Last month, Chinese and American waitresses clad in owl-emblazoned tank tops served up beer and smiled for the camera to celebrate a Hooters opening in the luxurious L’Avenue mall. The flagship spot has fancy flat-screen TVs everywhere one looks, an inviting open bar and gleaming wood panels set off by tasteful accents; overall, a far cry from the good ol’ boy atmosphere this chain is known for.
“It’s a little bit fancier than we’re used to,” admits Hooters CEO Terrance Marks. “But this is ultimately the direction we want to move in.”
The tall, salt-and-pepper corporate executive – who previously spent 21 years with Coca-Cola – is currently presiding over a major overhaul of 430 restaurants scattered across 44 states and 28 countries. Brought in only 18 months ago, Marks wants to stop the company from complacently coasting along a 30-year-old road built on reputation and dirty jokes.
Originally envisioned in 1983 by six buddies who built the first clapboard hang-out in Clearwater, Florida, this franchise pioneered the “breastaurant,” which targeted men by unabashedly touting scantily clad waitresses (they’re really friendly) and tawdry taglines (until three months ago, “delightfully tacky, yet unrefined” was the Hooter’s catchphrase).
But to survive, old birds must learn new tricks. By the time Marks was brought on board, the brand was showing signs of wear and tear, muscled out by the competition and losing a sustained profit. Of the former team, Marks says delicately that “it’s fair to say the company was undermanaged for a fair amount of time.”
To get the owl (they call their mascot Hooty) back on its feet, Marks and his team put together a business plan to give things a facelift. This meant changing the perception of what it means to have nice wings. We’re talking about the food.
Marks says the menu was out of touch with modern consumer eating habits.
A glaring lack of options like entree salads was problem number one. “You would think in casual dining, that would be pretty standard fare,” he laughs. They brought in Gregg Brickman, formerly the regional executive chef for renowned restaurateur Wolfgang Puck, to bring dishes up to speed.
The media has marked this rebranding effort as a tactic to attract the very sex they have long ignored. But Marks sees things differently. “People think this is a ploy to get more women,” he says. “Yeah, more women would be interested, but this is also just the way of the world… Health and wellness is not a passing fancy.”
In the United States, Hooters is often the focus of criticism by women, who accuse them of making money by objectifying the female form. “It’s nonsense – I don’t like being called any number of things that I have been called in my life, but if I took any of them seriously I would probably worry myself to death,” Marks scoffs. “I understand and respect what motivates someone to have those feelings, but I would be the last person to take this job if I felt there was anything untoward here.”
“That’s the great thing about the brand, in everything that we do. The brand ought to be winking and you’re in on the joke,” he continues. “It’s innocent fun.”
In fact, Marks never directly acknowledges the double entendre inherent in the name of the venue. “Some people think Hooters refers to breasts; we know it refers to owls of course, so we’re a little confused about that,” he quips with a wry grin. “I stopped cataloguing my breast terminology 35 years ago.”
The key to success is to draw in a well-rounded group of diners without losing core clientele. To do this, Marks has convinced his board to pour millions of dollars into restaurant interiors, making sure new branches (mostly in developing markets like China and Latin America) have a more sparkling set-up and that every single older venue gets a makeover. Hooters of America directly owns and operates 180 restaurants. All of them will soon have floor-to-ceiling glass windows, loads of televisions and central bars. Describing the changes puts a gleam in Marks’ eye.
“We want people to look in and see 40 high-definition TVs playing a dozen different ball games at one time. We want them to see Hooters girls in uniforms – no more revealing than your average cheerleader’s – running around with cold beer and plates of wings and lots of people having a good time,” he intones. “The more people see the brand through big glass windows, the more the mystery goes away and we become more relevant in the mind of someone who may not have considered us before.”
This level of reinvestment is a marked risk, as is taking an iconic brand and trying to evolve it. “On the whole, the team and the franchisees were hungry for change,” he says. “That’s easy in principle, but when it gets down to the execution level, that’s where the conflict begins to emerge.”
Far from being intimidated, Marks says the challenge of turning a company like this around is exciting and fun. “This is what it’s all about,” he says. “I don’t think you get the same satisfaction or adrenaline rush riding a rising tide as compared to jumping into a situation where the brand isn’t performing well.”
Only time will tell whether or not his leadership will be successful, but looking around the busy, boisterous L’Avenue spot, it’s fair to say the reinvention seems like a hoot.
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