Hooters still hot in Shanghai

Hooters was not initially conceived as an international megabrand. The first branch opened its doors in Clearwater, Florida in 1983, a beach bar run by six buddies determined to have a good time and hoping to sell some buffalo wings along the way. Yet Hooters today counts as the tenth largest restaurant chain in the United States, and this year food and beverage sales will for the first time surpass US$1 billion. And while the Florida company Hooters Inc may retain the buccaneering tongue-in-cheek of the early days, it now shares the brand with a much slicker beast, the Atlanta-based Hooters of America, formerly owned by a friend of the original founders but later taken over by seasoned F+B supplier Bob Brooks - the man behind the Burger King milkshake, among other claims to fame.

Under Brooks' leadership, the brand has in recent years expanded and diversified at a speed which might impress Richard Branson. Hooters Air offers the brand's trademark hospitality experience one mile high, with five aircraft now serving 17 cities in the United States. The brand has become a sponsor of major sporting events and has lent its name to a lifestyle magazine, a line of potato chips and a credit card. February 2006 will see the opening of the Hooters Casino Resort in Las Vegas, this time managed by the original Florida company - once again on friendly terms with Brooks after many years of distrust.

And then there is overseas expansion, including China. "We chose to enter the Chinese market in Shanghai," says Misia Jin, the 29-year-old branch manager at the Gubei outlet, and a veteran of Shanghai's hotel management scene. "Shanghai is the most commercial city in China, and also the most open-minded. Many foreigners here are already familiar with our brand, and white-collar locals are keen to try new things. You can't say this about the second-level Chinese cities."

Hooters is not the only major Western restaurant brand with an eye on a Chinese market already well-served by a range of independent imitators, all hoping to offer homesick expats and aspiring white-collar locals a taste of US-style sports bar culture. "Locally our major competitors include TGI Fridays, Malone's and the Hard Rock Cafe," Misia told Asia Times Online (although the Shanghai Hard Rock is temporarily closed during relocation). Friday's and Hard Rock can be found in most international cities; Malone's, on the other hand is a Shanghai one-off - now 11 years old, the foreign-owned sports bar was one of the earliest major venues to appear outside of a five star hotel, and is the only one of that first generation still going strong today.

What distinguishes Hooters from the rest, of course, is the small matter of 70 Chinese girls dressed as Daisy Duke. "Hooters girls are special," says Misia. "They are university students who speak good English - fun, open-minded girls. The guests won't get bored."

No doubt. But what does the Chinese public make of it all? Certainly in America there are people who have serious problems with the fundamental Hooters philosophy - with the result that the brand spent much of the 1990s fighting for its life. Particularly menacing was the unsuccessful 1994 lawsuit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, arguing that the company violated anti-discrimination laws by only employing attractive women.

Hooters China, at least, one year after opening, claims that it has yet to receive a single complaint. This could well be true. Attitudes to commercial sex in China are ambiguous to say the least - while officially the public presentation of sex and sexuality remains strictly controlled (in the pages of state media, for example), the reality is that sex in China today is widely commercialized, sometimes with a surprising degree of official acquiescence. Hostessing, a largely East Asian phenomenon in which a woman drinks and flirts with a guest in return for a fee, is extremely widespread - provincial capitals invariably offer a wide variety of options, and far from the neon glow of Shanghai or Beijing even the smallest county town will support a dingy KTV lounge or two, offering an hour's privacy behind a dirty curtain in a secluded booth.

The Hooters management are understandably keen to distance themselves from such shenanigans, stressing instead the "good clean fun" aspects of the Hooters experience. "Our philosophy at Hooters is about being healthy and having fun - Hooters girls are like cheerleaders," says manager Misia Jin. "The atmosphere here is very different from what you get in the dice bars on Hengshan Road [a popular strip of identikit bars in Shanghai's Old French Concession, where bored hostesses play dice and, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, attempt to sell customers brand-name whisky]. Everything is bright here; we have large windows to let the sunlight in. The Hengshan Road bars are all very dark."

For their part, the Hooters girls echo the company line; carefully worded suggestions of exploitation are met with blank looks. Instead, the girls bring their families to the restaurant to visit and join in the fun - and overwhelmingly they see the experience as an empowering one. "I'm gaining work experience here which will help me with my future career," says Kitty Ye, a real estate major who plans to study abroad. "My spoken English has improved enormously. Also, I've made friends with customers from all over the world, which has been very educational; it's corrected some of my misconceptions about the outside world."

"You'll see more skin and booty shaking at your average half-time at a high school football game than you will at Hooters," concurs Mike McNeil, vice president of marketing at the Atlanta head office. In truth Hooters has always known where to draw the line. Witness for instance the contents of the chain's employees handbook, recently acquired by the Smoking Gun website, which may insist on tight T-shirts, but also sternly notes that shorts "SHOULD NOT BE SO TIGHT THAT THE BUTTOCKS SHOW".

The real controversy in the United States has in any case not been about the selling of sex; rather it has been about the use of female sexuality as a marketing tool - and this sort of issue is much less contentious in China, where it's widely accepted that employers will consider appearance when recruiting staff, at least for jobs that involve dealing with the public.

All of which suggests that China can cope with the Hooters girls - and as it stands the company's prospects in China look good. As manager of Malone's Sports Bar, Shawn Doyle has been serving burgers to foreign Shanghai for over a decade. "If they are really attracting 250 or 300 customers a day at this stage, I would say they are doing a good job at building an increasing guest base," he told Asia Times Online. "Talking to customers at Malone's, some of them are also going to Hooters. But I don't see them as a competitor - maybe we offer the same beer and sports on the TVs, but the concepts are very different in terms of food, environment and entertainment."

At present the brand's key strength in China is its high-level of recognition among foreign visitors and residents - and of course, not only do the girls speak good English, they also have lots of experience talking to foreigners; and for Ron from Detroit who's only in town for four days, a few beers at Hooters probably offers more fun than an evening with the local business partner, no matter who wears the hot-pants. As such Hooters seems to be avoiding the fate of many "theme" restaurants, which often find interest dropping off once the initial buzz dies down - such as the now bankrupt "Planet Hollywood" chain.

And the Chinese customers? "We are gradually seeing more local customers - including some who are visiting Shanghai from small towns but know us from our website," says branch manager Misia Jin. But with 85% of customers currently foreigners, it will be a long time before we see Hooters China attempting to emulate the sort of state-by-state ubiquity that the brand enjoys in the United States. The girls in the KTV dens of small-town China probably won't be hanging up their miniskirts any time soon.

Fraser Newham is a Shanghai-based freelance writer. His home page is www.frasernewhamfreelancing.com.

This story was originally published on Asia Times Online, and is re-posted here with permission. Please contact Asia Times Online for re-print and syndication information.