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The grand opening
Thursday Feb 2, 2006 marks the latest foray for the
"delightfully tacky, yet unrefined" restaurant that began
in 1983 in Clearwater, Fla., and later branched into
calendars, merchandise and even an airline. "The Hooters
customer is already a Vegas kind of customer. They're a
little punky, they're a little high energy, they're
looking for a getaway — and all of those things just match
up," said Ed Droste, one of the six men who founded
Hooters. Four of those original partners together own a
third of the renovated hotel-casino.
The 696-room
property with nine restaurant/bars is a revamp of the
Hotel San Remo and despite its makeover, remains a midget
compared with the 5,035-room MGM Grand across the street
on a corner of the Strip that offers 14,000 hotel rooms.
Hooters' operators hope to draw from a customer base of
about 61 million annual visitors at its some 400
restaurants in the United States, Canada, Europe, South
America, Asia and the Caribbean.
Information and
reservation hotlines have been set up at 80 restaurants in
the Southwest, and staff will be rewarded with discounts
and free rooms for promoting bookings, executives said.
Talks are ongoing with Hooters of America to fly customers
to Las Vegas on Hooters Air, they said. The Atlanta-based
company bought the franchise and licensing rights from the
founders and launched the airline in 2003.
Hooters casino
operators have rebranded almost every inch of the hotel,
including using subtly placed borderline gags about the
female form to appeal to a core audience of mostly married
men aged 25 to 54. |
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