Hooters Goes Bust with Jimmy Pardo and Courtney Revolution | 103
The Big Flop
Audible
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when six guys with zero restaurant experience open a bar just so they'll always have somewhere to drink? You get Hooters – a wing joint that grew from Florida novelty to international phenomenon. But between failed airline ventures, bikini contests, and changing social attitudes, America's original ""breastaurant"" learned that some business models belong in the past – right next to those infamous orange shorts.
Jimmy Pardo and Courtney Revolution join Misha to learn how Hooters went from “Delightfully Tacky” to totally bankrupt.
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Transcript
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| 0:12.0 | It's like having a front row seat to the world's biggest train wrecks. |
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| 0:26.2 | Have you all ever heard of the Hooters 6? |
| 0:33.5 | I'm not talking about some Wild West bandits that used to get kicked out of saloons for partying too hard, although in a way I am. |
| 0:42.0 | No, the Hooters 6 are the founders of the infamous restaurant Hooters, which they literally created as a place they couldn't get kicked out of. |
| 0:51.8 | Now, if that doesn't sound like a red flag, maybe a later CEO deciding |
| 0:56.5 | to create a Hooters airline where Hooters Girls are aboard does. Time to get into this restaurant's |
| 1:05.1 | antics, besties. Hooters, a billion dollar a year business, with nearly 500 restaurants in 27 different countries. |
| 1:13.6 | The restaurant chain known for its scantily clad uniforms. |
| 1:17.2 | In the Me Too era, Hooters was seen as a throwback to another time. |
| 1:21.8 | Facing nearly $400 million in debt, the chain now filing for bankruptcy. |
| 1:26.4 | We are on a sinking ship. |
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