Hooters

• 1. Introduction

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  Hooters began as a joke that its own founders expected to fail. The American restaurant chain was incorporated in Clearwater, Florida, on the 1st of April 1983, and the date was chosen on purpose. April Fools' Day suited six local businessmen who doubted their prospect would last. Their first building stood on the site of a rundown nightclub, bought at a low price. So many businesses had folded in that spot that the founders built a small graveyard at the front door, one for each business that had come and gone.

  The name itself is a double entendre. It refers both to an American slang term for women's breasts and to the owl on the logo, a bird known for its hooting call. That owl eventually appeared above hundreds of restaurants, along with an airline, a casino hotel and a long list of racing sponsorships. The same name also collected lawsuits, formal complaints and decades of argument about what the chain really sells.

  From a single Clearwater building, how did a gag incorporation grow into an international business? What did the company ask of its waitstaff, and what did courts and critics make of it? And what happens to a brand built on one image when sales fall and that image has to change?

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• 2. Owners and Rivals

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  Lynn D. Stewart, Gil DiGiannantonio, Ed Droste, Billy Ranieri, Ken Wimmer and Dennis Johnson were the founders. The first Hooters opened its doors in Clearwater on the 4th of October 1983. Its walls were decorated with memorabilia from Waverly, Iowa, the hometown of some of the founders, who came to be called the Original Hooters 6.

  In December 1984, Hugh Connerty bought the rights to Hooters from those founders. Robert H. Brooks and a group of Atlanta investors, who operated Hooters of America, Inc., later bought out Connerty. Brooks took majority control in 2002 and became chairman.

  The business then divided into two camps. The Clearwater-based company kept the restaurants in the Tampa Bay Area and the Chicago metropolitan area, plus one in Manhattan. It also kept the right to develop a Hooters casino and to sell sauces in grocery stores. Hooters of America sold franchising rights for the rest of the United States and for all international locations. Under Brooks, the combined brand grew to more than 425 stores worldwide.

  Brooks died of a heart attack in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on the 15th of July 2006. His will left most of Hooters of America to his son Coby Brooks and his daughter Boni Belle Brooks. The sale of the company drew 240 interested buyers, and 17 of them submitted bids. The field narrowed to eight and then to three before Wellspring Capital Management was selected.

  Chanticleer Holdings LLC of Charlotte, North Carolina, had made a $5 million loan in 2006. That loan gave it the right to block the sale, and it used that right in a letter to the court dated the 1st of December 2010. Chanticleer and other investors then bought the company from the Brooks family, completing the purchase in January 2011.

  Twin Peaks, a rival franchise group, was started in 2011 by a number of former Hooters executives. Hooters sued, alleging that the departing executives had stolen trade secrets and management documents on their way out.

  On the 1st of July 2019, Hooters of America was sold to Nord Bay Capital and TriArtisan Capital Advisors.

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• 3. The Hooters Girl

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  A white tank top printed with the Hootie the Owl logo and the name of the location is the centerpiece of the Hooters Girl uniform. It is paired with short orange nylon Dolphin shorts. The outfit also includes a brown ticket pouch, or a black one with the black uniform, tan pantyhose, white loose socks and clean white shoes. The waiting staff are primarily young women, and their appearance is a main selling feature. Men on the staff dress differently, in Hooters hats and T-shirts with long pants, Bermuda shorts or attire better suited to a kitchen. The company employs men and women as cooks, busboys and managers, and some franchises use men as hosts.

  An older employee handbook, from before October 2006 and later published by The Smoking Gun, spelled out the pitch. Customers could go to many places for wings and beer, it said, but the Hooters Girls made the concept unique. The company offered customers the look of the "All American Cheerleader, Surfer, Girl Next Door."

  Female employees had to sign a statement that they acknowledged and affirmed three points. Their duties required them to wear the designated uniform. Their duties also required them to interact with and entertain customers. The third point stated that the concept was based on female sex appeal, in a workplace where joking and entertaining conversation were commonplace.

  As part of the company's 25th anniversary, Hooters Magazine released its list of the top Hooters Girls of all time. Lynne Austin, the original Hooters Girl, was among the best known. The list also named Bonnie-Jill Laflin, Leeann Tweeden and Holly Madison.

  Since 1986, the company has issued a calendar featuring Hooters Girls, with signings at some restaurants. A decade later, in 1996, it began the Miss Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant, a competition among Hooters Girls from around the world. The pageant once aired on Spike TV. Today it is livestreamed to Hooters restaurants and later posted on YouTube. In 2010, LeAngela Davis of Columbus, Ohio, became the first African-American woman to win the title.

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• 4. Wings and Wide Reach

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  Chicken wings are the specialty of Hooters, served alongside hamburgers, other sandwiches, steaks, seafood entrees and appetizers. Almost every restaurant holds a license to sell beer and wine. Where local permits allow, a full liquor bar is added. T-shirts, sweatshirts and various souvenirs are sold on the side.

