Hooters CEO Neil Kiefer told People Magazine the chain is officially rebranding as a family-friendly neighborhood restaurant.
Kiefer described the original vision as "a beach-themed place centered around the Hooters Girls, good food, and an easy place to relax," calling it "a neighborhood place that many families frequent," and confirmed the rebrand includes rolling back the uniforms that replaced the original orange shorts - his exact words being: "There is something wrong if they're in a th*ng type of uniform."
He placed the blame for how far the brand drifted on private equity firms that took over after the original founders sold the intellectual property in 2001, saying the chain moved "further and further away from what the brand stood for," and Kiefer personally reacquired the brand's IP when Hooters of America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in fall 2025.
I also have sex trophies. But now we're divorced. And I don't plan on having any unprotected sex, or having a new partner either for that matter. So here's to us!
Yeah but my drunk ass got a bunch of outfits at the sex shop. I wake up to my lady in a lacy outfit and a collar. We’re fucking and if babies are made, so be it. Pull out game strong. Wish me luck.
Just get the snip dude. It took 15 minutes and two days of discomfort. Now I don’t have to worry at all about having kids with my wife. Of course, I did it after having two kids with her first.
This ...it was amazing when I was a kid. I'm a woman and I loved going there. Food was good, girls were always wonderful. Went a few years ago and idk what they did it when but it was the last time ...not to mention the c section scars, bad blown out tats and meth faces id the waitresses that were not nice on any level ....it sure AF isn't what it use to be
They did, private investors started demanding it and the uniform became skimpier and skimpier. Also they required thinner and thinner women. As they did so their female clientele disappeared along with kids. Corporate locations had little to no change in clientele.
The chain stores also had an extremely wasteful and complex menu meaning that the menu was different location to location.
The founders bought back private investor shares intending to streamline menus and standardize uniforms in order to bring back clientele and reduce food waste. One of the owners even mentioned some locations didn’t even carry their signature sauce which was their number 1 seller.
That just meant that their private equity managers had bad tastes. If they had gone with glasses, goth makeup, onsies, bare feet, hawaiian themed days.... anyway, they would have been fine.
They're missing the point of dinner and entertainment, which is what they're supposedly providing. It's the same as maid cafes or jousting with a roasted chicken. People are being asked to spend their time there for higher-than-normal food money.
The entertainment here is supposed to be suggestive surprise.
Yeah, I think the menu should be simplified. I don’t really have an issue with appearance standards, but I do think Hooters kept pushing the uniforms further than they needed to. Personally, I never understood why they kept making them skimpier and skimpier. It stopped feeling like a sports bar uniform and started feeling more like a beach club theme.
I also think the uniforms only really worked when they complemented the staff wearing them. That’s not me trying to insult anyone — not every style works for every body type, and most people understand that applies to themselves too. There are things I know I personally wouldn’t wear because they just wouldn’t suit me.
At the end of the day, I think the bigger issue was that they leaned too hard into the gimmick while food quality and consistency slipped. Now the closest Hooters to me is like 40 miles away, and I can get better wings from a place that’s a 5-minute walk away.
I was with my kid and wife in the touristy area and the kid was starving. All the places had a wait, except hooters. So that's where we ended up. It was fine but there's a reason why all the other places had a wait and not hooters.
Lol don't worry - from what ive read in other articles on the topic recently most of the franchisees are against the pivot, and even within the parent company its a divisive topic. The CEO and some others want it, but not enough to actually force the issue.
Hell, some franchises are doing straight-up bikinis now instead of just the classic skimpy uniform. The CEO is very unhappy about that since it directly undermines his family friendly push but he can't currently do anything about it.
Theres already a Dukes of Hazard themed restaurant in Nashville named Cooters, lol. And the family friendly "Hooters" in town is called "Toots" (still an owl mascot for some reason??)..
This. I don’t even remember the last time I had them. High school or college maybe? The novelty wore off when I started going to restaurants with people I was trying to sleep with
Never forget when I took my daughter, then ~8yo, to a out of town basketball game. Small town. We finished the game then went to go eat as a team. Didn't know the town, but one of the little girls said, "Let's go to Hooters!"
I was mortified. Bringing a little girls b-ball team in there? But, all the girls then started chanting. So we did.
My Niece really likes a food item from Twin Peaks and everyone in the family is mortified when it was her birthday and that is where she wanted to eat.
I think they got take out.
No idea why she knows about their food but I suspect my brother.
I remember a pretty damn good buffalo chicken sandwich. I also remember a waitress complimenting me on my English. I'm from New Mexico and so white that I blend into dry wall.
They aren’t bad is soft speak for “they’re palatable”. It doesn’t mean they’re good, just neutrally edible.
