Hooters restaurant has closed at least 30 locations across the country, according to a report.
The U.S. restaurant chain, known for chicken wings and its skimpy “Hooters Girls” wait-staff outfits, and part of the HOA Restaurant Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last April in the North Texas Bankruptcy Court in Dallas.
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Locations in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina.
According to a representative for Hooters of South Florida, 15 independently and operated locations across the state are not affected by the filing. The group released the following statement:
“The Hooters Restaurants throughout South Florida and Southwest Florida - are independently owned and operated by Hooters of South Florida, the original franchisee of Hooters. We are not impacted by the filing of Bankruptcy by Hooters of America. We are operators of the brand you have come to love and trust for nearly 40 years. We are proud to give back to our wonderful communities and bring our Hooters hospitality to all the South Florida, Southwest Florida, Bradenton and Sarasota area locations. We will continue to operate our locations as we always have, stick to our quality brand standards and build on the foundations that Hooters is known for. Thank you for your patronage!”
Hooters of South Florida
Hooters, based in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in Clearwater, Florida, in 1983 by six businessmen with no food service experience who claimed they wanted to run a restaurant they couldn’t get kicked out of.
But its business strategy has faced challenges over the years, including lawsuits over hiring only “Hooters Girls” to serve customers. In 2017, the company tried opening a restaurant that didn’t feature servers in tight tops as a test of a different approach to its original concept.
Last year, Hooters agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a race and color discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to the lawsuit, a Hooters in North Carolina laid off 43 employees during the COVID pandemic, but recalled primarily white employees and Black employees with lighter skin tones once it began rehiring workers.
The company has also been forced to scale back as its financial woes mounted. In 2019, the Hooters hotel-casino off the Las Vegas Strip was sold to an Indian hotel company and rebranded as the OYO Hotel and Casino. Last year, the company closed around 40 underperforming U.S. locations.
Hooters had sponsored the No. 9 NASCAR car driven by Chase Elliott since 2017, but last year, Hendrick Motorsports ended its ties to the longtime sponsor because it was not meeting its financial commitments.
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