Don’t Give a Hoot 4

A bit of a fuss down the road over a new Hooters (emphasis added):

“We all know what Hootersis (sic) about,” she said. “If it was a family restaurant, it would be called Scooters. The waitresses are scantily clad. They’re provocative, and I don’t know whether that kind of establishment belongs in a neighborhood shopping center.”

Marc Clymer, president of the Meadowood Civic Association that represents the neighborhood behind the shopping center, echoes those concerns.

If it were named Scooters and everything else were the same, there would be less fuss. Hooters is really rather innocuous compared to any Delaware beach in July.

The fuss about Hooters had more to do with its name than with the activities.

And, come on, despite the company’s occasional lukewarm protestations, everyone knows the connotation of the name. Just as everyone knows that a 15-year old boy does not look for a Playboy Maxim for the articles (though, back then, I did actually read all the articles too).

I know the area. It is suburban strip. It is highly unlikely that a business located on the main road will have any effect on the subdivisions that are mostly located behind the businesses. And there has been no misconduct associated with the other Hooters in the area.

No, they are protesting the name.

I went to a Hooters once. I had a week-long gig deep in the wilds of Gwinnet County, Georgia, in an area with lots of shopping centers and not much in the way of sit-down restaurants.

I was not impressed.

The menu was dull and limited and they didn’t carry my type of poison (and, for the business traveller, dinner is often the high-point of the day).

And, frankly, looking at the waitresses wasn’t fun.

It reminded me of the time back in the late 1970s that a colleague of mine took a bunch of us to the original Playboy Club in Chicago.

I know that part of the Bunnies’ job was to be looked at, and they sure were prettier and better turned out than the Hooters waitresses at the Hooters I visited, but I guess I’m more comfortable stealing a glance when I’m not supposed to than openly ogling . . . .

Plus, our waitress messed up my order. She actually put the cognac in the coffee.