What It Was Like To Eat At The First-Ever Hooters Restaurant

What is there to say about Hooters, the bawdy establishment best known for its unique ambiance and chicken wings (not chicken breasts, creeps)? There's no doubt Hooters has become an American institution after decades in business. And while some readers may be offended by the chain's mere existence, we're not here to wade into any debate regarding the company's well-known employment of scantily-clad women, often with generous proportions.

After all, given its decades-long track record of success — blossoming from its original Clearwater Beach, Florida restaurant into an international juggernaut — it's not as though we can completely ignore the food service staple in 2023. Whether you view the atmosphere fostered by Hooters as harmless fun or wholly exploitative of financially desperate women, you can't deny it's become a global success story.

The appeal of Hooters to modern consumers is self-evident to anyone aware of its existence. Yet we couldn't help but wonder how visiting a modern location would compare to the experience of eating at the first-ever Hooters when it opened in 1983. If you're curious about what the favored establishment for lecherous lads was like during its infancy, we did the research. Here's what it was like eating at the first-ever Hooters restaurant.

Like many successful businesses, the history of Hooters is fairly steeped in lore, at least when it comes to its own recollection. For instance, we pulled the "Hooters Six" phrase straight from the owl's mouth (so to speak). That's because the first Hooters opened after six Florida-based men decided they were eager to have a spot where they couldn't be kicked out for having an especially good time. Hence, there was a pretty good chance that you would see one (or maybe even all) of the founders if you'd eaten at the first Hooters location.

We don't know that this particular expectation for eating at the first-ever Hooters restaurant requires much in the way of detailed analysis. Since the Hooters Six — which included L.D. Stewart, Gil DiGiannantonio, Billy Ranieri, Ed Droste, Dennis Johnson, and Ken Wimmer — decided to develop and open their establishment so they'd have "a place we couldn't get kicked out of," as Droste told the Tampa Bay Times in October 2023, it's easy to accept their presence would be a given at the original Hooters. It might be more shocking if they weren't there during your trip.

We're sure the more perceptive readers out there have already figured out that the first Hooters (what was in Clearwater) was situated exceptionally close to the actual beach. Of course, even if you weren't aware the original location was mere minutes away from the Gulf of Mexico, that information makes it easy to understand why diners would have found a bevy of fresh seafood on the menu back then.

Now, we're not saying the only time Hooters customers could order fish was when the restaurant first opened. Decades after the chain's grand opening, there are still seafood options available to interested patrons. But considering the restaurant was essentially "a seafood shack concept," as co-owner Dennis Johnson told The Tampa Tribune in 2013, it's no shock to imagine that the first-ever Hooters would have been stuffed to the gills with fresh seafood.

If you remain unconvinced, consider an early advertisement for the restaurant, which mentioned chicken wings alongside four other food options — all of which were seafood. So while you aren't likely to encounter an oyster roast at Hooters in 2023, your odds of doing so at the first-ever location were quite good.

Is it wrong to consider a restaurant that officially incorporated on April Fool's Day an abject joke? We can't say for certain. Of course, Hooters was incorporated on April 1, 1983, when it pulled a Pinocchio and became a real restaurant. Between that tidbit and the hodgepodge of ideas from which the restaurant was conceived, some might conclude the first-ever Hooters was little more than a gag.

Now, with four decades of success under its belt as of 2023, it's unfair to insinuate the founders were glib when developing their restaurant — and we aren't! But the decidedly playful approach those six men took was felt by customers at the first-ever Hooters.

Given that the tongue-in-cheek nature of Hooters extended to its very name — taken from a Steve Martin joke encouraging folks to use the hoot-inspired nickname about certain body parts — it would have been easy to take its existence as part of a bit. Seeing how its founders appeared to be in on the joke themselves, that might not have been the worst conclusion.

We hope our efforts to avoid being crass in any way, shape, or form while discussing a relatively sensitive topic — like a restaurant known for monetizing the aesthetic appeal of young, fit women — are apparent. But it remains utterly impossible to examine the history of Hooters without broaching the topic of its famed Hooters Girls. On that note, if you walked into the first-ever Hooters when it initially opened, there was a good chance you'd have been served by Lynne Austin, the original Hooters Girl.