  One tally puts the chain at more than 430 locations and franchises worldwide, with Hooters of America owning 160 of those units. A count from 2012 found Hooters in 44 US states, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam and 28 other countries.

  Hooters Air carried the brand into the sky. The airline had a normal flight crew and flight attendants, plus scantily clad Hooters Girls on every flight.

  The Hooters Casino Hotel opened on the 2nd of February 2006 off the Las Vegas Strip, in Paradise, Nevada. It stood next to the Tropicana and across the street from the MGM Grand Las Vegas. The property became the Oyo Hotel & Casino in 2019, and the restaurant on the site closed in 2025.

  In 2017, responding to declining sales, the company launched a fast casual spinoff called Hoots. Its menu is smaller than the original concept's. Servers there, both men and women, wear T-shirts and khakis.

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• 5. Sponsors and Causes

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  Alan Kulwicki won the Winston Cup Championship in 1992 in a car sponsored by Hooters. He beat Bill Elliott by ten points, the closest margin in NASCAR before the Chase era. On the 1st of April 1993, Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash near Bristol, Tennessee. Several others died with him, including Mark Brooks, the son of Hooters Chairman Bob Brooks. They were flying back to the track for Sunday's race after a sponsor appearance at a Hooters in Knoxville, Tennessee.

  Hooters stayed in the sport afterward, sponsoring drivers such as Loy Allen Jr., Rick Mast and Brett Bodine until 2003. It returned in 2007 with a Craftsman Truck Series team led by Jason White, Derrike Cope and Brad Keselowski. Six years later it backed Nationwide Series driver Nelson Piquet Jr. For the Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway in 2016, it came back to the Cup Series with a one-off paint scheme for Greg Biffle. From 2017 to 2024, it sponsored the No. 9 car of Chase Elliott.

  The Miami Hooters, an Arena Football League team that no longer exists, also carried the name. So did the USAR Hooters Pro Cup, an automobile racing series, and the NGA Pro Golf Tour, a minor league golf tour. Since 2012, Hooters has sponsored the Hooters Worldwide Wing Eating Championship, sanctioned by Major League Eating. The name has also been licensed for the Hooters Road Trip PlayStation racing game and for two mobile titles from Oasys Mobile. Those were a wallpaper application called Hooters Calendar Girl and a mobile game, Hooters Calendar Girl Tubin'. Hooters was also one of several real-world brands in the 2011 video game Homefront.

  The Hooters Community Endowment Fund, nicknamed HOO.C.E.F., is a play on UNICEF. It has provided money or volunteers to Habitat for Humanity, The V Foundation for Cancer Research, Operation Homefront, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Special Olympics, Muscular Dystrophy Association and Stop Hunger Now.

  Kelly Jo Dowd was a former Hooters Girl and calendar cover girl who later became a restaurant general manager. She was also the mother of the golfer Dakoda Dowd. After her death in 2007, Hooters began a campaign for breast cancer research through the Kelly Jo Dowd Fund. By 2010 the chain had raised over $2 million, and one dollar from each calendar sold goes to the cause.

  In 2009, Hooters partnered with Operation Homefront to create The Valentine Fund. It honors Thomas J. Valentine, a Navy SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer killed during a training exercise on the 13th of February 2008. The fund supports the families of US Special Forces service members and other military families. Valentine left behind his wife, Christina, and two young children.

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• 6. Objectification and Its Defenders

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  In 2010, the Orange County chapter of the National Organization for Women filed a complaint with several district attorneys, joined by three other California chapters. Their charge was that Hooters was "having it both ways." They called it a "legal bait and switch" for advertising itself as a "family restaurant" and admitting minors. Meanwhile it defended itself against sex discrimination charges by claiming the restaurant is based on female sex appeal. The complaint asked authorities to make Hooters either stop admitting children or stop discriminating by sex in hiring.

  Studies of "breastaurants" such as Hooters point to a cost for the people who work in them. Several suggest that working in such restaurants takes a psychological toll. Higher levels of objectification are associated with lower job satisfaction, and with more anxiety and more eating disorders.

  Others argue the opposite. In their view, feminism is about having a choice, and a woman who earns her own money in the industry she picks is empowered. Hooters answers its critics by pointing to donations to charities that promote women's entrepreneurship. It also says it often promotes Hooters Girls to management. Reportedly 40% of its restaurant managers are women.

  Under employment discrimination law in the United States, employers are generally allowed to consider otherwise discriminatory characteristics when they are bona fide occupational qualifications. A clothing manufacturer for men, for example, may lawfully advertise only for male models. Hooters has argued this defense, which applies when the essence of the business would be undermined if the discriminatory policy were dropped.

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• 7. In Court

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  In 1997, three men from the Chicago area sued Hooters after being denied work at a restaurant in Orland Park, Illinois. Each was awarded $19,100. Four men who filed a similar suit in Maryland received $10,350 each. The settlement lets Hooters continue gender-restricted hiring for wait staff. In exchange, the chain agreed to create support jobs, such as bartenders and hosts, that must be filled without regard to gender. Nikolai Grushevski of Corpus Christi, Texas, filed a similar suit in 2009 after Hooters would not hire him as a waiter. The two sides reached a confidential settlement on the 13th of April.

