Sales of Hooter's Restaurants completed

ATLANTA,( Hospitality Business News) Jan. 24, 2011  -- Today, Hooters of America, Inc. "HOA" announced the completion of a transaction which transfers ownership of the company from the estate of Robert H. Brooks who passed in 2006 into the hands of a consortium of private investors, including Chanticleer Holdings, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CCLR) "Chanticleer".  Simultaneous with this transaction the investor group will also acquire Texas Wings, Inc., the largest franchisee of HOA.  The two businesses will come together to strengthen the Hooters brand worldwide.

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NOW goes after Hooters

The National Organization for Women filed complaints against local Hooters restaurants Thursday, but not for exploiting its scantily clad waitresses by subjecting them to leering and groping customers.
The subject this time was Hooters' catering to children.
The restaurants in San Francisco, San Bruno, Sacramento and Orange County are classified as "adult entertainment" establishments but also serve minors, NOW's California chapter said in papers filed with police and prosecutors.
What's more, the organization said, Hooters provides child menus, high chairs and booster seats, and sells T-shirts in children's sizes that identify the wearer as a "Future Hooters Girl."

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Two firms fight over Hooters

An Horry County judge approved the sale of Hooters at a hearing Thursday, but a legal battle is brewing between two companies seeking to buy the international restaurant chain best known for its “Hooters Girls” waitresses.

Chanticleer Investors LLC is trying to exercise a right to block the sale of Hooters of America Inc. to Wellspring Capital Management. Hooters granted Chanticleer “the right of first refusal” in a previous loan agreement that would give it precedence over any other bidder seeking to buy the company.

A sale to either company is expected to close before Dec. 31, said Jim Creel, one of the estate’s five executors, during his testimony.

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Hooters of America in buyout talks

Private equity firm Wellspring Capital Management is in talks to buy Hooters of America Inc., franchiser of more than 400 beer, boobs and wings establishments throughout the world.
Fortune has learned that the process began nearly a year ago, with North Point Advisors representing the Atlanta-based company. No info yet on financial terms, although the company is believed to generate around $1 billion in annual revenue.

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Hooters restaurant opens in Cardiff

Hooters, the American founded restaurant famous for its hotpant-clad hosts, has opened in Cardiff.
After a failed feminist campaign against the licence for the new food outlet, the high-energy restaurant today opens its doors as the first of its kind in Wales – complete with 56 Hooters Girls.
We went along to the VIP opening event which saw the Hooters Girls – uniformed in orange shorts and tight Hooters trademark vests – test out their newly learned dance and chant routines.

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Hooters security attacked woman who disputed bill

A woman claiming she was attacked by a security guard at a south suburban Hooters restaurant after disputing her bill filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the restaurant chain.
Livier Torres claims a Hooters security guard attacked her Jan. 10 inside a restaurant on the 9100 block of South Cicero Avenue in Oak Lawn after she disputed charges on her bill, according to a suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

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Move over, Hooters, other chains targeting men

TAMPA — Clearwater gave the world the Hooters chain of restaurants, and helped make it the global brand phenomenon.

Now a new generation of restaurants wants to reinvent the female-focused genre by offering more upscale food on one hand and servers displaying more skin on the other.

Amid a tough restaurant market, Brick House, Tilted Kilt, and Twin Peaks are expanding quickly into Hooters' home turf, deploying what they say is a secret weapon supporting their stretched T-shirt business plan.

That includes detailed, science-based psychographic modeling of customers and word-for-word scripts for servers – all geared to create the illusion of sassy banter that tweaks their target demographic of a single guy, aged 37.5 years old and making $45,000 to $55,000 per year.

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Supreme Court case involving class actions could affect waitresses' suit against Hooters

When Kianna Hawkins applied to work at the Hooters restaurant on Seventh Street in downtown Washington, she didn't think to read the fine print.

But a notice tacked onto the end of her application required the Howard University graduate to take any employment dispute to arbitration instead of the courts -- a provision that is now complicating her efforts to build a class action case against Hooters over alleged labor law violations.

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Thieves Lasso ATMs, Drag Them Away

Two men who were videotaped using a Ford pick-up truck to tow away automatic teller machines at local businesses are wanted by Delaware State Police.

From Aug. 14 to Oct. 22, the ATM thieves have hit two restaurants and one gas station in Delaware. In the early morning hours, their method of operation has been to break the glass of the business’ front door, tie a tow strap around the ATM, and then drag the machine out of the building.

The two men successfully stole ATMs from Buffalo Wild Wings in Bear, Del., on Sept. 19, and the Shell Station on Limestone Road in Hockessin, Del. Oct. 22. They attempted to tow an ATM out of a Hooters restaurant in Newark, Del., but the machine was bolted to the ground.

