The “breastaurant” filed for bankruptcy this week. Many say good riddance, but Peter Rothpletz explains why he’ll remember his “conversion therapy with a side of ranch” fondly. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Further reading: Why dads take their gay sons to Hooters. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Hooters Girl Charmaine Fobbs as staff prepared for the grand opening of the Hooters Casino Hotel in Las Vegas in 2006. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why Did Hooters File for Bankruptcy?
Hooters has now filed for bankruptcy, but they say they are not going anywhere.
Last year, Hooters closed dozens of restaurants because of rising food and labor costs.
Hooters is shifting away from its iconic skimpy waitress outfits and bikini days, instead opting for a family-friendly vibe. They're vowing to improve the food and ingredients, and staff is now being urged to greet women first when groups arrive.
Chapter 2: What Changes is Hooters Implementing?
Maybe in April of 2025, you're thinking, good riddance. Does the world still really need this chain of restaurants? But then we were surprised to learn of who exactly was mourning the potential loss of Hooters. Straight guys who like chicken, sure. But also a bunch of gay guys who like chicken. Why exactly that is coming up on the show today.
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Chapter 3: What Sentimental Memories Are Associated with Hooters?
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Today Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Peter Rothpletz. Peter's a writer, and recently, for the first time, he became a guy who writes about hooters.
Yeah, well, actually, I was nursing a hangover in a small Colorado airport when I was just looking through Twitter and saw a report from Bloomberg that they were considering filing for bankruptcy. And it was at that point that, while I was hurtin', Waiting for my plane, I shared a story about a lunch that I had with my grandfather more than a decade ago at a Florida Hooters.
It was an annual tradition. I would fly down to Florida before the rest of my family, just a few days before Thanksgiving, so I would get to hang out with my grandfather a bit. He would pick me up at the airport. And we would then go out to lunch and chat about politics, chat about my soccer season, chat about changes to the Fox News primetime lineup. And this particular trip, I was 14 or 15.
This was when I was just beginning to question my sexuality. I was just beginning to realize that I was gay. I don't think I had quite admitted it to myself yet, but it was certainly top of mind. And then to walk into a Hooters, it was an experience. The Hooters waitress is not your average waitress. They are, objectively speaking, beautiful women. and they tend to be rather scantily clad.
They are extremely friendly, extremely welcoming, and all I can say is eating a meal at Hooters is unlike any dining experience I had ever had previously, and I can't quite compare it to anything I've done since. So we sat down for lunch. The meal was good, as I recall. We had chicken wings. Later on, my grandfather at one point gets up to use the restroom.
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Chapter 4: How Did Hooters Impact Queer Experiences?
And I remember just sweating and feeling so uncomfortable. And then out of the corner of my eye, I see our waitress who was very tall, was very blonde, a caricature of the caricature of the Hooters waitress. And she slides into the booth across from me. And I wish I remember exactly what she said, but I know it was something along the lines of, you're perfect just the way you are, kid.
And it just meant the absolute world to me.
She saw something going on at that table between you and your grandfather.
Yeah. I mean, who knows if it was how I held myself or how my voice quivered when I responded to her or how I never quite met her gaze or how I was just sweating my way through the lunch. But she could tell that I was not comfortable. And I don't know if that's because she actually clocked me as gay, but she... could tell that I was hurting in that moment, and she wanted to help.
And you shared this story while you were at the airport, hungover. I did. I really didn't think about it much. And then, of course, I get on the airplane. I don't have access to Wi-Fi. I land at LaGuardia some five hours later, and I think it was already over 100,000 likes.
What were people saying to you in response to this story you shared?
Part of the response I anticipated. I thought that folks would be charmed by the story, would find it sweet and sentimental. The part of the response that I did not anticipate was the deluge of direct messages from queer people who described very similar dynamics, very similar experiences. I describe it in the piece as a baptism into manhood.
Time and again, I saw the exact same refrain, conversion therapy with a side of ranch. These young men who... didn't know what they were being brought into, being coaxed into the family sedan and driven to Hooters to ogle some breasts.
Tell us specifically about stories you heard from people. Was it, like, just a carbon copy of your story, or were there, you know, some variations?
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Chapter 5: What Do Queer Individuals Remember About Their Visits to Hooters?
A lot of them were similar, but there was a great deal of diversity as well. I note in the piece, Mike Dare... grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and his father would take him to Hooters quite regularly. Mike told me that he was a very flamboyant little boy. It was clear from an early age that he was queer. And this one particular meal was seared into his memory.
He recalled his dad asking two Hooters waitresses to take a photo with him, kissing him on the cheeks. And... As he recounts it to me, they look at him, can tell he's uncomfortable, and say, we think he'd prefer this instead. They gave him bunny ears. And then as they're walking away, one of them turns around to wink at him.
And as he describes it to me, from that moment forward, he viewed Hooters as his safe space. And I'm quoting him there. He said it was his quote-unquote safe space. After that dinner, he looked forward to going to Hooters.
Wow.
Amazing. This one gentleman I spoke with shared how when he was just nine years old, his parents took him to a Hooters in Atlantic City. And as he expressed it to me, it was very obvious that he was gay. And his parents kept encouraging him to flirt with their waitress. In fact, they... pushed the waitress to flirt with him, again, a nine-year-old child.
And later in the meal, he excuses himself to use the restroom. The waitress finds him, kneels down and asks him if he's okay. He says, yes, she smiles. And as he puts it to me, it was one of the most important moments of his life. And he still lives in Atlantic City. And every time he passes that Hooters, he thinks back on it and reflects on that moment.
I spoke to a number of Hooters waitresses too who echoed all of these accounts. Lucy Wilkinson, who's quoted in the piece, who's been a server at Hooters for a number of years, said that she has witnessed this phenomenon many, many times to the extent that she now goes out of her way to comfort the queer kids that she sees being brought in by their family members.
It's kind of funny to be having this conversation as we're hearing that Hooters is in some serious financial trouble. Have you heard from anyone who said like, wow, I really thought Hooters was all about something else. And I wish I had gone as a kid or as a teenager or even as an adult.
Yeah, what I've learned in the past week or so is that there is a hell of a lot of love for Hooters out there, particularly from queer folks. And it's especially funny because I think if you just look at pop culture from Saturday Night Live to American Dad to Joe Rogan, the Hooters waitress is not presented well. She is depicted as a dim person.
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Chapter 6: How Do Hooters Employees Support Queer Customers?
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Hey kids! You wanna do your dad a really big favor? Tell your mom you wanna go to Hooters.
I'm Ty Matyoski, a professor of anthropology at the University of Central Florida here in Orlando.
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Chapter 7: What Are the Cultural Perceptions of Hooters?
And Ty, believe it or not, is putting the finishing touches on a book about Hooters and other restaurants like it.
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.
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
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.
Tell me how it gets there. How does it go from a potential April Fool's joke to blowing up nationally?
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.
If you like what you see here on the outside, you're going to love what you'll see on the inside.
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Chapter 8: What Is the Significance of Dads Taking Their Sons to Hooters?
Televised sports, beach shack atmosphere and ambience.
The recipe for Hooters Chicken Wings is so secret, even our cooks aren't allowed to know it.
bar food that you could eat primarily with your hands, and attractive, scantily clad servers.
Hey kids, you want to do your dad a really big favor? Tell your mom you want to go to 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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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