  In 2000, a federal jury ordered Hooters to pay $275,000 to Sara Steinhoff, a former waitress at the Newport, Kentucky, restaurant. She said that between October 1996 and October 1997 she faced unwanted sexual advances, demeaning behavior and recrimination from managers.

  In 2004, job applicants at a Hooters in West Covina, California, were found to have been secretly filmed while undressing. A civil suit followed in Los Angeles Superior Court, and the company responded with additional employee training.

  On the 11th of September 2017, Jade Velez, a former Philadelphia-area waitress, filed a lawsuit alleging workplace sexual assault by a former kitchen employee. It named that employee, three former managers at the Northeast Philadelphia restaurant and Hooters of America, LLC. As of July 2020, the outcome was still pending. Two men in the Los Angeles area, Paul "PJ" Cagnina and Scott Peterson, accused a male boss of sexual harassment. Cagnina settled in May 2017, and Peterson settled on the 16th of July 2019 with terms kept private.

  Chau Nguyen, an Asian flight attendant, was fired in 2006 after complaining that only white workers were being promoted. In September 2009 the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued on her behalf the North Carolina charter airline that was formerly Hooters Air. In 2012, Kisuk Cha, a Korean American immigrant, sued after seeing a racial slur printed on a receipt for his takeout order at a Queens, New York, Hooters. A hostess later confessed to printing it and resigned, and the case was dismissed in 2013.

  On the 2nd of April 2015, an arbitrator awarded former employee Farryn Johnson $250,000, finding that racial discrimination contributed to her firing. Her Baltimore store manager had told her in August 2013 that she could not have blonde highlights. Her attorneys argued that applying one set of dress policies to one group of people was racial discrimination. Ericka Whitaker, a Hooters of America senior brand manager, said she herself had worn blonde highlights as a Hooters Girl without trouble before becoming a brand manager.

  On the 22nd of October 2024, Hooters of America settled an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claim that black employees were not recalled after the COVID-19 pandemic at the same levels as white employees. Hooters paid $250,000 and signed a consent decree forbidding standards that allow the use of color or race.

  A Michigan employee sued in May 2010 after two women at the Atlanta headquarters told her in a performance review that her shirt and short size could use improvement. Michigan is the only state that lists height and weight as bounds for non-discrimination in hiring. She alleged she was offered a free gym membership and told she would be terminated if she did not improve in 30 days. The company denied threatening to fire the plaintiffs, and the suit was settled out of court.

  Sam Nicholson brought a class-action suit in June 1995 on behalf of 1,320 others who said they had received unsolicited advertising faxes from Hooters of Augusta Inc. In 2001, a jury found the violations willful under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Each plaintiff had received six faxes, with a $500 fine per fax, for $3,000 each. Hooters of America paid out $11 million.

  Jodee Berry, a waitress at a Hooters in Panama City Beach, Florida, won a beer sales contest in 2001. The promised prize was a new Toyota. Her manager handed her a toy Yoda instead, claiming the contest was an April Fool's Day joke. Berry sued the local franchisee, Gulf Coast Wings, and later reached a settlement.

  In 2012, former employee Jheri Stratton filed suit after catching tuberculosis from one of her managers.

  On the 22nd of August 2024, Hendrick Motorsports announced it would sue Hooters for $1.705 million plus unpaid sponsorship fees. On the 21st of March 2025, it was reported that Hooters had agreed to pay $900K.

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• 8. Bankruptcy and Rebrand

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  In June 2024, Hooters of America abruptly closed about 40 locations it judged to be underperforming. It blamed rising costs and a decline in sales. By the 21st of February 2025, reports said the company was preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection within months. On the 31st of March 2025, it filed, aiming to move ahead with a sale of all its company-owned restaurants to franchisees. The company initially had no plans to close restaurants and said they would stay open during the process. At that moment the chain had 305 restaurants globally, including 151 operated by Hooters of America. By the 4th of June 2025, more than 30 locations in 12 states had closed for good.

  Sales at Hooters of America shrank from $1.2 billion in 2009 to $678 million in 2024. Per-store sales at its own restaurants were less than half those at restaurants run by the Clearwater-based company.

  In October 2025, the Clearwater-based company and a group of other franchisees bought the Atlanta-based company out of bankruptcy.

  On the 16th of February 2026, the last Hooters on Long Island, in Farmingdale, New York, closed. On the 22nd of March 2026, the Hooters at Mall of America shut its doors after 33 years there.

  The founders still operate the Clearwater-based company, with its 22 restaurants. They plan to "de-sexualize" the image of Hooters. Attire is to become slightly more modest, bikini nights are to end, and the chain is to return to its family friendlier roots. They also intend to improve the food and reinvest in the restaurants. Those 22 Clearwater restaurants are where that plan will be tested first.

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