Oh, Hooters. The only restaurant where you have to try justifying that you’re going there for the food. Hooters has made no effort to hide their brand of appeal, so to say. After all, when the name of your restaurant is deliberately a slang term for breasts, you’ve picked your hill to die on. Or should we say your huge… tracts of land. Allegedly they have good wings though from what people say. Not good enough though to help provide support for Hooters as it turns out; the restaurant chain has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The restaurant industry never fully recovered after the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with people allowed to go to public areas again, fears of inflation and other rising costs have hurt restaurants all across the dining spectrum. Red Lobster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and so did TGI Fridays. Denny’s has been closing down locations around the country and now we can add Hooters to the list. Unlike those other restaurants though, Hooters has the issue of its branding it has to fight against as well.
As part of the Chapter 11 filing, the perky restaurant chain already has a plan to push forward. Reportedly, the current owners plan to sell all 100+ of their US based restaurants to two franchisee groups that already own some Hooters restaurants. One of those buying groups includes Neil Kiefer who is also the CEO of the original Hooters restaurant in Clearwater, Florida. One of the ways that Kiefer intends to turn the business around is by making the restaurant more family friendly.
“For many years now, the Hooters brand has been owned by private equity firms and other groups with no history or experience with the Hooters brand,” Kiefer said. “Our renowned Hooters restaurants are here to stay.”
While that seems like a tall order, at least the company seems to have a solid set of buyers in place, which is not a position other businesses find themselves in when entering a bankruptcy. The question that remains is if Hooters does go family friendly, is it going to give people more or less incentive to go there? Are people really going there for the food itself or for the sex appeal that comes along with the dining experience? Time will tell if this helps lift the brand and if their cups start to runneth over with good fortune.
