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Fast Company
4 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Hooters is abruptly closing more restaurants: See the list of doomed locations in several states
Sports-bar chain Hooters has abruptly closed a number of locations across multiple states as its bankruptcy process continues. The restaurant closures come just over two months after Hooters of America, LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March. At the time, the company did not announce any closures but said it was reviewing its 'operational footprint.' Here's what you need to know about the latest Hooters restaurant closures. Which Hooters locations have closed? At least 23 Hooters restaurants appear to have recently closed, according to a Fast Company review of pre-recorded phone messages and Google listings. The locations have also been removed from the store locator tool on the Hooters website. The list was reported earlier by USA Today. The closures impact Hooters' locations in at least 12 states. Florida Sanford Orlando (Kirkman Road) Kissimmee (Osceola Parkway) Melbourne (Babcock Street) Georgia Atlanta (Peachtree Road) Douglasville (Douglas Blvd) Duluth (Gwinnett Drive) Valdosta Indiana Indianapolis (US-31) Illinois Rockford Kentucky Newport Michigan Flint (Miller Road) Taylor Missouri St. Louis (7th Street) North Carolina Charlotte (South Blvd) South Carolina Columbia Rock Hill Tennessee Murfreesboro Memphis (Peabody Pl) Nashville (Largo Drive) Texas Grapevine Houston (Farm to Market 1960 Road) San Marcos USA Today has also noted that two additional stores—Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Madison, Wisconsin—have been delisted from the Hooters website, suggesting their closures. What has Hooters said about the restaurant closures? Fast Company has reached out to Hooters of America for comment on the reported closures and to ask for a full list and closure dates. We will update this post if we hear back. In a statement to USA Today, the company said that the closures were of company-owned stores and were a 'difficult decision.' 'Here to stay' When it announced its bankruptcy in March 2025, Hooters of America published an FAQ about the restructuring, with one point stating that Hooters was 'here to stay.' However, as Fast Company reported at the time, the company's press release on the matter left open the possibility that Hooters of America may indeed shutter locations as the bankruptcy process continued. 'As part of the Company's broader business transformation and planning, Hooters is evaluating the Company's operational footprint as part of its financial restructuring process to position itself to invest its resources in its strongest assets moving forward,' the company stated in the release. It now appears that the company has indeed evaluated its operational footprint and has decided it is necessary for some stores to close. Why did Hooters file for bankruptcy? It's important to note that while in March there were 410 Hooters restaurants in 38 states and 24 countries, they aren't all owned by the same company. In America, many are owned by Hooters of America, which also owns the Hooters brand. However, the remainder of the locations in America are operated by franchisees, including Hooters Inc., which is one of the largest franchisees of the Hooters brand. Hooters Inc. is owned by the brand's original co-founders. It's Hooters of America that sought bankruptcy protection and not Hooters Inc. or any other Hooters franchisee. As part of its bankruptcy process, Hooters of America plans to divest its ownership of physical Hooters stores and sell many of them to existing franchisees. Hooters of America, LLC will then continue to operate as essentially a licensing company. It will strictly license its restaurants to franchisees and will cease operating locations directly. Hooters' transition from a partially directly owned restaurant chain to an entirely franchise-owned model comes after Hooters of America has faced struggles for years. Many restaurant chains, including Red Lobster, Tijuana Flats, Buca di Beppo, and Roti, have turned to bankruptcy as they have faced similar struggles. Those struggles include higher costs due to inflationary pressures as well as reduced foot traffic from cost-conscious consumers cutting back on discretionary spending, such as dining out. Hooters of America, LLC says it expects its bankruptcy proceeding to wrap up this summer. On June 10, the company will attend a conditional disclosure statement hearing and will face several additional hearings throughout the summer until August.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tallahassee Hooters abruptly shutters sole location
