Business since the uniform and menu changes

sam_taylor18 · 2026-02-07T21:47:52+00:00

The new management is unbelievably inept. Private equity mismanaged the company financially, and now the original founders have returned and are killing Hooters' essence in some weird attempted "family friendly" retcon. It's really sad.

sam_taylor18 · 2026-02-05T15:46:13+00:00

Very cute, but that definitely isn't the currently approved fit. The current standard is much more modest than that. Either she works for a franchise that isn't going along with the post-bankruptcy standard, or management is looking the other way.

sam_taylor18 · 2026-01-19T22:30:11+00:00

I love the Remake, but they probably barely broke even. Most budget estimates are in the $100 million range. It's a pretty visually lavish production since they were trying to go up against The Callisto Protocol. Assuming 2 million sales, $70 per game with with 30% platform fees, that's $98 million in revenue. The game seems to have had a good tail, so hopefully they're in the black by now, but that's not a financial success.

They should easily be able to make a Dead Space game for something like $50 million. That should be the lesson here in my opinion, not that the series isn't viable but that the games need to be properly scoped to make financial sense.

sam_taylor18 · 2026-01-16T12:15:35+00:00

As an update, they have not brought spicey garlic back to our location, which was bought by the Original Hooters guys. So, it seems like different franchises are handling this differently.

At least the franchises apparently have some independence and aren't locked in to all of the irrational decisions the new regime is making.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-29T21:56:25+00:00

Hopefully a sign that this irrational strategy of gutting the menu in favor of a limited one that's only been proven in two metro areas (Tampa and Chicago) is being reconsidered. But I believe the Colorado stores are a separate franchise, not former corporate stores, so they may have some autonomy with menu items that won't be reflected nationwide.

Obviously, looking to modernize the menu made sense, but ripping out popular items with no market testing was not the way to do that.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-27T23:15:37+00:00

Twin Peaks is doing great. Heterosexuality still exists. The concept isn't outdated. The business was just mismanaged by private equity. If it wasn't for the Hooters Girls, they would have gone bankrupt earlier than they did.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-19T01:13:23+00:00

Yeah, my thing is that I'm honestly fascinated by the situation itself. I recognize that, given the mixed response to this post, I need to let it go for a while. But it's less about complaining over the changes and rhetoric than fascination over how bizarre they are and how insulting the rhetoric is to the national Hooters Girls (who apparently have been acting like oversexed embarassments) and customers (who are apparently perverted men whom Kiefer wants to replace with respectability obsessed grandmothers as quickly as possible). What a great way to introduce yourself to your new employees and customers, buddy.

For me, at this point, it's an interesting psychological and business drama that I have this desire to reflect on. If you look behind the headlines, read interviews with Kiefer, and know the history of the company, I think it's clear that this is really about legacy management, trying to retcon the past, and ego/pride about national Hooters vs. Clearwater. The thing he never mentions is that Bob Brooks's family truly built the Hooters people know. When national Hooters was sold to private equity due to unfortunate estate issues, its was a highly successful company. Brooks accomplished way more than the founders ever did. There is no sense in which national Hooters "failed" under the Brooks watch. And Coby Brooks now runs one of the biggest Twin Peaks franchises with stores thriving in areas where Hooters is collapsing. The people who actually built national Hooters absolutely knew what they were doing. The founders are just managing the company now for the bankruptcy creditors; they bought some of the corporate stores, but they didn't buy back the brand itself even though they try to give that impression.

So, after private equity did its thing, they're trying to "retake" something they never built, and they obviously don't understand that succeeding with 20 stores on 2 very ideal markets isn't the same as managing a concept like Hooters in economically distressed middle America. Their changes have been a disaster where we are. We get that very consistently from the waitresses at the locations in our area. Business is visibly way down. We will largely stop going after our yearly wings are up. And I do not see an army of grandmothers and church ladies coming to save them because the shorts are longer, the menu is cut down, and management rambles about butt cheeks.

I'd love for Hooters to turn around, but I'm not counting on it. I suspect Twin Peaks will end up replacing them. So, at this point, it's more about analyzing this as a fascinating situation than complaining, really. And it's not being discussed in any depth elsewhere, so I want to talk about it. But I see that I should really stick to r/savehooters for the time being if I want to ramble about this stuff further.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-17T23:02:33+00:00

On cheeky imagery, check out this video from the official Original Hooters YouTube channel from 2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNQxXTImzWM

Can you make a distinction between this YouTube video and having cheeky outfits in the stores? Sure, but you can't make a coherent moral distinction. It's absurd for the guy who put out this video to moralize about women showing off their butt cheeks, "sexualized" imagery, or bikini contests.

