Hooters is ditching bikini nights, redesigning its famous orange shorts, and pushing kids' meal deals, all part of a sweeping rebrand after the chain's original owners bought back the company they created and watched deteriorate under outside management for more than two decades.
The Florida-based restaurant chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier in 2025 under its previous operator, Hooters of America. Locations shuttered across the country. Then the founders stepped back in. Hooters Inc. finalized its reacquisition of the brand's intellectual property and contractual rights in November, taking control of roughly 140 locations and launching what CEO Neil Kiefer calls a return to roots.
The message from the top is blunt: the people who built Hooters believe private equity operators wrecked it, and now they intend to fix it, starting with what the servers wear and what happens after the dinner rush.
Kiefer, who took over as CEO in 1992, did not mince words about how far the brand had drifted. He told The Sun that some franchise operators had allowed server uniforms to shrink into something the original concept never intended.
"But I think in a dining place, there is something wrong [if] they're in a thong type of uniform."
He was more specific in a separate interview with Fox News, saying the iconic orange shorts had become far more revealing over the years and would be redesigned into a more athletic cut inspired by 1980s dolphin shorts. The goal, Kiefer said, is a look that is "athletic, not so much sexual."
One Hooters waitress, Alli Lamb, told Fox News she approved of the direction. "Everything's covered. Nothing's out that doesn't need to be out," she said.
Kiefer put it more colorfully. "You don't want to have a butt cheek in your plate," he said. The line drew laughs, but the policy behind it is serious. Hooters Inc. plans to enforce new uniform standards across every location it now controls.
The most visible casualty of the rebrand is the chain's weekly "bikini night" promotion, in which servers waited tables in swimwear. Kiefer called the practice "a current topic of debate", then made clear the debate was already settled.
"You'll never see one of those in one of our stores and, hopefully, we'll get everybody in line with that, too."
Company spokesperson Michela DellaMonica framed the shift not as a retreat but as a correction. "Original Hooters has always been a family-friendly restaurant, so this isn't a major shift, but rather a reclamation of who we've always been," she said.
The restaurant industry has watched several legacy brands struggle to adapt in recent years. MGM Grand's buffet recently closed for good, another reminder that nostalgia alone does not keep the doors open. Hooters' leadership appears determined to avoid that fate by making changes before the brand becomes unsalvageable.
The backstory matters. Hooters' original owners sold the chain's intellectual property and contractual rights in 2001. What followed was a long slide. Private equity firms took the wheel, and according to Kiefer, they steered the concept further and further from what it was supposed to be.
"It wasn't so much a monetary thing. It was more like, wait a minute, we created this brand. We hate to see what they've done to it. We need to try to improve it."
By early 2025, the operator, Hooters of America, filed for bankruptcy. Locations closed. The brand that once defined a category of casual dining was in freefall. The New York Post reported that Hooters of America secured a restructuring support agreement to keep remaining doors open while the ownership transition played out. CEO Sal Melilli called it "a huge inflection moment for our brand."
The pattern is familiar to anyone who has watched private equity cycle through restaurant chains. Buy the brand. Cut costs. Juice margins. Let standards slip. Move on. The people left holding the bag are the workers, the loyal customers, and, in this case, the founders who built the thing in the first place.
That cycle has played out across the industry. Texas Roadhouse has raised prices repeatedly as inflation squeezes margins, and other chains have resorted to gimmicks or cost-cutting that alienate regulars. Hooters' collapse under outside ownership fits the broader pattern of brands hollowed out by financial engineering.
Kiefer described the original Hooters concept in terms that sound nothing like the chain's later reputation. He called it "a beach-themed place centered around the Hooters Girls, good food, [and being an] easy place to relax."
"It's a neighborhood place that many families frequent, and singles and couples," he added.
DellaMonica reinforced the point. "Since we've taken back full control of the brand, we are 'returning to our roots' across all stores we now own," she said. The company plans to roll out kids' deals "in the coming years" and establish consistent service standards across all 140 locations.
The strategy mirrors what other chains have done when they realized their brand identity had become a liability rather than an asset. Chick-fil-A's decision to stay closed on Sundays looked like a sacrifice on paper but reinforced a brand identity that customers trusted, and it paid off handsomely while competitors floundered.
Whether Hooters can pull off a similar trick remains an open question. The chain's name itself carries decades of cultural baggage, and scrubbing that image while keeping enough of the original appeal to draw traffic is a narrow path.
Hooters Inc. has laid out the broad strokes but left key details vague. The company has not specified exactly when the uniform redesign will take effect across all 140 locations. It has not detailed which locations previously held bikini nights or how widespread the practice was.
The ownership structure also raises questions. Hooters of America was run by individual franchise operators, and it is unclear whether all 140 locations now under Hooters Inc. are corporate-owned or still franchised. That distinction matters. Corporate mandates are easy to issue. Getting independent franchise operators to comply, especially on something as visible as server uniforms, is another thing entirely.
Customer reaction will be the ultimate test. Restaurant chains that make sweeping changes risk alienating the base they have while chasing a base they hope to attract. Papa John's learned that lesson when a policy change triggered customer backlash. Hooters' founders are betting that the customers they lost to brand decay outnumber the ones who liked the drift.
Kiefer summed up his philosophy simply. "There's nothing wrong with a pair of shorts if fitted properly," he said. "Just trying to make it more friendly to everybody. No one's going to be insulted."
That is a low bar. But for a chain that spent two decades watching its concept get stretched, cheapened, and finally bankrupted by operators who treated a brand like a balance sheet, clearing it would count as progress. Fox News reported that a new Hooters location in The Villages, Florida, an age-restricted senior community, drew lines out the door for its grand opening in May. If retirees are lining up, the family-friendly pitch may already be landing.
The founders built something, sold it, watched strangers run it into the ground, and bought it back. Now they want to prove the original idea still works, minus the thongs and the bankruptcy filings. It is a story about what happens when the people who care about a brand finally get it back from the people who only cared about the spreadsheet.