ARTICLE TAKEN FROM LEXUS-NEXUS AND:
The Pantagraph THE PANTAGRAPH (Bloomington, IL.) October 17, 1999,
Sunday SECTION: News; Pg. A1
HEADLINE: Central Illinois is talking about the Hooters restaurants planned for Bloomington and Peoria. Is the chain simply; Chicken wings and 'Baywatch'? BYLINE: STEVE ARNEY
BODY: Editor's note: In light of the recent Hooters controversy, The Pantagraph sent reporter Steve Arney with photographer Jennifer Keeley to Davenport, Iowa, to see what a Hooters is really like. The following is Arney's report.
DAVENPORT, Iowa - A customer at Hooters says he stopped by just to sip a Coke and relax with two friends in a sports atmosphere. He is lying. You can think about baseball or recite Hail Marys or try to concentrate on the action on a big-screen television. But if you're a heterosexual male at Hooters, you'll find it next to impossible to not gawk. My apologies to our waitress, Lindsay. I tried not to stare. But dining at a place called Hooters, served by a waitress wearing a tank top and short shorts and showing a lot of cleavage ... I guess the idea is, I'm supposed to stare.
That's apparently what the fuss is all about as Hooters prepares to build a new restaurant at Eastland Drive and Hershey Road on Bloomington's east side and wrangles with Peoria government over a riverfront spot there. And that fuss is what sent photographer Jennifer Keeley and me to Davenport, where a Hooters has been operating for four years. Because we arrived an hour early for a pre-dinner interview with management, we drove around Davenport and took in the sights. It became clear that no matter what Hooters held in store, the most visually offensive thing we'd see that day was The President riverboat casino. Almost deliberately hideous. And unlike The President, or the Par-A-Dice Hotel and Casino in East Peoria, we knew no one would spend the family paycheck at Hooters. Jennifer and I ate well for $21.43. The restaurant itself is an adventure in overstimulation. Like a lot of chain establishments, there is stuff on about every inch of wall space. Beer signs. Sports signs. Photos. A jersey. Ceiling fans with little Halloween ghosts tied to them, spinning around and around. Nine television sets. Christmas lights. Young women in tight orange shorts and tank tops. When business is slow, they sit together on a bench or on a bar counter so the newcomer opens the door to a lineup of ladies. Sometimes they work with each other and tease the customers in pairs.
Not all of the women have the unlikely pencil-thin-but-large-chested bodies one imagines of Hooters Girls. All are sexy, though, and they carry themselves with that confident aura. The manager doesn't quiz women on bust size during the application process, but she does inquire whether an applicant will feel comfortable in the work uniform. The tank tops are optional at this restaurant. Long sleeves or standard T-shirts are allowed. No one goes topless, ever. All the waitresses on this Tuesday night - when better than 70 percent of the customers are men and only a few are women and children - have gone with tank tops. One wears roller skates. On the walls are modeling photos of women in bikinis. The souvenir stand sells calendars and playing cards of Hooters Girls, all model-beautiful, in sensual poses. The experience is like eating dinner while looking through the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Chicken wings and "Baywatch." All the shirts have this motto on the back: "Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined."
The funny thing about the Davenport Hooters is that the most striking employee is the one wearing the most clothes: General Manager Mary Gabel, 34. A great smile, gorgeous and bright, she wears jeans and a green polo shirt. She thought she was going to become a political science teacher when she began as a Hooters Girl in July 1995 while studying at the University of Iowa. She has bosses, but December will mark her second anniversary of running the show. She recalls feminists picketing before her employment began. As a hard-working businesswoman, she disputes the notion that Hooters symbolizes sexism and exploitation. "I have to say, I'm a bit of a feminist myself. I mean, coming to work after I just divorced from my husband, I was waiting tables and going to school. Suddenly I had bills and a house I had to pay for myself, and I had to find a means to do it. I would have to say I am a feminist. I don't have to rely on any man to take care of me. I make a very good salary." She says she promotes independence and staying out of unhealthy relationships. No one will be sexually harassed by employees, she adds, and any customer who gets dirty, even verbally, will either stop or promptly leave. Gabel says she's warned a few customers, and she's fired Hooters Girls for exceeding the boundaries, too. Her idea of things becoming "out of control" is an employee squirt gun battle that became a little too rowdy.
But years after it opened, the mainstream feminist movement still rejects Hooters of Davenport. Last summer, for example, the restaurant offered proceeds from its annual Charity Golf Owling to a domestic violence shelter. The shelter declined. Rejection has come from others, but Gabel also can think of instances in which she and other employees won people over. One waitress found herself shunned by church members who used to include her at breakfast after services. Finally she asked. They told her it was because she worked at a topless restaurant. She convinced them to come to Hooters. They did and the breakfast invitations resumed. Another worker, a teen-ager hired as a hostess, was forced by her mother to quit. Gabel talked to the girl's mother and sent gift certificates. The mother tried the restaurant. The daughter returned to work. Gabel speaks of fun and "energy level," and a waitress named Erica goes whizzing by on skates a short time later. Others have been known to jump rope and Hula-Hoop on the job. Gabel says she has experienced the stuffy, regimented atmosphere at another chain restaurant, and she won't stand for it. The Hooters corporation gives her autonomy.
Gabel selects her own promotions and charities. Davenport's Hooters leans to the Muscular Dystrophy Association but also sponsors an amateur hockey team and gives to a local agency that helps abused children. For one fund-raiser, titled the Underwater Ordeal, two morning radio personalities stayed underwater in a tank outside for 48 hours to raise money for MDA. The same people are bringing the annual "Pumpkin Drop" Oct. 29 to the restaurant grounds at Kimberly Street at Welcome Way. People pay $1 a pound for the pumpkins, and watch with joy as they are dropped from a crane. This year, the plan is to drop the pumpkins onto a trampoline. Another difference from the standard chain is the name, which is slang - derogatory, critics say - for women's breasts. Jennifer, the photographer, doesn't see it, but I detect a suggestion of the female breast when I look at the Hooters logo - specifically, the two Os, which double as an owl's eyes. I press the manager on the issue, and she blushes. Gabel eventually responds: "I imagine it just depends on how you want to perceive it. It is intended to create a little bit of ... you know, make people go 'Hmm.' Scratch their heads."
As for the quality of the food, it is not "great," as claimed by guys who rationalize going to Hooters because "they've got great food." Hooters has pretty good food. It's a restaurant chain. It's good as chain restaurants go, and it is possible for men to go to Hooters just because of the food. The wings are unique; the selection of oysters can't be readily found. And Playboy does, in fact, have some really good articles. Gabel says Hooters makes a terrific burger. Described on the menu as "HOOTERS (MORE THAN A MOUTHFUL) BURGER $5.99." I take her word for it because I have to try the chicken wings, the item most hyped by the chain. A customer tells me, "I think they've got the best wings I've ever eaten." I don't think they defeat the Thai wings at Rosie's in downtown Bloomington, but Hooters wings are quality, and they are different, coated with a thick batter that more resembles fried chicken. The coating is heavier than I'd like. Next time, I think I'll order wings without the heavy coating because Hooters offers the conventional kind, too, as described on the menu: "ALSO AVAILABLE UNBREADED - WE CALL THEM 'NAKED.' "