Restaurant chain\u00a0Hooters\u00a0of America filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas on Monday, seeking to address its $376 million debt by selling all of its company-owned restaurants to a franchise group backed by the company\u2019s founders.<\/p>\n
Hooters, like other casual dining restaurants, has\u00a0struggled\u00a0in recent years due to inflation, the high costs of labor and food and declining spending by cash-strapped American consumers. The company currently directly owns and operates 151 locations, with another 154 restaurants operated by franchisees,\u00a0primarily in the United States.<\/p>\n
The privately-owned company, which shares a private equity owner with recently-bankrupt TGI Fridays, intends to sell all corporate-owned locations to a buyer group comprised of two existing\u00a0Hooters\u00a0franchisees, who operate 30 high-performing\u00a0Hooters\u00a0locations in the U.S., mainly in Florida and Illinois.<\/p>\n
Hooters\u00a0did not disclose the purchase price of the transaction, which must be approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge before it becomes final.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1983,\u00a0Hooters\u00a0became famous for its chicken wings and its servers\u2019 uniform of orange shorts and low-cut tank tops.<\/p>\n
The buyer group is backed by some of\u00a0Hooters\u2019 original founders, and it pledged to take\u00a0Hooters\u00a0\u201cback to its roots.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith over 30 years of hands-on experience across the\u00a0Hooters\u00a0ecosystem, we have a profound understanding of our customers and what it takes to not only meet, but consistently exceed their expectations,\u201d said Neil Kiefer, a member of the buyer group and the current CEO of the original\u00a0Hooters\u2019 location in Clearwater, Florida.<\/p>\n
Hooters\u00a0said it expects to complete the deal and emerge from bankruptcy in three to four months. The company has lined up about $35 million in financing from its existing lender group to complete the bankruptcy transaction.<\/p>\n
Casual dining restaurants have been hammered by rising costs in 2024, with well-known chains like\u00a0TGI Fridays,\u00a0Red Lobster,\u00a0Bucca di Beppo, and\u00a0Rubio\u2019s Coastal Grill\u00a0all filing for bankruptcy last year.<\/p>\n
Restaurant prices have risen about 30% in the last 5 years, outpacing consumer prices overall, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Restaurant chain\u00a0Hooters\u00a0of America filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas on Monday, seeking to address its $376 million debt by selling all of its company-owned restaurants to a franchise group backed by the company\u2019s founders. Hooters, like other casual dining restaurants, has\u00a0struggled\u00a0in recent years due to inflation, the high costs of labor and food and declining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}