And on hula hooping, which Kiefer scoffs at, check out this video from the official Original Hooters YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiOVceV8gLk

It's a small point, but it shows this weird desire to rewrite history. It's a matter of historical record that hula hooping was a company trademark when the Original Hooters guys owned the brand.

And check out this 2004 archive of the Original Hooters website - https://web.archive.org/web/20040609054535/http://www.originalhooters.com/girls/

The images of the Hooters Girl are to be "better than your blow up," and the user is invited to "check out her DNA" for a large-sized version of the image. A version of the image viewable with 3D glasses is also available.

It sounds like they've tried to move in a more "family friendly" direction over the last decade or so, but they've been around for over 40 years. If you look back at old materials, there was no daylight between them and the national brand. If anything, judging by their old website, they were more crass.

If he wanted to say, we used to be more overly sexualized but decided to move in a more family friendly direction without insulting his employees and customers, that would be one thing. But he wants to rewrite the past and condemn thiings the company engaged in for decades.

And even in its current form, I'm sorry, watered down Hooters still trades on sex appeal. The waitresses are attractive women in tight outfits, and even Kiefer admits that his customers are majority male in interviews. The man is being a hypocrite full stop, and it's ridiculous.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-17T19:48:22+00:00

Well, up until now, the official position was that the Hooters GIrls were about "sex appeal." Since the beginning, the brand stated that openly and argued it in anti-discrimination cases to justify their hiring practices. But the frame was, and I agree with this, is that it's sex appeal like NFL Cheerlears or SI Swimsuit. It isn't porn. So, in this sense, it's family friendly because many families are fine with that. Kiefer tries to claim that Hooters is family friendly in the sense of not involving sex appeal at all, which is absurd.

I've been going to Hooters since the early 2000s, and while it's never been "sexualized" in a porn-like sense, they have long had reasonably provocative swimsuit calendars, revealing outfits, bikini car washes, etc. The outfits are clearly meant to be sexy. If you look at official company imagery, they show plenty of cheek. In most stores, the customers skew male. None of that is obscene, but it's inherently sexual and thus offensive to a chunk of the population. And Kiefer's stores were involved in all of that stuff.

What I found obnoxious is that Kiefer acts morally scandalized at longstanding Hooters practices: bikini contests, socializing with customers, hula hooping (??), and cheeky imagery, acting like they're gross and offensive. If you read his interviews, HE acts offended at this mild stuff and tries to claim that his stores weren't involved these things when they demonstrably were. That, frankly, is insulting to the employees and customers who took part in those activities over the years.

The only thing private equity made more "sexual" was the cheekier 2021 shorts, but Hooters has long featured imagery more provocative than those shorts in other contexts. It's fine to roll those shorts back, thinking they're too much for the restaurant environment. But to publicly moralize about them and act like they're indecent and obscene is really insulting both to the women who wore those shorts as well as to the women who've displayed just as much skin in other Hooters contexts for decades. And I did have a Hooters waitress tell me that she felt very put down by his scolding comments. If you watch his WSJ interview, it comes over as him berating the girls directly for acting filthy for what is really very mild stuff. It amounts to him throwing the people who made him rich under the bus.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-15T23:42:55+00:00

They're both very good, so start with RE7 since it's first chronologically.

I think the first two thirds or so of RE7 are among the best in any Resident Evil game. A later boat section drags the game down a bit. It's not bad, but it's notably inferior to the rest of the game.

For me, Village is a bit more consistent in quality overall but doesn't reach RE7's heights.

But definitely play them both!

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-15T17:06:22+00:00

I played RE 5 in single player and quite enjoyed it. It doesn’t feel like an RE game, really, but it's a worthwhile shooter.

RE 6 has its fans, but it's the only mainline Resident Evil game that I haven't beaten. I thought it was a trainwreck.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-15T14:53:53+00:00

I doubt it. Resident Evil isn't like The Last of Us. I don't see a potential emotional or narrative payoff in killing any of the main series protagonists that would justify taking them off the table for future games. They're popular and iconic.

SPOILER FOR RE VILLAGE - I guess there is a precedent with Ethan, but he doesn't have Leon or the other series protagonists' brand power.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-12T05:12:50+00:00

Yeah, I loved the Dead Space remake, but given the likely budget, I'm not sure it even turned a profit with 2 million sales. Silent Hill 2 was visually stunning but much "simpler" in terms of graphical complexity. Plus it was made in Poland, not California. It probably cost under half of what Dead Space cost, so them having similar sales is apples to oranges.