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Long line for New Hooters in Japan



Yoree Koh/Wall Street Journal

Customers lined up five hours

 before opening hour to get a

seat in the first Hooters in Japan.

 Hooters has come to Japan. The U.S. food chain beloved for its saucy buffalo wings, pitchers of beer and other assets opened its first branch in Japan yesterday. Doors opened at 5 p.m., but early birds wanted to make sure they got the worm.
The restaurant said the first customer lined up at noon and a steady stream of hungry diners – mostly male – followed suit, growing about hundred deep and swirling down the from its second floor entrance to street level. With about a two-hour wait in front of them, those who showed up after 8 p.m. had bleak hopes of getting the chance to see the famous Hooters girls that night. The restaurant closes at 11 p.m.

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Hooters opens in Japan

(Hospitality Business News) The first Hooters location in the "land of the rising sun" will open on October 25th.  The Hooters of Tokyo, Japan marks the 30th international country and 470th Hooters location where guests can enjoy Hooters nearly-world famous wings.  The store will host a VIP Party on October 23rd.

"We are very excited about this opportunity to open a Hooters in Japan," stated Hooters Executive Vice President of Franchise Operations, John Weber.  "The combination of population density, economic strength and demand for iconic American culture makes us believe this will be the first of many successful locations in the country."

Located in the Akasaka district near the Emperor's Palace, the Hooters of Tokyo boasts the same beach-themed atmosphere, menu items and iconic Hooters Girls that you can find in America and around the world.  The location can accommodate over 150 guests, features 11 TVs, a full liquor bar and has employed 90 residents as managers, cooks, staff and Hooters Girls.

There are 11 additional Hooters restaurants scheduled to open by the end of this year, including 7 international locations in Germany, Wales, Ecuador and Spain.

Phil Falcone tries to buy Hooters Casino

Hedge fund bigwig Phil Falcone is bucking the odds in his bet to be the new owner of Hooters Casino Hotel, the Las Vegas venture launched in 2006 by founders of the popular restaurant chain.

Falcone, who runs the $8 billion New York hedge fund Harbinger Capital Management, bought the casino's troubled $130 million senior loan, putting him in a prime ownership position for when the casino seeks bankruptcy protection, sources tell The Post.

But there's a glitch: Falcone isn't allowed to own the casino.

The investment guru and avowed hockey nut -- who skated for Harvard in college -- made a mint shorting toxic mortgages in 2007 and used a small slice of that fortune to buy a 40 percent stake in the NHL's Minnesota Wild.

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World's First Hooters Restaurant at an Airport Opens at Frankfurt Airport

FRANKFURT, August 11, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Hooters American Restaurant and Sportsbar opened its first airport location at Frankfurt Airport today. Entrepreneurs, Manfred Metzger and Bastian Klink, both from Karlsruhe, Germany, are the owners and managers of the new franchise operation of the famous American Hooters restaurant chain. Metzger and Klink said, "Hooters Frankfurt Airport will cater to passengers, the general public as well as the more than 70,000 staff working at Frankfurt Airport. We offer good food, fun and service, service, service. Our motto is Hooters makes you happy."

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Hooters Expanding, Seeks New Locations In Turkey, India, Japan

Hooters, the restaurant chain known more for its buxom waitresses than its chicken wings, fries and beer is looking to bring its “delightfully tacky yet unrefined”–that’s their slogan–dining experience to Turkey, India and Japan.

Those countries are some of the new markets the casual dining franchise will target in an expansion plan announced Thursday that would increase new restaurant locations by at least 15% to 20% annually for the next several years.

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Hooters Hotel loses $3.9 million, says bankruptcy still possible

The privately held Hooters hotel-casino in Las Vegas lost $3.9 million in the first quarter as revenue fell.

The loss was about even with the $4 million lost in the first quarter of 2009.

Net operating revenue of $11.3 million in the 2010 first quarter was down from $13.3 million in the year-ago quarter.

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Hooters in China

Reporting from Beijing — Sunday is a slow night for the Beijing Hooters girls. Jiang Xin -- or Summer, as her name tag reads -- takes the opportunity to teach the new hires one of their dance routines.


With smoky dark eyes and her all-black trainer uniform, 24-year-old Jiang is sexy, smoldering and standoffish until she smiles. This she does when she gently admonishes the girls to loosen up, laugh, and stop tugging at the bottoms of their shorts.

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Hooters on the block for up to $250 million

Hooters, the US restaurant chain famous for its buxom, scantily clad waitresses, is up for sale for as much as $250 million (£159 million), according to reports.

The company has hired North Point Advisors, a San Francisco investment bank, to advise on the possible sale and is approaching potential private equity buyers, the New York Post said.

Hooters’ chain of 450 owned and franchised “breast-aurants”, which stretches from the company’s Atlanta base to Nottinham in the UK, made more than $1 billion of sales in 2008.

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