I went to Hooters because I wanted to try the wings. I’ve heard that the wings at Hooters are really good. Maybe you’ve also heard that. You may not know from whom, you just know you’ve heard it. As an east-coast elite, my impression of Hooters up until I started planning my trip a few weeks ago was “restaurant with female waiters” and reverse engineering “O’Nutters,” the Hooters parody from Inside Amy Schumer.
I sort of thought it was a coming-of-age space for adolescent boys and their fathers— like mothers take their daughters to the OB-GYN at 16 for the first time to learn about their sexual health, and fathers take their sons to Hooters. As someone who considered it somewhat forbidden, I imagined going was a big deal. However, a friend who grew up in Michigan recently told me that her entire family went to Hooters all the time. From her account, it seems like Hooters isn’t an inherently private or erotic space like a strip club or a bathhouse, but sort of a sexy Chili’s with a patio.
Hooters is based in Clearwater, Florida, and has distinctly Florida energy. Their special wings are called “Daytona Style” which makes sense considering Daytona is the unofficial capital of boobs. It was founded by a few businessmen who wanted to design a restaurant “they couldn’t get kicked out of” and blew up to become iconic American culture. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the classic “Hooters remembers” 9/11 memorial t-shirt that goes viral every now and then, but what you may not know is that from 2003-2006, Hooters actually had an airline called Hooters Air, prompting them to make the shirts.
Hooters was quite influential in the years of 2000s chauvinism, and bolstered American, family-friendly interactions with women as sexual objects. Simultaneously, they have a storied history of supporting women’s issues and philanthropy. Hooters Inc. raised $710,000 in 2020 and $4M overall to fight breast cancer after a beloved Hooters Girl (RIP Kelly Jo) succumbed to the illness, and their 2022 winner of the Miss Hooters International pageant at Lake Tahoe, brings the Hooters staff to volunteer at hospitals every month. Their donations, made through the Hooters Community Endowment Fund, also known as HOO.C.E.F. (a play on UNICEF) are made annually to a wide range of causes, including Habitat for Humanity and the Special Olympics. Hooters is sorta wholesome, guys.
On the other hand, the times, they are a’ changing. An article about declining Hooters Yelp reviews shows how many Hooters customers lately are disappointed with their experience at the “breastaruant.” However, the article makes the point that these reviews aren’t necessarily accurate, they just reflect the attitude of their patronage- disgruntled, entitled men.
“The women’s curves, the bar banter, the deep-fried appetizers… all of them were once worthy of regular patronage, and more of a bargain, according to baffled Yelp and Tripadvisor reviewers. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of these dudes took “Make America Great Again” as a specific reference to their declining local Hooters — it’s all nostalgia for unrealized and unattainable fantasy. I’m sorry, you’re never going to feel like you’re at Playboy Mansion soirée walking into a heterosexual-themed eatery in Dayton, Ohio, and you’re not going to walk out without some kind of gastric distress.”
This article reminded me: nobody actually goes to Hooters for the wings. Was I a fool for trying to?
Luckily, I had a friend who encouraged my enthusiasm to make the journey to Fresh Meadows, Queens, and together we made the trek.
The first thing I noticed about Hooters is that it’s not that special. It really does operate like a family restaurant, and there were patrons of all ages, shapes, and genders in attendance. It had a TGI Friday’s-copycat menu, and honestly a lack of toxic-masculine energy that places it very close to the vibes of a Margaritaville. I felt comfortable and comforted by the wing sauce options, none of which surprised or challenged me. I also liked the “double humps” sign, it made me giggle.
We ordered boneless Honey BBQ and Daytona Beach wings, mozzarella sticks, “Hooters original fried pickles” and buffalo shrimp. The restaurant was clean and the servers were friendly, and our food came quickly.
The food was pretty good! We got boneless wings because neither of us were vibing with getting super messy fingers or faces, which in retrospect was a cowardly choice. Everything was flavorful, but everything was also heavily breaded and fried, so it eventually blended together. The fried pickles were actually my favorite part- they were super briny and the creamy relish sauce that came with them was tasty. Most of the food screamed “frozen and then fried” which wasn’t ideal, but I live for fried junk food sometimes so who really gives a shit. And the sauces were yummy as hell. The soda cups were an awesome color.