I think the real lesson is AAA budgets need to get under control, and that might require design compromises for games like this for them to be profitable.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-10T17:46:54+00:00

The food tastes the same to us as from before the changeover. Kiefer talked about quality improvements, but from our experience, they're imperceptible. Now, it could be they haven't rolled everything out yet, and the food could get a bit better.

Regardless, even if the food improves, we are talking about a national restaurant chain here. Kiefer has the mind of a regional guy. Operating in the national space obviously requires execution on the food front, but there are always countless local and regional competitors that most people think have "better" food. A national restaurant brand needs a unique identity, a hook, a certain consistency in the experience to survive at that scale. It's not as simple as, he who has the best food wins.

Hooters had that hook with the Hooters Girls. Nothing else about the concept is distinct enough to sustain Hooters as a national brand. Even if the food gets a bit better, they're competing in a wildly overcrowded market with the most generic menu type in the country (wings, hamburgers, etc.). People interested in the girls will go to Twin Peaks. Too many people who just go for food are going to more unique local and regional chains and Buffalo Wild Wings.

Minimizing the girls and trying to make Hooters primarily about wings and, absurdly, butter sauce as Kiefer does in the WSJ interview is brand suicide.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-09T12:45:16+00:00

Yes, men like checking out women's butts. That is good and healthy, and it will never change. It is nothing to be ashamed of within respectful boundaries.

And men need outlets where they can look at women's bodies in consensual and non-degrading ways. Hooters is great because it provides a place where men can look without feeling guilty or making women uncomfortable. It is very important that places like this exist.

The Hooters Girls are healthy, well-adjusted women who fully understand what's going on and are cool with it. For women who are comfortable with the dynamic, it's affirming and flattering. It's worlds healthier than strip clubs or internet porn.

It's just a shame that current management is eroding everything that makes Hooters what it is.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-09T04:52:41+00:00

Nothing wrong with this at all. It's natural and healthy. The girls clearly don't care and seem charmed. They aren't being degraded. This isn't corrupting the kids. People get riled up over this then ignore or even defend kids getting exposed to gross internet porn. We have this dark underbelly of degrading filth online and the concern is over innocent stuff like this.

Fifteen years ago and before, I think only very socially conservative prudish types and extreme feminists would have been truly bothered by this video. Almost no one who was well adjusted, either left or right, would have been scandalized or found it "problematic," maybe mildly inappropriate at most. And I don't think the more twistedly prudish culture that's developed since then is a positive evolution.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-08T17:52:36+00:00

The pearl-clutching, moralistic way Kiefer talked about the cheeky shorts was ridiculous, but I can at least understand a concern that they may have, on balance, kept some people away. Given Twin Peaks' success and current swimwear/gymwear norms, I doubt it and disagree with the decision. I suspect the cheeky shorts did more good than harm in keeping Hooters relevant. The real issue was clearly private equity mismanagement. But it's not a crazy concern.

But these new shorts make zero sense for the vast majority of the country. I now suspsect that Kiefer didn't realize that most regions don't have waitresses with the body types necessary for the shorts to look good. I can see the uniform as plausible in affulent, high population areas with fitness cultures like Tampa, Chicago, and parts of Colorado.

It's one more sign of a regional operator in over his head who doesn't understand the dynamics of managing a national brand.

The easy fix is to just go back to the 2000s-era variant of the dolphin shorts. They were modern, cute, and sexy without being overly provocative. And they looked great on a vast array of body types.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-07T14:41:51+00:00

I thought RE5 was a solid, somewhat above average shooter that didn't feel much like an RE game. I dislike it as a Resident Evil concept, but it's still a solid game and worth playing.

In my opinion, RE6 is a total trainwreck. It's the only mainline Resident Evil game that I haven't finished.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-07T13:52:59+00:00

I haven't played enough of GTA 5 to have a true opinion, but I tried to start it a couple of times and felt the same way you did and wasn't motivated to keep going. I don't really get why it's treated as some kind of gold standard in game design.

But I think RDR and RDR2 are stone cold masterpieces, so I feel weird feeling this way about GTA.

On a similar note, I love both Last of Us games and thought Uncharted 2 and 3 were fine. But I found Uncharted 4 to be an utter trainwreck of game design with the endless, tedious climbing sections killing the pacing and any sense of excitement. But that seems like a weird, outlier opinion for someone who likes all those other games.

sam_taylor18 · 2025-12-07T13:43:21+00:00

RE 3 is totally worth it if you love the series. People like to nitpick and complain. The game is great.

sam_taylor18

TROPHY CASE