A little over two months after Hooters of America filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the Tallahassee Hooters, located at 2000 N. Monroe Street, has abruptly closed its doors after more than a decade of operation. ""Hi, thank you for calling, this Hooters location is permanently closed," a female voice said in a recording Wednesday when patrons called the restaurant. A "Closed" sign posted on the front door also signals the end of its Florida capital city run. "Please visit us at another one of our Florida locations. Thank you for all your support over the years," it said. The local closing of the bar and grill was one of many that occurred around the nation on June 4, which comes on the heels of the March 31 court filing that the company was restructuring as part of a plan to sell its company-owned locations to franchisees. News accounts point to closures in Detroit, Valdosta, Tuscaloosa, and closer to home in Jacksonville. "Hooters made the difficult decision to close our Jacksonville Southside location, effective June 4, 2025," a restaurant spokesperson said in a statement shared with First Coast News in Jacksonville. "By optimizing our business in support of our long-term goals, Hooters will be well-positioned to continue our iconic legacy under a pure franchise business model." Representatives from the local store declined to speak with the Tallahassee Democrat. Originating in Clearwater, Florida in 1983, Hooters, the brainchild of six businessmen and the largest chain in what the Associated Press dubbed the "breastaurant" genre of restaurants, which gained rapid popularity for its wings, sandwiches and burgers, but also for advertising attractive waitresses in tight shirts and shorts. The Tallahassee location's closure comes as foundational work continues on the neighboring Tallahassee Police Department's new headquarters, set to anchor the corners of Tharpe Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The restaurant was once part of the draw to the Northwood Center, Tallahassee's first indoor mall and home of the city's first Publix supermarket. In 2019, the city acquired the center as well as a 30-acre lot in a public auction for $6.8 million after it sat nearly idle for years. That made the city of Tallahassee Hooters' landlord. A city spokesperson said at the time that Hooters and nearby El Jalisco had multi-year, individual leases and were not within the development footprint of the coming police station. According to a previous USA TODAY report, Hooters restaurants have closed without warning across the U.S. since 2024. 'Like many restaurants under pressure from current market conditions, Hooters has made the difficult decision to close a select number of underperforming stores,' the Atlanta-based sports bar chain said in a statement to Nation's Restaurant News in June 2024. More: Hooters restaurants closing without warning across US, including these 4 in Florida Last year the chain closed 40 locations, including four in Florida. At the end of March 2025, the sports bar and grill chain submitted a bankruptcy filing in Texas after accumulating $376 million in debt. Kyla A Sanford covers dining and entertainment for the Tallahassee Democrat. New restaurant opening up, special deals, or events coming up? Let me know at ksanford@ You can also email your suggestions for a future TLH Eats restaurant profile. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee Hooters abruptly shutters sole location
Business Insider
16-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Hulk Hogan's beer brand is eyeing a takeover of the Hooters name
Weeks after Hooters of America's bankruptcy, the brand could be close to getting a lifeline from a longtime fan: wrestling legend Hulk Hogan. Real American Beer, a brand Hogan founded in 2024, plans to submit a bid for Hooters' intellectual property soon, a person familiar with the company's plans told Business Insider. If a bid was successful, it would allow Hogan and Real American Beer to create Hooters-branded merchandise, such as food and beverages, that it could distribute at restaurants, including Hooters locations, as well as at retailers and entertainment and gaming venues, the person said. Real American would license the Hooters name back to the restaurants under the potential deal, the person added. Hogan's company isn't interested in acquiring or operating the restaurants, the person added. The bid would need to be approved by parties overseeing Hooters' bankruptcy, the person said. The person declined to say how much the bid would be worth, but said that it would be an all-cash offer. The deal is in flux, and terms and potential buyers could change. Hooters of America, one of two companies that operate Hooters restaurants in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March. The company is owned by the private equity firms Nord Bay Capital and TriArtisan Capital Advisors. Hooters of America's restaurants are still open during the bankruptcy process. The company plans to sell some of its locations to franchisees who opened the first locations back in the '80s. Hogan and Hooters have a relationship going back decades. Hooters got its start in the 1980s when its founders opened the chain's first location in Clearwater, Florida — the same city where Hogan was born and raised. It's also where Hogan raised his family, and he still owns houses and attends church in the area. Hogan also appeared at one of the restaurant chain's locations last year when he threw TikToker Frankie Lapenna into a table, complete with a tablecloth featuring the chain's logo. Hooters was also one of the first places that Real American distributed its beer after launching in 2024. "Hooters has always been a big part of his life," the person familiar with Real American Beer's plans told BI. If a bid is successful, Real American Beer could distribute Hooters products using the same distributors that it already uses for its beer. Real American distributes beer at Walmart in 28 states, as well as at supermarkets including Albertsons. While his brand might not be interested in Hooters' locations, Hogan does have restaurant experience. He oversees Hogan's Hangout, a restaurant near the beach in Clearwater. In the 1990s, he also opened a now-defunct restaurant called Pastamania in the Mall of America in Minneapolis.
