--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's been a rough week for your retirement account, your friend who imports products from China for the TikTok shop, and also Hooters. Hooters has now filed for bankruptcy, but they say they are not going anywhere.
--:-- Noel King: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Noel King: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Vox, you should know, is an independent publication. This means we rely on support from listeners such as yourself to produce journalism that we believe the world really needs right now.
--:-- Noel King: At Vox, we want to help you understand what is going on, not just that, why it is going on. And so we report on big, important issues that shape our world and also essential stories that other people neglect.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you would like to support our work, let's be honest, if you want to listen ad-free, go to Vox.com slash members today. That's Vox.com slash members.
--:-- Noel King: Support for Today Explained comes from Adio. Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management platform that Adio says is built for the next era of companies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A powerful data structure adapts to your business model, sinks in all your contacts in minutes, and enriches your business with actionable data. Adio says it also allows you to create those email sequences, those real-time reports, those powerful automations, which they claim can help you build what matters most, your company.
--:-- Noel King: You can go to adio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year. That's A-T-T-I-O dot com slash todayexplained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained. Support for this show comes from Macy's. Layering is an art form. All it takes is a bit of intention, style, and of course, the perfect cold weather staples.
--:-- Noel King: So find the perfect look for you with the help of Macy's Fall Fashion Guide, your one-stop shop for fall's latest trends and must-haves, curated by their experts.
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--:-- Noel King: Today Explained, Sean Rameswaram for him here with Peter Rothpletz. Peter's a writer, and recently, for the first time, he became a guy who writes about Hooters.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it was at that point that while I was hurting, 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: It was 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: The Hooters waitress is not your average waitress. They are, objectively speaking, beautiful women, and they tend to be rather scantily clad.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They are extremely friendly, extremely welcoming. And all I can say is eating a meal at Hooters is unlike any dining experience I'd ever had previously.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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 and I remember just sweating and feeling so uncomfortable.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it just meant the absolute world to me. She saw something going on at that table between you and your grandfather.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: And you shared this story while you were at the airport, hungover.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: I land at LaGuardia some five hours later. And I think it was already over 100,000 likes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What were people saying to you in response to this story you shared?
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: Part of the response I anticipated I thought that folks would be charmed by the story would find it sweet and sentimental.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A lot of them were similar, but there was a great deal of diversity as well.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: I note in the piece, Mike Dare grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and his father would take him to Hooters quite regularly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Mike told me that he was a very flamboyant little boy. It was clear from an early age that he was queer.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: They gave him bunny ears. And then as they're walking away, one of them turns around to wink at him.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And as he describes it to me, from that moment forward, he viewed Hooters as his safe space.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: And I'm quoting him there. He said it was his quote unquote safe space after that dinner.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He looked forward to going to Hooters.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: This one gentleman I spoke with shared how when he was just nine years old, his parents took him to Hooters in Atlantic City.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And as he expressed it to me, it was very obvious that he was gay.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: He says yes. She smiles. And as he puts it to me, it was one of the most important moments of his life.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he still lives in Atlantic City.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: And every time he passes that Hooters, he thinks back on it and reflects on that moment.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I spoke to a number of Hooters waitresses, too, who echoed all of these accounts.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's kind of funny to be having this conversation as we're hearing that Hooters is in some serious financial trouble.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: Have you heard from anyone who said like, wow, I really thought Hooters was all about something else.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I wish I had gone as a kid or as a teenager or even as an adult.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: She is depicted as a dim, I say in the piece, vacant-eyed succubus, a wannabe Stepford wife.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what I heard time and again from all of these queer people in my inbox was that perception is a slander as lazy as it is persistent.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: These women genuinely care, earnestly care about the folks who come into their restaurants and go out of their way to make everyone feel as comfortable and as welcome as possible, queer or not.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Peter's opinions about Hooters were published in the New York Times opinion section.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: Currently, the piece is titled Why Dads Take Their Gay Sons to Hooters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But at one point, it was titled Failed Conversion Therapy with a Side of Ranch at Hooters.
--:-- Peter Rothpletz: I prefer that OG title.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Onward to the origins of this restaurant when we're back on Today Explained.
--:-- Noel King: Support for Today Explained comes from Chime. Nobody likes fees and complicated banking, says Chime.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Chime gets that, says Chime. Chime is a financial technology company that says they understand that every dollar counts.