Of course, Austin wasn't the only waitress there when the first Hooters opened on October 4, 1983. So while the odds were good that the not-yet world-famous Austin — who was the lead Hooters Girl and model for 15 years — would have waited on you, it wasn't a given.

Austin didn't have to apply for a waitress job before becoming the face of Hooters. Instead, she was hired by Ed Droste after winning a local bikini contest months before the restaurant's grand opening.

Everyone knows the classic Hooters uniform. It doesn't matter whether you've been to one of its many locations or not — you know the waitresses wear white tank tops above some very abbreviated orange shorts. Of course, while you might assume this has always been the case, the first-ever Hooters didn't require servers to wear orange shorts. At the very beginning, you'd have been served by a waitress rocking brown lower garments instead.

Given the fact that brown is still featured prominently in the Hooters logo and the restaurant's general color scheme, it's not shocking to learn that the first-ever Hooters waitresses were likewise adorned in brown. But we'd have guessed it was a secondary highlight as it is in the current outfit. While we can't say for certain what prompted the choice of brown shorts at first, within a month, a new batch of orange shorts arrived to take their place.

Since the new color "popped more than the brown," as Ed Droste told The Tampa Tribune in 2013, the switch was made. You wouldn't have had many chances to be served by a brown-shorted waitress, then, but the opportunity was there for early guests.

We've made it clear how hesitant we are to address the controversial nature of Hooters and how it depicts women. Quite frankly, we're not about to break our very cautious approach, but it's interesting to consider that the controversy swirling around the company in the 21st century wouldn't have hovered over you while eating at the first Hooters spot.

Perhaps the lack of controversy at the first-ever Hooters resulted from an absence of notoriety. Once the restaurant grew and Hooters Girls like Lynne Austin became a marketing phenomenon, it was impossible to avoid the wrath of disapproving citizens. But at the very start, you might not have thought twice about the rowdy environment of what was, at the time, a standalone business.

To be clear, concerns regarding the detrimental impact of working at Hooters on a woman's mental health are entirely valid. Yet, though dining at a Hooters can be a contentious topic in 2023, you might not have thought twice about the same sort of problems at the first-ever location.

When a person walks into a well-known, globally-established restaurant in 2023, they are likely expecting to find just about any drink their heart desires behind the bar. From a variety of liquors that are best served straight to an array of local and seasonal beers on tap, it's not unreasonable to believe a restaurant like Hooters should be fully stocked. Of course, when the first-ever Hooters opened, it was a small, singular location that had been founded by a group of friends. So while you might have seemingly unlimited booze options at a Hooters nowadays, the pickings were much slimmer at the original location.

While we're sure that the first Hooters featured liquors not listed on its original menu, it lacked the various specialty drinks now widely available at current locations. Additionally, your selection of beers and wine (because who doesn't love a nice Chardonnay with their wings?) was slim. Since the craft beer revolution was arguably still in its infancy when Hooters opened, you were likely stuck with whatever mass-produced beer was available on tap or in a bottle.

Even if the drink menu was smaller than what you'd expect today, there's one thing you would have found familiar: The alcohol would get you good and drunk. We suppose that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

If you were to ponder the ideal scent of a restaurant, we'd bet dollars to chicken wings that your brain just came up with some variety of tantalizing food smells. If the establishment in question operates near the ocean, then certain nasal markers typical of the beach may also be prevalent. In other words, it's no mystery why you'd have detected the scent of sunscreen and saltwater mingling with fried food and beer at the first-ever Hooters.

Given that the first restaurant in the chain was located just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Florida's Clearwater Beach, it's reasonable to assume that you and many of your fellow Hooters customers would have been coated in sunscreen before entering. You'd almost certainly smell the ocean emanating from the waitresses, as well, who were prone to arrive to work fresh from the oceanside. It wasn't uncommon for waitresses to "pull on pantyhose with sand all over" themselves, as Lynne Austin told the Tampa Bay Times in 2023.