Fox News
16-04-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Hooters ditching bikini nights for over-60 crowd and families
Hooters is going for an upgrade. After the recent announcement that Hooters of America has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of an effort to enable a founder-led buyout and restructuring of the popular restaurant chain, the CEO of one of the two purchasing franchisee groups told Fox News Digital of plans to make Hooters "more acceptable to mainstream society." Neil Kiefer is CEO of Hooters Inc., the Clearwater, Florida-based company that founded the Hooters concept in 1983. Hooters Inc. owns and operates 22 Hooters restaurants in Florida and Illinois, with two more locations slated to open in Florida later this year. Along with another franchisee, the Hooters buyer group controls over 30% of the domestic locations, including 14 of the 30 highest-volume restaurants, said a March 31 news release about the restructuring plan. Speaking to Fox News Digital, Kiefer shared how he saw Hooters of America-run restaurants straying from the original founders' vision and making changes that were inconsistent with the brand — including uniform modifications and differing standards from location to location. (See the video at the top of this article.) "For over two years, we've been complaining," Kiefer said about the iconic orange shorts worn by servers. "[But] we only had standing to complain. We couldn't rule how the [restaurants] were being run." Kiefer said the shorts, as conceived in the 1980s, were "more of an athletic look." "Somewhere along the line," Kiefer said, Hooters of America "went to the more revealing" shorts, "which to us does not jibe with a neighborhood restaurant that some families choose to frequent." "You don't want to have a butt cheek in your plate," he added. "The [shorts are] supposed to be sized to fit appropriately. They're supposed to be athletic, not so much sexual." Alli Lamb, a 21-year-old Hooters waitress and bartender at the Boca Raton, Florida, location, said the uniform hasn't been an issue for her since she started working there. "Everything's covered," Lamb told Fox News Digital. "Nothing's out that doesn't need to be out." Kiefer, for his part, said the over-sexualization of Hooters, which has been called the original "breastaurant," tarnished the brand's image and created a perception problem. "I think that's one of the mistakes the people at Hooters of America made going down that route," he said. That is not an issue, however, at the Boca Raton restaurant, which is independently owned and operated by the original franchisee of Hooters. Chris Torelli, managing partner of the Boca Raton location and director of merchandising for Hooters restaurants in South Florida, told Fox News Digital the bankruptcy announcement initially led to some worried messages from customers. "It gave us the opportunity to explain that we're healthy," Torelli said. "We are a strong franchise, and all the other franchise communities are also healthy and strong. It just lays out what we need to do moving forward to keep the brand successful." That means catering to more than just an 18- to 50-year-old male clientele. "We want the kids. We want the families. We want the over-60 crowd. We want the college students. We want them all," Torelli said. "The best way to do that is to appeal to all those different demographics." Among the ways to revitalize the brand: Create universal standards for servers and hospitality staff, standardize the menu offerings and do away with weekly bikini nights, Kiefer said. "You don't want to walk in after a little league game with your team and have a bikini contest in the store," he said. Also, Hooters will "get the original sauce in all the stores," Kiefer said. The Hooters refresh could take up to two years, he pointed out. But the popular Hooters swimsuit calendar and annual Miss Hooters International Pageant will be sticking around. "That will remain," Kiefer said. "We may not have it this year … [But] there's nothing wrong with beautiful women." Lamb, who is preparing to graduate from Florida Atlantic University, appears on the back cover of this year's swimsuit calendar. She called the photo shoot in the Bahamas "a great experience." As Hooters of America stays focused on returning the brand to its founders, the company is "doubling down on everything that made Hooters legendary in the first place: fun, craveworthy food, unforgettable service and a guest-obsessed experience you can't get anywhere else," a spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "We are excited to welcome everyone to the next era of Hooters." "I'm here to serve your food and serve your beer," Lamb said. "If you think any other sort of way, then this isn't the place for you."
