So over the weekend I was at the local Hooters for some wings and beer. OK, more for beer than wings, but their wings were killer this weekend. And fine, so we have more than one Hooters in the area, but that doesn’t matter. And yes, there’s more to the place than just tits and ass. Yes, the waitresses are fine attractions for the restaurant, to be sure, but there’s something a lot of people miss when talking about Hooters: the service.

I never went to a Hooters before this local place opened a few years ago – every time I had been to a city that had a conveniently located Hooters, there never seemed to be a convenient time to go… Actually, I did stop in the New Orleans one for directions to the House of Blues once, but that supports my point: Why waste time in a bar that has scantily clad women when you’re in the most decadent city in the world with mostly naked women running around Bourbon Street? Hooters doesn’t have naked women. They do have a waitress uniform that offers very tight T-shirts, bright orange shorts that are cut extremely high, and dark nylons. They don’t discriminate against women that aren’t well endowed, because there’s little that a push up bra won’t fix, and that’s a fact. They also have some of the best service that I’ve found in a bar-type restaurant.

That’s really what most people miss. When you get a pitcher of beer, they pour from it for you; you aren’t allowed to pour your own because you get yelled at – guilty! They worry that if you pour your own beer that they have neglected you for too long. If you get blue cheese with your wings, they open the package for you. They open the ketchup bottle for you if you order fries. I’ve yet to need something that caused me to look for a waitress more than once; they’re everywhere and they’re all good at their jobs.

And then there was Friday night. When I got there at about 9, there were about 20 teenage boys walking in the front door, but it’s a large place so we didn’t worry about getting a table. Once inside and seated, we saw that the 20 guys were joining another 25 boys and some adults, bringing their total to about 65. Now because Friday was the Fourth of July, Hooters was lacking in waitresses; I wouldn’t call it understaffed because who could have expected a crowd like this on a holiday? By 10:15, some of the boys started to clear out and that’s when the fun began.

One of the adults was a bit of a loud mouth. Well, there were about three of them that were complaining obnoxiously, but this one fat fuck bothered me. Picture Paulie from Goodfellas, only fatter. Picture him walking around with a dulled expression, wearing a short-sleeved oxford type shirt. Now picture the shirt completely unbuttoned, hanging out and over a pair of too tight shorts and his chest hair visible at all times. He was a unique combination of wanna be mobster, minivan-driving-the-kids-to-soccer-practice, dego goomba guinea wop whose image, as an Italian, I rebelled against everyday. This fat fuck was stomping around the tables – they had about 14 in total – yelling at the waitress and manager from across the room because the kitchen was slow.

The balls on this cavone, eh? He was telling the waitress that the boys had to be in bed 10:00. Oh, o-kay! You show up at a restaurant at 9 with 65 people and expect to be out by 10? You couldn’t have pulled that off at a BK much less a Hooters. The cavone was going on about how one table got their burgers and the other table didn’t at the same time. Well. The first table didn’t order wings; the second table did. In fact, they ordered 200 wings. They might have had a shot, if the adults called ahead but the goomba didn’t even do that! They all just showed up, on a holiday, and then were pissy because they thought the place as slow… Hey, you fat fuck: ah fongula!

Obviously for some reason, this guy irked me. I guess it comes from my years of working fast food and dealing with the customers there. I don’t know how waitresses do it; fast food was easy because the customer was gone in seconds, but in a restaurant you have to keep the people around for a while. “I need mayo!” ‘Piss off!’ is how I could see my first day going. I remember being blamed for the rising price of oil and tea when I worked at BK – customers were out of controls years ago and they’ve only gotten worse with time. In this case, the only people that can be blamed for the debacle are the customers. Think about it. If they called ahead and things got screwed, fine, yell all ya want. If they didn’t make extreme demands – either in the amount of food order or the time frame to expect it – and someone screwed up fine. If they had people cleaning counters and standing around talking, instead of waiting on tables, OK – get pissed. But I was watching the waitresses and the kitchen – they all worked their asses off the whole time I was there. These wankers were just being pricks and unreasonable pricks at that.

But my wings were good… I can tell ya that much – I don’t have a complaint to make about the night there… well, aside from this fat fuck that generated this Rant in the first place…

Oh, and on another local business related note… seems that there’s a regular at Starbucks called “8-shot Joe.” Not sure who this is, but I’m guessing it’s someone that regularly gets 8-shoots per day/drink… As I rarely get the same drink twice, I don’t even want to know what nickname they have for me!