Do people really go to Hooters for the wings?

I probably first heard of Hooters in the early nineties. I learned that it was a place that people go to for beer and wings and the waitresses wear very little clothes. I'll have to admit, back then I thought, "Well, THAT sounds sexist. I'm never stepping foot in a place like that. How disgusting!"

To top it off, over the years I've seen billboards with their slogan "Delightfully tacky yet unrefined since 1983." Not helping! Of course, the myriad of billboard tag lines like, "Liquor in Tampa, Poker in Vegas," and "Only a rooster gets a better piece of chicken," don't change my mind either.

I'm not sure when, but at some point my initial impression was spiked with curiosity. I mean, the place is still in business after all these years. People constantly say how great their wings are... they must be doing something right.

A few weeks ago I got a unique opportunity to finally check it out. The family was trying to decide where to eat, which is a challenge in itself since there are so many differing opinions. My cleaver partner came up with the idea for everyone to write the name of a place on a piece of paper and to keep it non-biased, we'd have the 2-year-old draw one out of a hat.

Someone had the clever idea of writing "Hooters" on a paper as a joke. That's the one that was drawn. If you only knew, it was pretty funny to see the looks of horror on peoples' faces as they realized what was drawn. It was decided to put the paper back and draw again from a newly shuffled hat. Keep in mind that only one paper out of eight had "Hooters" on it. Guess what was drawn again... yep! Hooters!

It was destiny. The universe had a plan for us and to go against it at this point would be pure blasphemy. I was glad to finally have a reason to go. I was determined to see how good these damn wings were. It didn't take long to get there, but the anticipation of going to a place I was against going to for 15 years was making the drive quite exciting.

Our group met up in the parking lot and made our way in together. There was nobody there to greet us, so we waited for a little bit. I could see the bar was lined up with all men probably in their mid 50's. As my eyes skimmed to the end of the bar they were caught by a bright orange pair of shorts with butt-cheeks poking out the bottom that belonged to a waitress bending over with her elbows on a table at a booth taking an order. "Hmmmm. Yes, delightfully tacky indeed," I thought.

We didn't see a hostess anywhere so, seat-yourself seemed to be the policy. We walked to the back of the restaurant where we were able to put two tables together to accommodate our large group.

Our waitress brought menus and seemed overly rushed right from the beginning. It wasn't that busy so I wondered what the hurry was. She came back a short time later, took the drink orders. After that, we ordered our food, which is when the real fun began. She didn't even ask two of the gals at our table what they wanted. As the waitress started to walk away, they both had to get her attention to come back and take their orders.

The appetizers came and the quesadilla didn't have the guacamole that was ordered with it. "I'll be right back with that," our waitress said and she disappeared for about ten minutes. Again, not many people in the restaurant. She came hurrying back after the quesadilla was already eaten with the side of guacamole. Nobody even touched the guacamole, but when we got the bill, we saw that were charged for it anyway. To top it off, the waitress later argued about it that if we ate it, we needed to pay for it. Nobody ate it, but she seemed determined to get that extra dollar from us.

Alright, if you can't tell by now, so far, not a good experience. These wings better be good! Our platter of hot wings arrived along with the customary dipping sauce and celery. I tried my first wing and noticed that my teeth didn't sink far before hitting a bone.

"Where's the meat on this thing?" I wondered. Did this bird starve before they killed it? It was skimpy and dry as an Ethiopian chicken that had been dead and laying in the sun for a week. To top it off, the sauce wasn't any consolation. The seasoning wasn't necessarily spicy like it should've been. It was damned acidic! Nothing about this first wing impressed me. So I tried another. Same thing. Another...same thing again and again.

Around the table was the same opinion: people must not come to this place for the wings. It must be the gimmick behind the wings. What exactly is the gimmick? I can't really say, "at least we had pretty girls to look at." Our waitress's attitude sucked so bad that no matter how she looked with her skimpy clothes on, she lacked as much spice as the wings did. In the end, it was interesting to see for myself what it was about, but I'm probably not going back.