Hooters is the trade name of two privately held American restaurant chains: Hooters of America, Incorporated, based in Atlanta, Georgia, and Hooters, Incorporated, based in Clearwater, Florida.

Hooters targets male customers with a serving staff comprising only waitresses, although Hooters does employ males as cooks, hosts (at some franchises), busboys, and managers. The menu includes hamburgers and other sandwiches, steaks, seafood entrees, appetizers, and the restaurant's specialty, chicken wings . Almost all Hooters hold alcoholic beverage licenses to sell beer and wine, and where local permits allow, many offer a full liquor bar. Ancillary offerings for sale include T-shirts and various souvenirs and curios.

Between company owned locations and franchises, there are now more than 435 Hooters throughout the United States. The company has restaurants in 46 U.S. states, US Virgin Islands, and Guam. In addition, Hooters operates restaurants in 24 other countries, including Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Israel, Mexico, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Croatia, Chile, Australia, Panama, Costa Rica, South Korea, Greece, Venezuela, Spain, Switzerland, and Singapore - its first overseas location to open. Hooters plans to open its first branch in Dubai in 2008. The first location in Colombia was opened in Bogota in 2008. A Hooters was opened in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands in December 2007.

History

Hooters, Inc. began operations on October 4, 1983 with a restaurant in Clearwater, Florida. (Although a reference to "a building that allegedly was previously a walk-in dumpster called Fernando's Dumpster, Inc." appears in the Hooters menu, it is false. The Original Hooters took the place of a failed seafood restaurant. In fact, so many businesses had failed in that particular location that Hooters' founders built a small "graveyard" at the front door for each of the businesses that had come before them.)

In 1984, Robert H. Brooks and a group of Atlanta investors (operators of Hooters of America, Inc.) bought expansion and franchise rights for the Hooters chain. In 2002, Brooks bought majority control and became chairman. The Clearwater-based company retained control over restaurants in the Tampa Bay Area, Chicagoland, and one in Manhattan, New York, while all other locations were under the aegis of Hooters of America, which sold franchising rights to the rest of the United States and international locations. Under Brooks's leadership, the collective Hooters brand expanded from one restaurant to more than 425 stores worldwide. Brooks died in July 2006 of a heart attack.

The Hooters Casino Hotel was opened February 2, 2006 off the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States. This hotel has 696 rooms with a 35,000 square foot casino. The hotel is owned and operated by 155 East Tropicana, LLC (Florida Hooters, LLC 66.67% & EW Common, LLC 33.33%). It is located off of the Las Vegas Strip next to the Tropicana and across the street from the MGM Grand Las Vegas. It is the only "Hooters"-branded operation that is not operated by Hooters of America.Fact: date=January 2008 At this time it is the only Hooters facility offering overnight accommodations since a Hooters Inn motel located along Interstate 4 in Lakeland, Florida was demolished in 2007.