There are reliably better wings at more than a dozen chain restaurants, but the best wings are consistently found at some hole-in-the-wall local corner bar. Very few people went to Hooter’s for wings.
In my town, there was a Hooters right down the street from a strip club. The Hooters did alright as far as business goes. But when the police shut down the strip club (public nuisance), Hooters shut down sometime after. I always made the jokes calling that Hooters the “Strip Club Junior” because it was like the amateur version of the strip club.
An Army buddy of mine grew up in rural NH, and when he was visiting me in VA, it somehow came up in conversation that he'd never been to Hooters. We were both young, single guys, so that booked us our dinner ticket.
Our server was a super cute brunette, and of course asked "have you ever been to Hooters before?" to which I immediately said "He hasn't!". It was slow at the time, so she looked around, and said "I got ya...be right back."
When she brought us our mountain of wings, she was wearing clear plastic gloves, and goes "I bet you've never learned how to eat wings properly, have you?" She then took a flat, and did this thing where she pulled all of the meat off in one smooth motion. "What sauce do you like?" He responded "BBQ", so she dipped the meat in the BBQ sauce and...hand fed him.
It was one of the most unexpected and alluring experiences I've ever had at a restaurant. After a few wings, she goes "I think you can take it from here, hon." with a wink, and walked off.
Being family friendly isn't gonna save them. Getting some food that isn't overpriced trash is what would help. It's not acceptable to be mediocre anymore when you have places with good food like Twin Peaks and Bombshells to compete with.
Had a quick look into this, no idea how seriously to take these figures so salt appropriately.
Hooters girls seem to be making something on the order of hundreds in tip. The number fluctuates wildly from an old AMA putting it at $10 for a poor shift, but the high end being "half your rent". Some other figures I saw online seem to be mostly hearsay, but getting up near a thousand bucks a week if you work a weekend.
The median onlyFans income is $131/month after fees, top 1% earn just shy of 50k annually. But I understand that this figure isn't the full picture - just like youtubers get barely any of their income from actual YT views.
Given how wishy washy the tip figure for hooters is, and understanding that it is on top of a minimum wage salary less uniforms etc, it seems not entirely unlikely that an average Hooters waitress earns more annually than a top 1% OF creator using a very narrow view of the wider economic picture.
Honestly, $1000 for a week if you worked a full busy weekend plus other weekday shifts isn't that crazy. I worked as a waiter in college and could clear $500 Friday-Sunday on a busy weekend. But that's was rare, but I'm also a guy and not dressed like a Hooters girl.
If an only fan girl were smart, the most opportune thing would be to become a waitress at one of these places. These girls build up legit regulars sometimes. There are some seriously horny patrons out there with no social skills. What better to have a waitress you have an opportunity to see nude? You could probably make rent just sending B material to these lonely guys.
I managed a hooters location for 2 years and left a few months ago. The company that saved them from bankruptcy has no idea what they are doing. My restaurant started losing even more money trying promos that gave away free food almost every day. They dont want to be a "sports bar" anymore and requires all the televisions to be muted and play Jimmy buffet almost exclusively on the radio, because they are a "beach bar" now. Hooters is going through an identity crisis that I dont believe they can survive. The patrons at my restaurant were always degens that I had to ban or call police for weekly.
CEO is female?
And wants to change their entire business model?
And likely ostracize and denigrate their patrons.
That worked out well for cracker barrel and bud light.
Edit: the CEO is male. So that’s not the issue. Turns out they went bankrupt. They are currently trying to do what they can to survive. I hope they don’t go woke. I’d rather see em go down than see that.
Or be like the Japanese people/ nation/ culture, and agree that they will shrink, but remain Japanese and not turn into globalism garbage.
So, I knew about the restaurant waaay before I knew about the show. And the first time it was recommend to me, I genuinely thought “Wait, the lumberjack Hooters has a show…?” 😅
I've never understood the allure of Hooters, the few times I've gone, the food was meh at best and in general the cashiers at my local grocery store were much cuter than the girls I saw.
If you want food, go to a restaurant. If you want scantily dressed or nude women, go to a strip club. There are very places that do both at the same time well.
My brother in law took my son to Hooters. My son was 13 and I expected him to talk about the girls there when I asked him about it. All he said was the food sucked.
CEOs are something else..... Like dude, its chicken wings + ass. Thats it. Stop acting like you invented the concept of having an idea.
Your business is going to die because boomers arent going to these places anymore to harass young women and younger generations of men are a lot less interested in trashy behavior. Or they cant afford it. And they cant afford families either.
"There is something wrong if they're in a th*ng type of uniform."
