Ty Matyoski
Appearances
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
bar food that you could eat primarily with your hands, and attractive, scantily clad servers.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
The original Hooters 6, when they initially launched the business, were looking for ways to drum up customers to get them to come into the restaurant. So they would do all types of guerrilla-type marketing things, dressing up in a crazy chicken suit. They would go out into traffic and try to direct people into the parking lot. There was a...
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
famous kind of derelict boat that had been kind of half sunk in Tampa Bay. And one of the original Hooters 6 swam out there with a can of orange paint and a six pack and painted the word Hooters on it. So this boat had a lot of visibility on the nearby roadway. And so people began to see it So they were like fully committed to the brand and making people know about it.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
And I don't think you can argue with the results in terms of like the success it had in terms of getting people aware and familiar with the Hooters brand. One of the things that kind of brought it to national attention was the 1984 Super Bowl was played in Tampa. One of the standout players was a running back named John Riggins. John Riggins kind of had this outsider, edgy kind of rebel persona.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
Somehow he found Hooters in nearby Clearwater. Apparently he was spending a lot of time there rather than prepping for the Super Bowl. I'll start off by saying I'm bored, I'm broke, and I'm back. It somehow got national press. By that point, you have this restaurant entrepreneur who... became aware of the brand, he made them an offer that he would take the Hooters idea and concept nationwide.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
And so you have this kind of beginning of this split in the Hooters brand between two companies. Hooters Incorporated, which is the original six owners, they would be the ones that oversee the Hooters in and around Tampa, Florida, as well as many in the Chicago area.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
And then Hooters of America, which became the kind of national brand for Hooters, and then would go on to have an international footprint within dozens of countries around the world. Over time, Hooters has kind of ebbed and flowed in terms of popularity, in terms of success, and was the bellwether brand for this whole genre, what is termed restaurants.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
A restaurant where women are... Kind of a variation of a stereotypical sports bar. So it's a type of casual dining venue where beer drinking, where meat eating, where televised sports is foregrounded. But it's probably most... known and well-associated with the types of servers that are employed there.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
The restaurant genre itself did pretty well in the years, like, immediately following the Great Recession. So you have the emergence of brands like Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks. Eats, drinks, scenic views. Tilted Kilt.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
And then multiple other brands that came out at the time. Maybe the peak of the genre itself would be the mid-2010s. Okay. After that, you have like this... kind of convergence of forces that kind of put restaurants on the ropes, so to speak. You have, of course, Me Too and Time's Up, where these types of venues came under scrutiny in a lot of ways.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
Because, you know, a lot of times the servers have to endure or are subject to unwanted advances, not so nice comments from patrons, etc.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
You have, like, this kind of power differential between young wage-earning servers, female servers, who depend on their livelihoods for tips, with these kind of older, primarily male customers.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
You know, it creates kind of this dynamic that has created problems.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
No, it is the Hooters of America. So the Hooters of America is the one that it was like had the wider geographic footprint international. It was the one that was more highly capitalized. The restaurants affiliated with Hooters of America were the ones that were experiencing, you know, the closures, the problems, things like this.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
Hooters Inc., the ones primarily in Tampa area as well as Chicago, have remained pretty solid. And now they're the ones that are looking to buy out their counterparts under the Hooters of America umbrella. And so I guess it remains to be seen if they will be successful. It's a brand that now a lot of people have...
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
fond, perhaps, memories of, you know, even though their primary clientele is like a male 18 to 34, perhaps older demographic, families do go to Hooters. Parents take their children to Hooters. Grandparents take their grandkids to Hooters. You know, there are high chairs at Hooters. The Hooters gift shop sells onesies. So I think they recognize the reality of kind of the market situation.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
And, you know, really no brand can be successful by just like focusing specifically on half of the population in order to thrive and be viable. You really have to have a, you know,
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
Yeah, I mean, I think that would be a stretch to think they had any inkling that this would kind of become the iconic brand that we recognize today. I mean, that's kind of like what is notable and, you know, for some people special about the Hooters brand. You know, it's kind of like these guys decided to, you know, start this business.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
place basically where they can hang out and be themselves, and it became this global phenomenon. Problematic phenomenon, of course, but nonetheless one that is an integral part of our corporate foodscape here in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Today, Explained
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I'm Ty Matyoski, a professor of anthropology at the University of Central Florida here in Orlando.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
The Hooters brand originates in Clearwater, Florida, April 1st, April Fool's Day, 1983. This week? Yes. It's sort of an anniversary. Wow. So did people think it was a joke? Yeah. And even the original owners behind the brand kind of saw the humor in six guys who really had no experience in terms of running and operating a restaurant, much less one that would go on to have such an iconic status.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
And so the actual name, Hooters, surprisingly enough, was inspired by a Steve Martin bit from one of his comedy albums of the early 80s called What I Believe, A Patriotic Statement. And I believe in going to church every Sunday unless there's a game on. and he makes a comment about what he thinks this part of women's anatomy should be called. And you should only refer to them
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
It got off to a shaky start in October of 1983, but by the following year, it had reaped considerable success locally that then blew up nationally.
Today, Explained
Pray for Hooters
The original Hooters 6 basically... men who had kind of blue-collar service sector jobs who wanted to find a place, according to them, where they could hang out, drink, and not get kicked out of the establishment.