--:-- Noel King: So when you set up direct deposit through Chime, they say you get access to fee-free features, such as free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, so much more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Chime says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft, up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.
--:-- Noel King: Plus, they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can work on your financial goals through Chime today.
--:-- Noel King: You can open an account in two minutes at chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Noel King: Chime feels like progress. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's be honest. Are you happy with your job? Like, really happy?
--:-- Noel King: The unfortunate fact is that a huge number of people can't say yes to that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never wanted in the first place.
--:-- Noel King: But still, we stick it out, and we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've already put years into this place, and maybe the most common one, isn't everyone kind of miserable at work?
--:-- Noel King: But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It time to get unstuck It time for Strawberry.
--:-- Noel King: They match you with a certified career coach who helps you go from where you are to where you actually want to be.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Your coach helps you get clear on your goals create a plan build your confidence and keeps you accountable along the way.
--:-- Noel King: So don leave your career to chance. Take action and own your future with a professional coach in your corner.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer.
--:-- Noel King: That's strawberry.me slash unstuck.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Upwork.
--:-- Noel King: If you run a business, you know that scaling your business requires the right expertise at the right time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I sometimes wonder how many of you are running businesses out there.
--:-- Noel King: I would love to know. Please email me, noelle at king dot com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: With Upwork, you can find specialized freelancers in IT, web development, AI, design, admin support, marketing, and more.
--:-- Noel King: Experts who they say are ready to help you take your business to the next level.
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--:-- Noel King: Companies at every stage turn to Upwork to get things done and find more flexibility in the way they staff key projects and initiatives by accessing a global marketplace full of top talent.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Plus, Upwork makes posting your job easy with no cost to join.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com, Upwork.com.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Hey, kids. You want to do your dad a really big favor? Tell your mom you want to go to Hooters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Ty Matioski. I'm a professor of anthropology at the University of Central Florida here in Orlando.
--:-- Ty Matioski: And Ty, believe it or not, is putting the finishing touches on a book about Hooters and other restaurants like it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Hooters brand originates in Clearwater, Florida, April 1st, April Fool's Day, 1983.
--:-- Ty Matioski: This week? Yes, it's sort of an anniversary.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Wow.
--:-- Ty Matioski: So did people think it was a joke?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Called What I Believe, a Patriotic Statement.
--:-- Ty Matioski: And I believe in going to church every Sunday unless there's a game on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he makes a comment about what he thinks this part of women's anatomy should be called.
--:-- Ty Matioski: And you should only refer to them as Hooters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Tell me how it gets there. How does it go from a potential April Fool's joke to blowing up nationally?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: If you like what you see here on the outside, you're going to love what you'll see on the inside.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Televised sports, beach shack atmosphere and ambience.
--:-- Ty Matioski: The recipe for Hooters chicken wings is so secret, even our cooks aren't allowed to know it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Bar food that you can eat primarily with your hands and attractive, scantily clad servers.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Hey kids, you want to do your dad a really big favor? Tell your mom you want to go to Hooters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: So they would do all types of guerrilla type marketing things, dressing up in a crazy chicken suit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They would go out into traffic and try to direct people into the parking lot.
--:-- Ty Matioski: There was a famous kind of derelict boat that had been kind of half sunk in Tampa Bay.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: So this boat had a lot of visibility on the nearby roadway.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so people began to see it.
--:-- Ty Matioski: So they were like fully committed to the brand and making people know about it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: One of the things that kind of brought it to national attention was the 1984 Super Bowl was played in Tampa.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Super Bowl 18, a matchup between the two best teams.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Coach. Tom Flores. Yes, Mr. President. Congratulations.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One of the standout players was a running back named John Riggins.
--:-- Ty Matioski: John Riggins kind of had this outsider, edgy kind of rebel persona.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Somehow he found Hooters in nearby Clearwater.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Apparently he was spending a lot of time there rather than prepping for the Super Bowl.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'll start off by saying I'm bored, I'm broke, and I'm back.
--:-- Ty Matioski: It somehow got national press.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: By that point, you have this restaurant entrepreneur who became aware of the brand.
--:-- Ty Matioski: He made them an offer that he would take the Hooters idea and concept nationwide.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so you have this kind of beginning of this split in the Hooters brand between two companies.
