A group that includes the restaurant’s founders will buy restaurants from the private equity firm that owns many locations of the chain.
Hooters, the restaurant chain known for its chicken wings, its all-female serving staff in revealing outfits and its slogan — “delightfully tacky, yet unrefined” — has filed for bankruptcy in a Texas court, the company announced on Monday.
Under the bankruptcy agreement, a group that includes the company’s founders — who independently run about a third of the franchised locations in the United States — will buy the company-owned restaurants in the United States from the private equity firm that owns the chain.
The complicated bankruptcy filing is a way to keep many of the restaurants open.
“Our renowned Hooters restaurants are here to stay,” the company said in its announcement. During the bankruptcy proceedings, Hooters restaurants will continue operating — as the company said on a site explaining the transaction, “It’s always hang time at Hooters.”
Hooters, proud of its Buffalo chicken wings but famous for the low-cut tops and bright orange hot pants worn by its waitresses, has more than 400 locations across 42 states and 29 countries. Some of those restaurants, including the international locations, are run as franchises and will not be affected by the bankruptcy process, the company said.
After the process is completed, all of the chain’s locations will be franchises.
Reports that Hooters was considering filing for bankruptcy have been swirling for weeks, and first appeared in Bloomberg News. Last summer, Hooters closed dozens of restaurants.
This week, Neil Kiefer, the chief executive of an independent company that runs a group of original Hooters restaurants, told Bloomberg that he was planning what he called a “re-Hooterization,” or rebrand, which would include ending the chain’s “bikini nights.”