Hooters considering bankruptcy

[Rmay635703]

There was never anything worth going there for to begin with. The food is horrible and the other things inside the place are soul suckers.

Long ago the food was alright as was tilted kilt. (Talking 80’s and early 90’s)
Nord and TriArtisan Capital Advisors aren’t exactly confidence inspiring groups if you want the restaurant to succeed.

They like many places have cheaped out and gotten stale menus and let quality slide.

Many many food places have gone downhill recently, even Red Robin is struggling and you look and either a conglomerate owns them and a bunch of others or they recently sold / changed ownership or hit a hedge fund.

Red Lobsters quality and menu suffered greatly after the most recent buyout.

Guess all this is why over half of Americans believe they will be laid off in the next year and consumer confidence is also tanking, too many long standing businesses are getting run into the ground by incompetent owners.

 

[55hambone]

Wow, I'll need to keep abreast of the situation.

 

[Vil_Riker]

Wow, I'll need to keep abreast of the situation.

First you need to get to the bottom of it.

 

[notharry]

Never been. I dont (and never have) appreciated the referance. Family values, Female respect. Just over the line OMHO

They should make it a nationwide joint where the waitresses wear with no tops. They dont leave much for the imagination anyway and it may refurbush the interest. I... Still will not go.

 

[_Will_]

Only the occasional patron, food was always meh and service was hit or miss. If you got a server who was actually a good server and not there relying on other attributes it wasn't bad, if you got one that considered her presence an acceptable level of effort for a decent dining experience you were not going to enjoy yourself.

On a nice day, sitting on the deck at one near a Valdosta GA exit for I75 and feeding the turtles below wasn't a bad spot for a traveler to enjoy a sandwich, and one near McDonough GA was open one Christmas day and despite being mowed down by nonstop business they were still in a helpful mood and got my our order out to us correctly and still hot from the kitchen.

We do need to remember regardless of the food quality or theme, this is a lot of FOH and BOH staff who are now going to be entering an increasingly difficult job market, good luck to them.

 

[Kira]

Never been. I dont (and never have) appreciated the referance. Family values, Female respect. Just over the line OMHO

Couldn't agree more. I'm no prude but I don't do crass.

ME:
There was a long, rectangular building on a state highway the footage of which was 3/4 Hooters and 1/4 Firewaters.
The FW was one of only two. They had a wall of 60 taps. I never saw more than 12 in use and that's good as beer goes stale lying around.

Anyway, the kitchen was set between the two businesses. The best part was that the FW often had a table of good nibbles laid out. We'd go regularly.
Often, I swear, a Hooters Girl (aka a waitress) would come over from the kitchen and chat with us.
Were they just friendly or were they taking a break from the 'apprentice letches' next door?
My wife and I could always work the friendly side of a room.

And FYI:
As crass and sophomoric as the name is (and nothing will beat the outfield sign in Atlanta for graphic suggestion), the waitresses necklines were way up to the throat and they all wore 'cast iron', semi-opaque pantyhose.

 

[tedsweet]

keep making a product nobody wants

 

[y_p_w]

I guess their solution is "family night", as suggested by the founders. They seem to think that their old tame "wink wink" style of sexualized servers has gone too far. They still own several franchise locations that apparently haven't adopted that business model and they claim they have more families or even women as customers who feel comfortable enough to visit. This is a Bloomberg article, but it's been reposted (under license) by several websites.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/save-hooters-founders-plan-end-133902339.html​

What hurt the brand, as the founders see it, were decisions by its private equity overlords that took it away from its roots as a beachy destination offering good food and good service that was also family-friendly. Helping crystallize that view: a 2021 decision by Hooters of America to introduce new waitress uniforms that looked more like underwear than the retro jogging shorts the original Hooters referenced, along with theme nights where servers wore only bikinis.​

​

“You go to some parts of the country and people say, ‘Oh I could never go to Hooters, my wife would kill me,”’ Kiefer said. “That’s depressing to us. We want to change that.”​

*******​

The original founders of the brand sold the trademark around the turn of the millennium, but retained control of a core set of restaurants that now includes 11 in Florida and 11 in Illinois.​

 

[macarose]

It's hard to even imagine it now. But back in the early-to-mid '90s they were pretty aggressive with their pricing.

My mom visited Atlanta to see me way back in 1993. She loved malls. So I took her out to Gwinnett Place Mall. Turns out there was a Hooters nearby. My mom saw the sign and no amount of explaining would keep her away.

So we went. At one point one of the girls jumped down a few stairs and yelled out, "WHEEE!!!". My mom couldn't stop laughing and started to yell it out loud whenever the moment seemed inappropriate. She loved to publicly humiliate her young son.

Anyhow she was surprised how reasonable the food was and we both liked it. In the years that followed I would only usually show up at trivia nights where I knew my tab would be paid for. Then they created a pretty nice app. Free 10 piece hot wings for your birthdays and free appetizers once every few months. To-go. No strings attached.

I haven't paid for a meal there since Bush was President, or maybe it was Clinton. I did see two fights break out there with one of them landing on my table.

They closed down the one in my neck of the woods, but there is still one the next town over.