"hooters" news and stories

In what seems like a cruel trick intended to lure a certain breed of romantically inept male to relationship doom, Hooters is touting itself as the perfect Valentine's Day destination. The tagline for the overly buxom restaurant chain's V-Day promotion? "Forget the ring and bring her in for wings."

Aww...just what every lucky lady wants to hear on the most romantic day of the year. Who needs a Hallmark card, chocolate and flowers when you can give her a plate of 20 wings for the price of 10 and a side of...well, you know what.

The NFL kicks off its regular season in just a couple weeks, and for millions of fantasy football fans again this year, what happens online will be just as important as what happens on the gridiron. A number of restaurant chains are getting in on the act, with deals and prizes aimed at transforming football fantasy into reality.

Here is a round-up of some, as reported by Nation's Restaurant News:

Papa John's:
Winners of Papa John's "Ultimate 'Fantasy to Reality' Experience" will score a trip to the 2011 NFL Draft in New York, while another group of winners will receive free pizzas on Sept. 9 (NFL kick-off day) delivered by Minnesota Vikings all-pro receiver Chris Carter. To enter, log on to Papa John's Facebook page and explain why your fantasy football league is better than all the rest.

Get more deals after the jump...

A Texas-based sports bar is launching a full-frontal assault on Hooters' dominance in the scantily-clad server category, announcing plans to take its "bikini babe" concept nationwide.

"Our competition has been getting stale," says Doug Guller, who opened his first Bikinis Sports Bar and Grill in North Austin in 2006. "If they're Microsoft, we're Apple."

Guller isn't the only entrepreneur who suspects Hooters' sovereignty is waning: Heart Attack Grill, with its sexy "nurse-waitresses" and the Tilted Kilt chain, where servers wear tartan bras and short skirts, are among the more notable recent attempts at improving upon the concept pioneered back in 1983 by Hooters, a chain that's lately been getting attention for its struggles in Vegas and less-than-flattering cameo appearance on Undercover Boss.

"The market is growing," Guller confirms.

A Phoenix high-school choir director is on leave after taking students to a downtown Hooters restaurant after a performance last week.

Mary Segall, choir director at Paradise Valley High School, took 40 students to Hooters after a performance at the Arizona Center. Segall told the principal that the Hooters, famous for its buxom wait staff in skimpy attire, was the only restaurant that could accommodate a group of that size, the Arizona Republic reports.

But the school administration sees things differently.

"There were many other restaurants available in the downtown Phoenix area in easy proximity to the Arizona Center and I know that because I called about them," district spokeswoman Judi Willis told Slashfood. "I called 20 and 17 said yes they could accommodate the group."

Willis said the school had received complaints from both parents and students who were unhappy with the Hooters outing, citing the waitresses' attire as the cause for concern.

Some time last year, we read about the controversial restaurant called Hitler's Cross in Mumbai. It didn't take long for the place to get some major media hype and eventually change its name.

Apparently, bad restaurant names aren't an affliction that eludes enough restaurants. Radar Online has done a funny piece looking at restaurants where the owner probably wasn't thinking very broadly when choosing a name. Granted, in some cases, a pun or a campy name is chosen on purpose for the attention (really now, do we believe that the owners of Vegas-based Pink Taco had the purest of intentions?), but in other cases, the name was just bad luck and ended up in the place shutting down.