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
I visited Hooters and saw why the chain is facing bankruptcy
Hooters of America filed for bankruptcy at the end of March. The chain has struggled with debt and closed some restaurants last year. I went to a Hooters restaurant in Virginia to see what dining at the restaurant is like. Your local Hooters could see some big changes soon. The restaurant chain is famous for its waitstaff, who wear short shorts and tight tank tops. Starting in the early 1980s, it went from a single restaurant in Florida to hundreds across the US. Hooters even briefly operated an airline in the early 2000s. But at the end of March, Hooters of America, one of two companies that operates Hooters restaurants in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company is owned by the private equity firms Nord Bay Capital and TriArtisan Capital Advisors. Hooters of America's restaurants are still open during the bankruptcy process. The company plans to sell some of its locations to franchisees who opened the first locations back in the '80s. Neil Kiefer, the chief executive of Hooters' founding group, HMC Hospitality Group, told Bloomberg last month that post-bankruptcy, he wants to make Hooters more family-friendly. That would include getting rid of "Bikini Nights" and changing the menu to include better-quality ingredients, he said. I wanted to see what Kiefer and Hooters have to work with to make that transition. Hooters has a specific reputation — some call it a "breastaurant," after all — so rebranding as a family-friendly establishment would be quite a pivot. I headed to a Hooters a short drive from my home in Washington, DC, for lunch to see what it's like. Here's what I found: I visited this Hooters restaurant in Chantilly, Virginia, on a Thursday. Located about 40 minutes by car outside Washington, DC, this Hooters is near Dulles International Airport and several major highways and freeways, including Route 66. The parking spaces immediately around the restaurant were full, which I found surprising given that it was 11:20 a.m. on a Thursday. This Hooters had opened just 20 minutes earlier. The entryway looked exactly like I expected. These photos of women in bikinis and Hooters outfits were in a vestibule as I walked into Hooters. Once I entered the dining room, the hostess seated me right away. I was surprised by how busy Hooters was in the late morning on a weekday. While there were plenty of empty tables, the bar was packed, mostly with what appeared to be middle-aged or older men. One person was even dressed in business casual and looking at spreadsheets on a laptop. Overall, the restaurant was just under half full less than 20 minutes after it had opened. This Hooters location was a lot more lively than other challenged restaurant chains I've visited. When I visited a Red Lobster this past September at a similar time on a weekday, it was nearly empty. And a Cracker Barrel I went to during the summer was about half-full during prime breakfast time. The Hooters in Chantilly, by contrast, was a little busier than I expected. My server told me that many people there were regulars who work at office parks nearby and like to stop by for lunch. My server left me this personalized napkin with her name on it. Right after the hostess showed me to my table, a server came over and introduced herself. She also brought over this napkin, on which she had hand-written her name. All the waitstaff were wearing the same short shorts and tank tops that I'd seen in ads for Hooters. My server was very attentive to me, a guy dining alone, stopping by every five to 10 minutes to make sure I had everything I needed or just chat. If you're a lonely single heterosexual man, that might constitute great service, but it might not appeal to others. Hiring only "attractive servers that suit the male gaze is really alienating at least 50% of your dining population," Lilly Jan, a lecturer at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, said in an interview. My server was great, and at no point did I feel uncomfortable, nor was my wife bothered about me visiting Hooters. My (female) editor, however, was very keen to make sure I was OK dining there. I picked up the menu to decide what to order for lunch. The menu had a decent selection of drinks and food, though I'd read that the chicken wings were one of the most popular dishes here. The menu seemed like standard bar food, from three-patty burgers … The Hooters menu included beef burgers as well as a fried chicken sandwich. … to chicken wings that come in a variety of sauces. I ended up ordering 10 breaded wings, half in the honey Sriracha sauce and half with Hooters' Daytona