I studied Hooters girls for a living – here’s what I learned about their well-being

It’s the end of an era.

On March 31, Hooters filed for bankruptcy — not long after shuttering dozens of “underperforming stores.”

While the restaurant chain will not be closing its doors for good, it has announced plans to “re-Hooterize” — axing its infamous “bikini nights” and attempting to return to its “family-friendly roots.”

Hooters was founded in 1983 in Clearwater, Florida — and quickly became known for its attractive and scantily-clad waitstaff, the overwhelming majority of which was female.

Its success spawned an entire restaurant genre known as “breastaurants” — and its proposed re-branding leaves the future of the famed Hooters girls unclear.

But how much do we really know about the inner lives behind those ample bosoms?

Many women were drawn to Hooters by the promise of higher earnings and flexible schedules — with some claiming to have earned hundreds or even thousands of dollars per shift.

But the boost to their bank accounts could sometimes come at a pretty high psychological price.

“I was originally interested in studying servers at breastaurants because I could sense an interesting dynamic at play,” Dawn Szymanski, a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, wrote in The Conversation.

“On the one hand, it can feel good to be complimented for your looks. On the other hand, I also wondered whether constantly being critiqued might eventually wear these servers down.”

Through a series of studies, Szymanski and her team revealed a somewhat depressing reality behind the brand’s “Delightfully Tacky, Yet Unrefined” slogan.

Firstly, they found that the managers of these restaurants were often very controlling when it came to the appearance of their servers — who were given booklets with beauty instructions down to hair and nails and virtually prohibited from gaining weight or changing their looks in any way.

On top of that, they had to be charming and pleasant at all times.

“They were instructed to make male customers feel special, to be their ‘personal cheerleaders,’ as one interviewee put it, and to never challenge them,” Szymanski wrote.

Naturally, this presented a problem — especially when the customers were rude and inappropriate, as they reportedly often were.

“It probably won’t come as a surprise that Hooters servers often encounter lewd remarks, sexual advances and other forms of sexual harassment from customers,” Szymanski wrote.

“But because their managers often tolerate this behavior from customers, it created the added burden of what psychologists call “double-binds” — situations where contradictory messages make it impossible to respond properly.”

Servers also couldn’t expect to be defended by their colleagues, either — as the environment lent itself to competitive behavior, as well as “gossiping, name-calling and scapegoating,” according to Szymanski.

Unsurprisingly, her research found that this combination of factors can be a bust for mental health.

“Servers working in sexually objectifying restaurant environments, such as Hooters and Twin Peaks, reported more symptoms of depression, anxiety and disordered eating than those working in other restaurants,” Szymanski wrote. “In addition, they wanted to be thinner, were more likely to monitor their weight and appearance, and were more dissatisfied with their bodies.”

But it’s not always all bad.

In 2022, server Madison Novo — who was crowned Miss Hooters that year — said she was first inspired to work at the chain when a few Hooters girls visited her in the hospital when she had rare kidney failure as a teen.

She also pushed back against common misconceptions about the brand and its servers.

“I know so many girls who are studying and thinking about their futures,” Novo told Fox News. “They have dreams of becoming lawyers and doctors. Some of them are also wives and mothers. There’s just so much more to Hooters than just the orange shorts and tank top.”