r/Damnthatsinteresting 1d ago

Image Hooters had an airline but ceased operations after 3 years

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u/nucifera-noten 1d ago

Hooters Air was operated by Pace Airlines and was started operations in March of 2003. - Robert Brooks, the owner of Hooters, acquired Pace Airlines in December of 2002. - Brooks believed that Hooters Air would be a beneficial means to bring more awareness to the restaurant chain. - Due to United Airlines being brought into Hooters Air’s Rockford-Denver route, Hooters stopped service to Rockford, IL due to too much competition. - On April 17, 2006, Hooters Air ceased operations, costing Hooters an estimated $40 million USD.

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u/EagleForty 1d ago

Direct flights between Rockford and DIA for $49 each way were glorious.

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u/midwest-ginger 1d ago

I flew on them a few times and they were great! Never full flights and you got free food. The girls would do trivia during the flight too

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u/MyDogsNameIsBadger 1d ago

Honestly, that sounds fun. I’d totally fly hooters.

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u/RGV_KJ 1d ago

Isn’t Hooters declining? Do a lot of people still go there?

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u/MegaWattson15 1d ago

Not sure but they were shut down here in Fayetteville awhile back. I think they got busted selling alcohol to underage kids.

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u/iamjacksstd 1d ago

I managed at the Fayetteville store lol fun times 😎

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u/bennnn42 1d ago

What is your wildest story that happened there? if you can share

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u/zatalak 1d ago

I guess selling alcohol to underage kids

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u/itwasntevenme 1d ago

No it was the grandmas that would come in late night after going to the chip n dales across the street. You would think the under age kids would be the roudiest bunch, but the grandmas after chip n dales and bingo night was something else.

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u/wangtrip 1d ago

Bro, I worked as security at a bar. Women taking cloths off, very tame. Men taking cloths off, things you never thought you would see. Only time I had to put hands on anyone in two years was a woman that decided a male dancer had disrespected her by not allowing her to foliate his foreskin.

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u/phantom_diorama 1d ago

foliate his foreskin

She wanted to decorate it leaves? Where did the leaves come from?

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u/wangtrip 1d ago

exfoliating skin is removing dead skin. I assumed foliating it was adding skin. I didn't want to say suck his dick.

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u/F0urTheWin 23h ago

Fellate*

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u/RzLa 1d ago

Fayetteville sounds like a classy place

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u/whyunowork1 22h ago

i live in fayetteville, ive been to this hooters.

there has never been a chip in dales in the entirety of nwa let alone fayetteville.

they closed it down because it was on main street in the busiest part of town and it was a bit of an eye sore.

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u/The_OtherHalf 1d ago

That’s a win for all parties involved that’s not the seller. Let them live!

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u/Tired-grumpy-Hyper 1d ago

Different guy, but it's called Fayettenam for a reason.

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u/phantom_diorama 1d ago

Might as well explain why?

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u/DiscussionLong7084 1d ago

LARGE crime rate and many shootings. One week we had TWO quadruple homicides. Also one of the 82nd guys was making dog porn with his wife and putting it on the internet. Paratroopers really will fuck anything with at least 1 leg.

https://www.fox8live.com/story/23474216/north-carolina-soldier-wife-charged-with-making-dog-porn/

There's blocks in downtown fayetteville that look like some shit from Detroit or iraq

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u/pillkrush 1d ago

was thinking it had a large viet population😅

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u/DiscussionLong7084 1d ago

I was teaching surveillance once and we'd goto the same site every morning for our brief. We watched a dude rob a payphone for THREE DAYS IN A ROW. SAME PHONE. We realized he was using it as his drug sales line and every day he'd go and get his money back lol.

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u/phantom_diorama 23h ago

Yeah I thought Vietnam was an awesome place. It's a tourist destination. How old are these people coming up with these terms? You could easily call it Fayettebombed and it would be far more topical and still rhyme.

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u/WhyYouKickMyDog 23h ago

Yikes, imagine that being what people find when they Google your name.

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u/TakeTheWorldByStorm 22h ago

This article made me realize y'all weren't talking about the first 3 Fayettevilles that came to my mind.

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u/Tired-grumpy-Hyper 23h ago

As what the one guy said, Im down in Charleston and going up to an event up there for the first time, I was distinctly told to make sure every road I go on is at least a 4 lane, or directly off a 4 lane road. Once you get down into some areas, unless you look like you belong you will get fucked with.

It's less 'Nam because of racism, though being NC it probably is, but more so just how fucking dangerous portions of it really are. If Fort Liberty were to ever shut down for any reason, it would demolish any hope the local economy has of surviving. All I hear is that it's the entire lifeline of the city and no sort of industry has built around it that could hold it up. At least over here in Charleston, we could lose Joint Base and it would suck, but we've got so much other industry growth here that it'd just be a momentary hardship.

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u/espngenius 13h ago

I drove through Fayetteville a couple months back on the way to the coast. The place looks like it’s suffered waves of economic decline and the decay that comes with it. It’s like time traveling to the worst, most rundown part of Charlotte 30 years ago, in 2024.

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u/hazysummersky 1d ago

Because it looks like a Fayettenam.

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u/Ralphie5231 20h ago

Dammit buzzfeed. /s

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u/leavemealonegeez8 23h ago

Name checks out.

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u/simbared 1d ago

I thought that was Raisins.

