From start to finish, Hooters is a terrible place. The founders came up with the idea as an April Fool’s joke and were very surprised when it actually took off across the pond. They were so unserious they nicknamed it a ‘breastaurant’. Since then they’ve tried and tried to replicate their success here in the UK but unsurprisingly keep failing, because their business model is backwards and creepy. A franchise in Bristol closed after two years because staff gave a 12-year-old boy a boob-shaped birthday cake. A launch project in Manchester fell through because the mayors were vehemently opposed. They even tried their luck in Newcastle in 2015 but were rejected because Northumbria Police feared it would raise crime rates.
But now the lease has been signed. It’s coming to Newcastle. Along with it, it will bring an environment of misogyny and sexual objectification that makes women and their bodies into entertainment. It may have started as a joke, but the consequences are serious: amid an epidemic of violence against women and girls, it will contribute to the culture of seeing women as things to be used and to be enjoyed.
A new business brings in new jobs, but it is exploitative to offer these jobs for women to sell their bodies under the name of waitressing. Sure, they may apply for it voluntarily, but who really takes a minimum-wage hospitality job voluntarily? People take what is available. Hooters Girls positions being available is by nature exploitative.
Despite Hooters’ claims that it is a family-friendly restaurant, the revealing uniform reveals otherwise. There are plenty of burger places in Newcastle. The only reason you’d choose a Hooters burger over a TGI Friday's one is the amount of skin shown by the woman serving you. It is concerning that one of the new Hooters Girls hired is underage. Besides, an exclusively-female hiring policy smells strongly of discrimination.
And if it truly is a place for kids too, is this the kind of message we want to be sending? That waitresses must look sexy for us? That a meal out involves pathetically drooling over breasts (not chicken ones)? We should have moved past this type of thinking long ago. Until now, the only Hooters chain to be successful in the UK is in Nottingham. Do we really want to be the next one? Newcastle is supposedly a White Ribbon city, striving to end violence against women and girls. We can do better than this.