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Customers Rank Hooters No. 1 in Music

Posted By Alexandra Hamilton On Wednesday, September 14, 2016

With 430 restaurants in 28 countries, its original nestled in Clearwater since 1983, and many other bug-eyed-owl-decorated establishments sprinkled throughout the Tampa Bay area, Hooters is hailed and renowned for its’ three B’s: Beer, Bar food, Buxom waitresses  - and it’s just beckoned a fourth: bumpin’ Beats.

Recently Technomic, a research and consulting firm based in Chicago, Ill. that focuses on food and related products and services, ranked Hooters. No. 1 for having the best music at a casual-dining chain, according to RestaurantBusinessOnline.com. Technomic is a sister division to Restaurant Business, and the two collaborated on a special project that surveyed about 600 guests who visited a variety of chains nationwide.

This may seem like an insignificant honor, but it isn’t when you’re in the business of accommodating hungry Americans. Technomic’s research reveals that 52% of casual-dining guests say the music selection is “important” or “very important” to their experience, with it being marginally more important to millennials, women, nonwhites and folks who have an annual household income of $75K or more.

The ranking is based on the firm’s ongoing Consumer Brand Metrics program, which asks consumers to report on the importance of “music selection is appropriate” when visiting one its top 100-rated restaurants by system-wide sales.

Here’s the breakdown of Technomic’s rankings for top 10 casual-dining playlists:

1. Hooters

2. Maggiano's Little Italy

3. Yard House

4. Carrabba's Italian Grill

5. Joe's Crab Shack

6. Bonefish Grill

7. Cheesecake Factory

8. Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen

9. BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse

10. Logan's Roadhouse

Hooters stole the top spot with a solid 82.4% of customers classifying its music selection as being “very good” or “good.” About 73% and upwards of customers from the other nine restaurants gave the same rating on each’s respective music playlists.

According to RestaurantBusinessOnline.com, there seems to be no particular commonality to the above restaurants’ popular music choices; all seem to have fairly distinctive music playlists, ranging from classic rock, to mainstream pop, to R&B, to jazz, to even Frank Sinatra, to classics from most decades of the past 50 years, to a combination of most of these.

When I walked into the original Hooters, located at 2800 Gulf to Bay Blvd. in Clearwater, a couple weekends ago to place a to-go order of some mild chicken wings at my family’s request, the music was loud, mostly upbeat and all over the place, including a Franz Ferdinand single, to the most overplayed song of the late 2000’s: “Photograph” by Nickleback, to a country tune of which I couldn’t recall the name, to the good ‘ol 80’s classic“Take me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money.

Hooter’s plastic bag in hand, I arrived at my family’s destination humming Money’s classic that evening, opened up my heavenly smelling styrofoam box, and realized my waitress gave me regular mild wings instead of my requested “boneless” order. Maybe the music was so loud that it affected the young, blonde woman’s hearing? Maybe I spoke too fast. Maybe my bubbly waitress decided “bone-in” was the better choice and was too shy to tell me.  At least Hooters’ chefs prepare wings well enough to sell my family on eating the mistake.

So the next time you head to Hooters for some wings, like I recently did, for some beers or to watch some football with your buddies, pay attention to the tunes and judge them for yourself.