In addition to the SPF-ified aroma, it's extremely likely you would've smelled fresh lumber wafting through the air at the first-ever Hooters — at least, if the restaurant itself is to be trusted. The company has stated that one of the driving forces behind its creation was to make that presumably masculine scent prominent (and who doesn't think of wood when they think of Hooters?).

In 2023, the running joke that Hooters' chicken wings are the restaurant's main attraction (rather than its short-wearing waitstaff) is beyond cliche. Then again, it's hard to deny the fact that those wings stand alone as a signature menu item offered by the restaurant — and it is still a restaurant. Be it bone-in drums and flats or boneless, Buffalo chicken wings have been a staple at Hooters since the original location first opened its doors.

We may take the food's widespread availability for granted in the 21st century, but back in 1983 (for some incomprehensible reason), Buffalo wings weren't nearly as common outside of New York state. With an urge to fill that gaping hole in the culinary landscape of Clearwater Beach, the Hooters Six made chicken wings a centerpiece of their restaurant's menu from day one.

Perhaps you would have predicted that the chicken wings served at the first Hooters restaurant would be known around the globe four decades later — but if not? You'd still have been able to order the food at its first location.

As quite literally anyone could have surmised (given how long the chain has been in business), the first-ever Hooters was an enormous hit amongst its Clearwater Beach clientele. But the restaurant's founders didn't achieve financial fame immediately. In fact, it took a few months before the dining establishment truly found its foothold. If you had trekked to the restaurant before the 1984 Super Bowl held in nearby Tampa, you'd likely have had no trouble getting a table.

Now, if you leaped to the not-entirely-illogical conclusion that a rowdy, spring break-friendly town like Clearwater would have welcomed the ribald restaurant with open arms, we wholeheartedly understand. Yet it seems the future chain's fortunes floundered for the first few months — meaning anyone could walk right in, sit down, and grab a beer and wings posthaste.

But things changed once Washington Redskins star John Riggins discovered Hooters while he was in the area for Super Bowl XVIII, especially when the running back's NFL teammates began joining him on-site. The lines soon went out the door — and the small window for a quick-seated experience at the first Hooters had closed.

We've mentioned several times throughout this article that the Hooter founders were well aware of the general absurdity of their restaurant concept. The entire venture appeared to be founded with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek attitude, one that was further driven by a wish to create something "delightfully tacky, yet unrefined," as the restaurant's marketing still maintains. Quite frankly, nothing may embody that four-word phrase better than a grown man deciding to don a chicken suit to attract potential customers. We're not hypothesizing about fun marketing ideas, either. We're alluding to the fact that eating at the first-ever Hooters might have included the sight of a chicken-suited man cavorting about outside.

Since business was slower than expected when the restaurant began operation, the members of the founding Hooters Six had to come up with ways to drum up additional business. One night, a panicked Ed Droste decided to take a thematic approach to guerilla advertising. The Hooters co-founder put on a bright yellow chicken suit (because his restaurant served chicken wings, you see). He then ran around in traffic to draw attention to the establishment.

You wouldn't have seen Droste in his chicken suit on every visit to the first Hooters location. But if you were truly lucky, you might've witnessed history in the making before you even entered the establishment.

Is there a world where the niche filled by Hooters wouldn't have succeeded? It's an intriguing question. Of course, asking that question with 40 years of hindsight may tilt the scale towards inevitability. But the restaurant's survival was anything but guaranteed, at least at first. With that in mind, it's interesting to learn that original customers passed a fake graveyard when entering the original Hooters — one built by its founders to mock its potential failure.

The concerns harbored by Hooters' founders resulted, in part, from the restaurant's location. The spot where the original Hooters still operates as of 2023 previously housed a series of failed businesses. Rather than run away from fears of failure, the Hooters Six embraced gallows humor by crafting false tombstones featuring the names of each unsuccessful prior tenant.

Hooters never needed to add its own tombstone to the cemetery — though we'd like to think it would have, had the first Hooters tanked (rather than soared on chicken wings).