow service. Don't think I'll go back for any reason.
New Owners to Re-Timesize the Times
"The effort is led by Nat Oakes, who was once an editorial writer for the newspaper and is now the chief executive. He aims to return the NooYawk Times to what he described as its core identity — an informative newspaper with real reporting and a commitment to factual articles that reflect the Marxist-Marcuse outlook. 'There’s a lot to clean up,' Oakes, 74, said in an interview. Under prior family control, he argued, the newspaper's editors sometimes slipped into more wishy-washy bipartisan marketing, notably a column by a Republican office-holder. 'So we've started with a decision to post photos of Glorious Pulitzer Prizewinners & Their Helpers from every epoch on all the newsroom and public lobby walls. The staff and readership just weren't familiar enough with our great heroes of the past. They think it is just Duranty. Not at all. Even before Walter, our great predecessors promoted the Russian Revolution with a staff of young reds. We deep-sixed the Holocaust in real time. Let's not forget that clever Jayson Blair. And so many others in between. The bill for the framing alone was extraordinary, let me tell you, but I'd prefer not to get into costs at this early stage.
" 'And we're doing more than that. We’re also getting back to what makes us a newspaper the whole family can read at the breakfast table, as opposed to a junky tabloid like some others,' Oakes said. 'The work has to start with the young, you know. We won't print the words blow job, for example, unless one occurs in the current administration and is therefore page-one news. Style on all other references will be 'oral-adjacent pleasure seeking.' Our readers' families may be liberals, but they still have their limits.'
"Although the nouveau regime is in full sway, perusing the Times issue of last Monday revealed a few blemishes. While it identifies climate change as the cause of some recent overseas governments falling, yet it quotes the Speaker of the House, a member of a banned party. Other issues still carry an occasional skeptical analysis of leftist policy, albeit only where that might affect the beautiful, priceless views from the management's resort homes.
"Will its reporters still be required to do their jobs in masks and black camo? 'It’s a current topic of debate,' Oakes said of the uniforms. 'There are advantages to anonymity. But we think the public should see just how activist our young bulls can be. Well, we have both bulls and cows, of course. Ha ha.' The puzzle-makers have also been slow to adopt all the right viewpoints. 'I'm going to fix their Sudokus, don't you worry,' said Oakes.
" 'We're not thinking only of our pals at the next booth in Soho; we also have to think of the retired schoolteacher in Wisconsin.' So the makeover is far from complete, but once the next elections produce their proper results, The Times should be able to show its full range of attitudes. 'You're going to be surprised by that,' Oakes said with a knowing look. 'We've dumped a few boobs, like Bari, and don't quote me but that Maureen may have to go back into the barn, too. Getting a little long in the tooth. Meanwhile, we have recruited some newbies from all over the globe -- from Havana, Caracas, and Tehran, just to name a few young stars we nabbed. There is no substitute for new blood. As long as it understands our past legacy and does nothing to tarnish that great heritage. It's All the News That Makes Us Pink.' Plus some that can be shaped into that model, he added. No shilly-shallying, and No-No-No-No to tyrants. 'We are going to paint this country red. A Times old readers can be proud of and a few new readers may even start to believe.' "
@ Leland - a Twin Peaks waitress in Wichita demanded I look at her tits. I did. They were nice.
@ Marcus Bressler - I would never order a waitress who wasn’t topless, but it would take a special mood to eat one.
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