--:-- Ty Matioski: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what exactly is the definition?
--:-- Ty Matioski: A restaurant where women are... kind of a variation of a stereotypical sports bar
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: The restaurant genre itself did pretty well in the years immediately following the Great Recession.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you have the emergence of brands like Twin Peaks.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Twin Peaks. Heaps, drinks, scenic views.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tilted Kilt. Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Cold beer never looked so good.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then multiple other brands that came out at the time.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Maybe the peak of the genre itself would be the mid-2010s.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After that, you have like this kind of convergence of forces that kind of put restaurants on the ropes, so to speak.
--:-- Ty Matioski: You have, of course, Me Too and Time's Up, where these types of venues came under scrutiny in a lot of ways.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Because, you know, a lot of times the servers have to endure or are subject to unwanted advances, not so nice comments from patrons.
--:-- Ty Matioski: When we get, for example, a customer, it's like a couple. You'll be surprised, like, the minute the lady goes to the bathroom, he'll ask you for your number or something like that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: This is just a restaurant to us. We're just waitresses. But to them, it's like you're an entertainer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So sometimes they're like, well, you're not getting this tip because you didn't entertain me.
--:-- Ty Matioski: You know, it creates kind of this dynamic has created problems.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this is how we get to Hooters declaring bankruptcy this week.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Is Hooters Inc. the one declaring bankruptcy or is it Hooters of America?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, it is the Hooters of America.
--:-- Ty Matioski: So the Hooters of America is the one that it was like had the wider geographic footprints. international.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was the one that was more highly capitalized.
--:-- Ty Matioski: The restaurants affiliated with Hooters of America were the ones that were experiencing the closures, the problems, things like this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hooters Inc., the ones primarily in Tampa area as well as Chicago, have remained pretty solid.
--:-- Ty Matioski: And now they're the ones that are looking to buy out their counterparts in the Hooters under the Hooters of America umbrella.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so I guess it remains to be seen if they will be successful.
--:-- Ty Matioski: It's a brand that now a lot of people have fond, perhaps, memories of.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, even though their primary clientele is like a male, 18 to 34, perhaps older demographic, families do go to Hooters.
--:-- Ty Matioski: Parents take their children to Hooters. Grandparents take their grandkids to Hooters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, there are high chairs at Hooters. The Hooters gift shop sells onesies.
--:-- Ty Matioski: So I think they recognize the reality of kind of the market situation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Ty Matioski: You really have to have a, you know, broad broadening appeal.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And do you think the original six owners of Hooters who came up with this concept in the first place and incorporated on April Fool's Day, 1983, had any idea that one day they'd be trying to better appeal to women and kids and be selling baby onesies?
--:-- Ty Matioski: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, that's kind of like what is notable and, you know, for some people special about the Hooters brand.
--:-- Ty Matioski: You know, it's kind of like these guys decided to, you know, start this place basically where they can hang out and be themselves.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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
--:-- Ty Matioski: I would be sad mainly because of my co-workers like I love them so much and I love working with girls all women yeah and we're just like a family and I feel like if we did close down tomorrow, then I probably wouldn't talk to them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I guess I would, but it wouldn't be the same.
--:-- Victoria Chamberlain: Our show today was produced by Victoria Chamberlain with a little help from our senior researcher, Laura Bullard, who visited a Hooters in her neighborhood for the very first time to talk to some servers for us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Y'all, Hooters is like, I've never been in a Hooters before and it's not going to be my last time.
--:-- Victoria Chamberlain: Those are the nicest women. Wow. It's such a lovely place.
--:-- Jolie Myers: Edited by Jolie Myers, Patrick Boyd mixed, Avishai Artsy, Gabrielle Burbay, Hadi Mawagdi, Amanda Llewellyn, Carla Javier, Miles Bryan, Peter Balanon-Rosen, Andrea Kristen's daughter, Devin Schwartz, Amna Alsari, Miranda Kennedy, and Noelle King make the show too with Breakmaster Cylinder on the ones and twos.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is distributed by WNYC.
--:-- Noel King: The show is a part of Vox. You can support our journalism by joining our membership program today. Go to vox.com slash members to sign up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I'm pretty sure that's also how to get this show without ads, if you're interested.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you.