The Hooters Girl shirts are scoop necks, and the shorts are really really short, and in my opinion much more attention-grabbing. But these girls are waitresses, so you have to be REALLY DEDICATED to being creepy to stare at someone who’s constantly moving around all night. But that also made it kinda fun, like scanning the room for a cute girl.
It was almost impressive that I still found it somewhat uncomfortable to look at the waitresses. My friend was pointing out one lady’s shorts, and I was barely able to glance over before my eyes snapped back in front of me.
“Did you see?”
“I saw it, I saw it. Wow.”
Even though I was worried going to Hooters was embarassing on its own, I realized I’d done the most embarrassing thing possible: Travel by train and bus to a Hooters, order a huge meal, and be afraid to look at the waitresses. If there’s any place that’s as safe as possible to be a little creepy, it’s at an establishment named after boobs.
Accessing the one thing Hooters was designed for proved harder for me than I thought. I kept worrying the waitresses thought I was creepy, or were uncomfortable with the female gaze, or that I looked like mess. Absolute FREAKAZOID MEN regularly come here and I’m the danger?? What’s wrong with me???? Hooters is literally normalizing lust, and making it safe (debatable but I can’t emphasize enough how tame it is), and here I am struggling to dip even my toe into the water. I compulsively curbed every instinct to revel in the only unique service the restaurant provided.
Because I visited the restaurant the day before NYC Pride, an event I almost always skip, I had to ask myself an important question at the Hooters.
What does being gay mean to me?
I am bisexual and am closeted to many people in my life. Almost every family member, most people I have a professional relationship with, all acquaintances until I decide to drop some gay conversational material. And I never had a problem with this in the past. Why should I, or anyone? Queerness can be personal, and people who belong to marginalized groups don’t have a responsibility to reveal everything about themselves to everyone they meet. On top of that, I’m straight-passing in life, and am in a loving relationship with my cis-male partner.
People in the queer community can occasionally be concerned about “taking up space,” in spaces designed for other queer people. Rightfully so, intruding on spaces that are specifically outlined to be for the most marginalized among us is wrong, and these meetings are often barged in upon by unwelcome individuals, even if they have good intentions. Bisexual discourse, especially for bisexual women with straight boyfriends, centers around exactly this. Despite LGBTQ+ rights in the US being stripped before our very eyes, I could still manage to live my life with access to romantic and sexual love, however fragmented. In comparison to other members of the queer community, I have it about as good as it could possibly get. I use this fact to ward off any interest in making myself public, or offering myself the identity of a queer woman.
But when I look closer at that statement, it’s a convenient lie. It’s convenient for my family, who would prefer to know nothing of my sexual deviancy (or any sort of sexuality— one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make was going against my parents’ wishes and moving in with my partner). It’s convenient for tokenizing institutions that want to check boxes for queer people on their staff and diversity committees, but have no interest in engaging with queer interests and needs. And it’s convenient to me because I don’t have to do the hard thing of admitting to myself that I’m attracted to women, every day, all the time.
The impact Hooters had on me was it reminded me I’ve been eating a little too much fried food, it made me appreciate orange more, and it reminded me that even in the safest possible place to be horny, I can barely do it. But it’s nice that Hooters doesn’t give a fuck if I’m a woman. Hooters is for 14 year old boys who are experimenting with a place to look at adult women. Maybe we expand this tradition to baby gays everywhere, like training wheels for sexuality.
The take: Hooters is wholesome. Its heterosexual framework of flirtatious interaction is so facile, so risk-free, so “toddler fitting a round peg into a round hole” that it takes the pressure off the customer to be charming, witty, or even curb their instinct to stare. Maybe I can rest inside that safety net as I practice being unashamed of my queerness. I’ll still be a little uncomfortable, but no one’s making me change just yet. Plus, wings!