Hooters is to ditch the revealing outfits in a new spin-off restaurant which will feature both male and female waiting staff – a huge change for a company known for it’s scantily dressed waitresses.
The restaurant chain, which opened its first restaurant in Florida in 1983, is known for its attractive young female staff who wear the uniform of skimpy orange shorts and a low-cut vest top with the Hooters logo emblazoned across the chest while serving chicken wings. The restaurant has long used the waitresses as a selling point and even sells a calendar of ‘Hooters girls’.
However, the restaurant – which used to have the slogan ‘Delightfully Tacky, Yet Unrefined’ and is often delightfully dubbed a ‘breastaurant’ – has also come under fire for objectifying women.
The chain has now announced the launch of ‘Hoots, a Hooters Joint’ which will open outside Chicago this month, reports the Tampa Bay Times.
While the branch will serve some of Hooter’s most popular dishes, the uniform for the female waitresses will be scrapped and the restaurant will also employ men – a first for the chain.
Hooters currently has only one restaurant in the UK, in Nottingham. A Bristol and Cardiff branch closed in 2012 much to the delight of campaign groups who opposed its opening in the Welsh capital in 2010.
The Cardiff feminist activists formed a protest in the city centre against the opening with the leader of the group Sally Hughes saying at the time: “We believe that Hooters would objectify women and we’re concerned that a Hooters in this area of Cardiff will contribute to sexual harassment of women in the city.”
The restaurant has previously denied claims it exploits women, saying the chain values women’s rights “because it guarantees women have the right to choose their own careers, be it a Supreme Court Justice or Hooters Girl”.
Read more at BBC.co.uk
