American restaurant chain Hooters, popular for its sports wings and bikini clad servers, is looking to completely change its business model. The company’s founders and executives have confirmed plans to get rid of bikini nights and restyle the brand to be more family friendly. 

Hooters was once a frontrunner in casual dining. With sales steadily decreasing and the culture changing, Hooters has made pivots in its overall business strategy. This shift in focus intends to transform the brand from a casual sports bar famous for its waitresses to a more family and casual dining friendly establishment.

Why the Change?

The reduction of brand interest has contributed to the decision of eliminating bikini nights. Some explanations for this include: 

• Consumer preference shift: Millennials and Gen Zers prefer family oriented dining spaces over highly commercialized and gendered places, especially younger consumers. 

• Increased business competition: Modernized sports bars and restaurants like Buffalo Wild Wings and Twin Peaks have completely overshadowed Hooters, focusing on a more updated business model.

Cultural transformations: Some consumers have begun to accept less the showmanship that lies at the center of Hooters’ concept which rests on the appearance of its servers due to the ongoing debate around women’s participation in a workforce. 

Targeting different markets: Hooters has removed bikini nights to ease the restaurant’s image and make it more welcoming for women, families, and businessmen in order to attract more patrons apart from the traditional male clientele.

What Will Change?

A revision of the brand’s position will entail several key changes to menu, marketing strategy, and the customer experience within the establishment. 

New menu offerings: The outlined strategy expects the company to add healthy food options, meals for children, and a wider variety of non-alcoholic drinks to target families and young people.

Updated branding and décor: Some units will be remodeled to make a nicer and more comfortable environment instead of the traditional sports-bar style, so some locations might lose this branding. 

Focus on hospitality over novelty: Hooters should continue to maintain the image of a brand with many bold server-dominated trademarks, but will shift towards customer satisfaction and food quality instead of the overblown dares that served as its former backbone. 

Expanding takeout and delivery options: In response to ordering food through the internet, Hooters will improve its delivery and takeout services to match other casual dining restaurants which rest at the top of the competition.

Will the Strategy Work? 

Transforming Hooters into a family-themed restaurant is a daring shift that involves both challenges and possibly gains. The brand risks losing its loyal customers who have frequented the restaurant for decades. However, appealing to a larger market may allow Hooters to gain relevance and compete in an industry that is increasingly striving towards broad, multicultural, and inclusive acceptance.

If the rebranding succeeds, then it would prove helpful to other likes of Hooters, in rebranding and redefining itself to fit modern and contemporary sociocultural, and economic developments. The succeeding years will tell if this new approach can turn around the Hooters’ brand or if it’s true that the company’s identity was too historically centered on the brand for it to hyper shift.