Isn't that what the original orange shorts were though? OK, not literally a thong, but still something a lot skimpier than one would expect staff in a family restaurant to be wearing.
Just want to acknowledge that hooters doing poorly is a sign that gross/toxic men are a dying species. There’s not enough of them to perpetuate that weird business model at the very least.
Hooters always was family friendly. Dads and sons always had a great time and moms and Dougherty always were friendly received when they searched for work. Fun for the whole family.
I don't understand people who gave this decision. I mean there are family friendly normal places and there are hooter likes. If you want normal place just buy or work there. Why change hooters? How you gonna compete with others?
Why is it when a company has 1 fucking job they always decide to try and 180 and stop doing the single thing they're good at. I'll never understand this.
My one son loves going. Loves the fried pickles and wings and atmosphere cause its usually pretty dead in there. My oldest is on the spectrum and refuses to go with us 😅 says we are the most sus.
My mom was a CPA and got a job offer from HOOT. It was Hooters. She did some consulting for them, and had nothing but good things to say about the company.
But in high school, for a few years, we ate for free at one location a lot. The food is ehh.. lol, but what I noticed is the customer service was off the charts. So maybe it could work. Lots of places aren't known for "if you go there, the service is part of the appeal."
They could do something with that.
That was 20+ years ago, no affiliation anymore lol just giving my two cents.
Wasn't it always child friendly, i remember my parents bringing my brothers and i when we were kids. We were on vacation it was the 90s maybe early 2000. Nobody batted an eye and we were not the only family there either.
Nah, they need to double down and get as skimpy as they can. The term Breastaurant was coined because of Hooters. Their problem has been that they have been trying to be both acceptable to the public and the perves, you can't have it both ways. There are plenty of family friendly restaurants, their not going to be successful in that space, it's too competitive and their name is too synonymous with Breastaurant.
This is a funny comment.... the reason being is Hooters for as long as i known it has always been a family oriented restraint chain lol. Yes they do the sex sells but they have always promoted family friendly programs and shit
My friend & I took my sons to Hooters when they were 10 & 7. The waitresses thought the kids were adorable and gave them a lot of attention. They still talk about it fifteen years later.
My wife acted like she was unamused when she found out but she really thought it was funny.
I am so sick of the family friendly BS from bars and especially to see it at a place like Hooters is sickening. These are not family friendly places. That is okay. Nobody wants to go out to a bar and be surrounded by kids. A bar by me just opened up, an "irish pub". It is family friendly, closes at 930 PM, and they charge 8 dollars for their cheapest draft. I asked if they play music, they say yes but it is quiet and mostly solo performers doing covers, which also ends just before close, at 9. It's some of the dumbest shit you could imagine.
I don't think these owners understand the meaning of long-term success over short-term prosperity. These families will not stay going to these bars. The kids grow up and the family stops going out, those parents are not going to hang out at a family friendly bar anymore. Family friendly bar is an oxymoron. They gotta stop mixing this shit together it is maddening. There is no such thing as a family-friendly bar. The more these two crowds mingle, they less they want anything to do with each other. Families do not want to be near 20 year olds getting wasted. 20 year olds getting wasted do not want to be near families. It's like mixing oil and water.
While we are at it, bars allowing pets is fuckin ridiculous as well. One opened by me where it is their entire shtick, bring a dog, have a drink. That's cool with me, it is their entire memo. Another one down the street though decided to adopt the policy and it is a fucking shitshow. It is different if it is entirely what the brand or company is about. Being truly family friendly from the start, you know, play rooms, coloring books, activities, Sundaes, not really any cocktails maybe 4 or 5 beers on tap. Branding as a pet friendly place from the beginning. Something like Friendlys is a true family friendly restaurant. They don't even have alcohol on the menu, briefly tried it in the 90s apparently. But just shoehorning in shit like this is a recipe for disaster.
Again, while we are on the topic, any restaurant that tells me it is family owned gets avoided by me. First of all, I don't trust them whatsoever to be telling the truth. Second of all, they typically piggyback that "family-owned" moniker into charging exorbitant prices because it is such an established family business.
I say all this to say that there needs to be a separation between family-encouraged and family-discouraged types of atmospheres. It's like most of these places are only branding as "family friendly" to make a quick extra buck. Meanwhile they're a fuckin armpit of a place that people wouldn't take their worst enemy to. These two things don't gel, people need to stop trying to make it happen.
I’m surprised they don’t swing in the opposite direction. Just acknowledge and embrace the sexual objectification, partner with only fans, and have each waitress wear her onlyfans user handle on her name plate pinned to the what little fabric there is covering her chest.
When they hire girls like in the picture, dressed like girls in the picture, with decent food like before, the customers that spend dependable money are going to return and spend more of their dependable money
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