Hooters
| Hooters | |
 | |
| Company information | |
| Company type: | Private |
| Industry | Food service |
| Products | Burgers, chicken wings, seafood, tex mex, full bar |
| Website: | https://www.hooters.com/ |
| Locations: | 420+ |
| Founded: | April 10, 1983 Clearwater USA 
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| Parent | TriArtisan Capital Advisors Nord Bay Capital |
Hooters is the registered trademark used by two American restaurant chains: Hooters, Inc., based in Clearwater, Florida, and Hooters of America, Inc. based in Atlanta, Georgia and owned by two private investment firms, TriArtisan Capital Advisors and Nord Bay Capital. The Hooters name is a double entendre referring to both an American slang term for women's breasts popularized by comedian Steve Martin on the hit comedy series Saturday Night Live and the logo (a bird known for its "hooting" calls: the owl). Hooters also had an airline, Hooters Air, with a normal flight crew and flight attendants and scantily clad "Hooters Girls" on every flight.
The waiting staff at Hooters restaurants are primarily young women, usually referred to simply as "Hooters Girls", whose revealing outfits and sex appeal are played up and are a primary component of the company's image. The company employs men and women as cooks, hosts (at some franchises), busboys, and managers. The menu includes hamburgers and other sandwiches, steaks, seafood entrees, appetizers, and the restaurant's specialty, chicken wings. Almost all Hooters restaurants hold alcoholic beverage licenses to sell beer and wine, and where local permits allow, a full liquor bar. Hooters T-shirts, sweatshirts, and various souvenirs and curios are also sold.
In 2015, Hooters announced that it is planning to open more than 30 restaurants in Southeast Asia over the next six years.
As of 2016, there were more than 430 Hooters locations and franchises around the world and Hooters of America LLC. owns 160 units. In 2012, there were Hooters locations in 44 US states, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and in 28 other countries.
History
Hooters, Inc., was incorporated in Clearwater, Florida, on April 1, 1983, by six Clearwater businessmen: Lynn D. Stewart, Gil DiGiannantonio, Ed Droste, Billy Ranieri, Ken Wimmer and Dennis Johnson. The date was an April Fools' Day joke because the original six owners believed that their prospect was going to fail. Their first Hooters restaurant was built on the site of a former rundown nightclub that had been purchased at a low price. So many businesses had folded in that particular location that the Hooters founders built a small "graveyard" at the front door for each that had come and gone before them. The first restaurant opened its doors on October 4, 1983, in Clearwater. This original location was decorated with memorabilia from Waverly, Iowa, hometown to some of the original "Hooters 6".
In 1984, Hugh Connerty bought the rights to Hooters from the Original Hooters 6. Robert H. Brooks and a group of Atlantan investors (operators of Hooters of America, Inc.) bought out Hugh Connerty. In 2002, Brooks bought majority control and became chairman. The Clearwater-based company retained control over restaurants in the Tampa Bay Area, Chicago metropolitan area, and one in Manhattan, New York, while all other locations were under the aegis of Hooters of America, which sold franchising rights to the rest of the United States and international locations. Under Brooks's leadership, the collective Hooters brand expanded to more than 425 stores worldwide. Brooks died on July 15, 2006, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, of a heart attack. Brooks's will gave most of Hooters of America Inc. to his son Coby Brooks and daughter Boni Belle Brooks.
The Hooters Casino Hotel was opened February 2, 2006, off the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. This hotel has 696 rooms with a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) casino. The hotel is owned and operated by 155 East Tropicana, LLC. It is adjacent to the Tropicana, across the street from the MGM Grand Las Vegas. As of 2014, it is the only Hooters facility offering lodging since a Hooters Inn motel located along Interstate 4 in Lakeland, Florida, was demolished in 2007.
As part of their 25th anniversary, "Hooters Magazine" released its list of top Hooters Girls of all time. Among the best-known were Lynne Austin (the original Hooters Girl), the late Kelly Jo Dowd (the mother of the golfer Dakoda Dowd), Bonnie-Jill Laflin, Leeann Tweeden, and Holly Madison.
After Brooks' death in 2006, 240 buyers showed interest in Hooters of America Inc., and 17 submitted bids, with that number being reduced to eight, and then three, before the selection of Wellspring Capital Management. Chanticleer Holdings LLC of Charlotte, North Carolina, which had the right to block the sale after a $5 million loan made in 2006, did so in a December 1, 2010, letter to the court. As a result, Chanticleer and other investors bought the company from the Brooks Family
In January 2011, Chanticleer Holdings LLC of Charlotte, North Carolina and others completed the purchase of Hooters of America Inc. from the Brooks family.
As of July 2013, Hooters of America owns 160 restaurants and operates or franchises over 430.
The company's first overseas location was in Singapore, and there are Hooters restaurants in Aruba, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Panama, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Russia, and one in the United Kingdom, following the closure of the remaining UK franchises. The three largest Hooters restaurants are in Singapore, Tokyo, and São Paulo.
On July 1, 2019, Hooters was sold to Nord Bay Capital and TriArtisan Capital Advisors. Full details of the sale were not disclosed, what was disclosed is, the Hooters' previous owners, Chanticleer Holdings and H.I.G. Capital, will both retain stakes in the casual-dining chain.
References
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Hooters ]
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