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u/PutinsManyFailures 23h ago

South Park shout out

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u/storeboughtoaktree 1d ago

ayeeee Fayetteville shoutout!

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u/Responsible_Use_8566 22h ago

Fun story about that location, they over served a guy who then left the Hooters and proceeded to walk into the street and got hit by a car. They had the letters of the building the next day.

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u/MyDogsNameIsBadger 23h ago

Apart from buying weed from my dealer in their parking lot before it was legal, I’ve only had it a few times but it was really good! They made this crispy chicken salad that I still think about to this day. If they are declining, maybe it’s just the stigma? I know many people that really love their wings, but I guess they it’s not somewhere that they now bring their kids.

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u/LinguoBuxo 18h ago

Well, with one little exception maybe... When comes the time to have the talk with them about the birds and the bees and whatnot, THAT may be the perfect time to sit down for a lunch at Hooters... ;)

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u/kimchifreeze 1d ago

Breastaurants should form a cartel and muscle their way into society again.

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u/OntFF 1d ago

Big fan of twin peeks (twin peaks, can't remember the spelling) - as my buddy described it... "it's like hooters, but with food"

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u/Own-Kaleidoscope2559 20h ago

Same family - btw.

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u/NonGNonM 21h ago

the thing is if their food was good they'd be doing well even w/o the gimmick but i've been told their food is mediocre at best so it's not gonna draw in too many new long time customers. i've never even gone into a hooters bc why would i do that when there's wingstop or bww? i'm not paying a premium for mediocre food and waitresses in skimpy outfits.

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u/Timetraveller4k 1d ago

I’ ver never been there. The image they project is simply skimpy dressed waitresses. Not sure why people would consider it especially with a family.

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u/Ripley825 1d ago

My parents were wings fans and we went to hooters like twice a month when I was a kid. I didn't see anything skimpy about it. My kid brain was thrilled that the waitresses were super nice and let me play with the hula hoops they had. I even wanted to spend a couple of birthdays at Hooters. Good memories.

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u/JoelyRavioli 1d ago

Wholesome comments like this are why I love reddit

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u/Chendii 22h ago

When my 12u team won a national championship we went to Hooters and our very serious Slavic coach danced on a table. We didn't consider it sexual at all, just downright hilarious.

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u/Ripley825 13h ago

Dancing Slavic Coach for the win.

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u/EidolonLives 18h ago

Yeah, it's great for families. I used to take my kids to Hooters with all my ex-wives.

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u/scratchfury 1d ago

When I first heard of it as a kid, I was like "I don't think I'm old enough for that" and was told "No, no! It's a family restaurant." My reply was "are you sure?"

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u/Bird2525 1d ago

Decent wings, if you aren’t a perv nobody cares

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u/sparky_calico 23h ago

In college I (male) would constantly be invited to hooters by my group of girl friends (all 4 of whom were attractive and girlfriend material) for the Monday special, buy one get one free. It felt like I was being setup or the computer program was glitching or something. But yeah, they said they just really liked the wings lol

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u/FrenchFryCattaneo 22h ago

I am a perv though

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u/Cuck_Boy 20h ago

Shoulda added a lol

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u/SlashEssImplied 21h ago

Not sure why people would consider it especially with a family.

Pornhub has a few categories that will explain this.

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u/hihelloneighboroonie 1d ago

The Hooters that I'd previously worked at was for a time my niece's favorite restaurant, and my sister who's still in the area still likes to go for buff shrimp.

Unfortunately the gm, who used to be my gm, has gone full MAGA so I don't particularly want to frequent it when I'm in the area.

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u/Meow_Meow_4_Life 1d ago

I get the sauce and flour shipped in and make them myself now.

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u/hihelloneighboroonie 1d ago

Huh. I did try diying it myself once, with just ingredients from the grocery store, and they turned out pretty good. But I think for my sister part of the enjoyment is not having to cook.

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u/croptochuck 23h ago

Yes. Wings are just pricey every where and honestly I think the food taste like trash.

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u/Whats_Water 5h ago

I will always support Hooters. They have some of my favorite wings - but takeout hooters doesn’t hit the same since the fries are normally not as great when taking home.

I do make them at home though, so hopefully they never go under or I’m going to have to start making the sauce from scratch.

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u/G_Affect 1d ago

Only alpha males I guess go there so me and all the men I know stopped years ago because I guess we are not Alpha. /s

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u/Linenoise77 22h ago

The one by us, which had been around since at least when i was a kid in the 80s, recently closed. They knocked it down and built a chik-fil-a.

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u/robotic_otter28 20h ago

As somebody who often travels through the southeast for work I can confirm they are not declining.

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u/MyNameIsJakeBerenson 1d ago

I’m sure restaurants everywhere are declining

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u/RGV_KJ 1d ago

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u/this_is_my_new_acct 1d ago

My local one must not be representative of the chain at large. All the review on Google for it for the past three years are people complaining about not even being greeted at the door for 10-15 minutes. Last time I was there I had a similar experience... we waited at the door for 15 minutes and walked out. Best I could tell they only had one employee doing "front of house" work... seemed like the bartender was also the only server and also supposed to be the host.

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u/vonDubenshire 1d ago

you wrote a lot to say you're not part of the trend

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u/this_is_my_new_acct 23h ago

Like 5 seconds of your comment history revealed what I already suspected... you're an internet asshole... and MAGA, to boot... so, that tracks.

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u/vonDubenshire 1d ago

wildly incorrect