Beach sauce, as well as some curly fries and and a peach lemonade. The server brought me my peach lemonade after a few minutes. The peach lemonade was served in a plastic orange cup. As I waited for my food, I noticed the TVs all around me. I counted 26 televisions around this Hooters restaurant. I don't spend much time in sports bars, but it seemed like it would be a decent place to catch a game or a UFC fight. Big TVs, or a lot of them, aren't as big a draw for restaurants as they used to be. A few decades ago, having a huge, flat-screen TV at home was a luxury. Now, it's pretty common. And many sports are now broadcast on streaming services or other easily available channels that people can watch from their living rooms. That has limited the appeal of bars like Hooters that cater to sports fans, Jan said. One exception is UFC fights, which still charge pay-per-view fees. Fans might be more tempted to go to a sports bar if they can watch the fight there and spend the money on drinks and food instead, Jan said. "They're paying for the rights to broadcast that in their places so that people don't have to spend the money to buy the game," she said. After about 10 minutes, my food arrived. My server brought an extra plate for the bones, which I appreciated. Of the two sauces I tried on the wings, I preferred the honey Sriracha. I liked the slight sweetness of the honey Sriracha wings more than the Daytona Beach sauce. A bit of ranch on the side provided a nice contrast. Hooters' chicken wings were fine. Reviews of Hooters' food often mention the chicken wings as one of the best menu items. I thought that the wings were good, though they weren't quite as crispy as ones I've had elsewhere, such as at Buffalo Wild Wings. Many restaurants, from Raising Cane's to Dave's Hot Chicken, have stepped up their fried chicken offerings over the past several years. That makes it difficult for a chain like Hooters to stand out, Jan said. "The whole category of chicken-heavy menus has just been blowing up a whole lot," she said. The fries were perfectly average. I would have preferred them fried a little longer. My meal at Hooters was fine, but not game-changing. The wings were not great but also not terrible, and the fries were slightly underdone. The peach lemonade was a little too sweet. With a 20% tip, I paid just over $34 for my meal. On my way out, I noticed this selection of Hooters-themed merchandise. As I walked by the display, I realized I couldn't remember the last time I saw anyone wearing a Hooters T-shirt or baseball cap. I have, however, seen people out in public wearing apparel promoting other brands, from the convenience store chain Buc-ee's to the burger chain In-N-Out. Jan said she never sees Hooters apparel when she steps into lecture halls filled with Gen Z students. It's rare to see Hooters merch even at vintage or thrift stores, she said. "There's just not an interest in sustaining that brand," she said. "And this is a generation that has their pretty ironic sense of humor, so that's pretty significant." This poster near the entrance promoted Hooters' catering service. Hooters offers catering as well as pick-up and delivery service. The restaurant's focus seems narrow for a modern audience. Many millennial and Gen Z consumers gravitate toward brands that match their own values, including social inclusion across genders and sexualities, Jan said. "This slightly dated idea of hot women serving you food is not necessarily part of that more inclusive generational narrative," she said. Overall, I wouldn't rush back to Hooters anytime soon. The food at Hooters was all right and the service was friendly. But once you looked past the scantily clad waitresses, Hooters felt just like other fast-casual dining chains that had their heyday decades ago. Kiefer, the restaurant group's CEO, had a point: Whether it's better food or something else, Hooters needs to give customers a better reason to stop by. Big turnarounds in the restaurant world aren't unheard of. Chili's, for example, has spent the past few years remaking itself via value deals and a cheeky social media presence to win over younger diners even as inflation made eating out less affordable. And over a decade ago, Domino's improved sales by revamping its pizza and admitting in ads that its food wasn't so great. Those are the kinds of moves that Hooters should be considering as it emerges from bankruptcy, Jan said. "I think that they really need to make some very strategic and decisive actions to modernize the brand," she said. Do you work in the restaurant industry and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@ Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
