Yeah, I figure I'd better jump on this grenade before my feminist wife gets wind of this article. Personally I file this story under "yeah right, in about a million years will this happen":
The Associated Press
Dubai may host Arabic peninsula's first Hooters restaurant
June 19, 2007
Hooters, a U.S. restaurant chain famous for its scantily clad waitresses, may open this year in Dubai as it expands to the Arabic peninsula for the first time, the company's local partner said Tuesday.
"I am trying to secure a location to open one restaurant this year. A year
from now I will have two to three potential locations," Jamal al-Shaheen, a Kuwaiti investor, who has the franchise rights for Hooters in Dubai, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Waitresses at Hooters, which describes itself as a 'beach-theme' restaurant, wear tight revealing tank tops and skimpy shorts. The restaurant's name stems from an American slang term for women's breasts.
"The element of female sex appeal is prevalent in the restaurants, and the company believes the Hooters Girl is as socially acceptable as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader," Hooters of America Inc., says on its Web site.
Al-Shaheen said the original plan was to open a restaurant on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah, a huge tree-shaped artificial island that has been reclaimed off Dubai's coastline. But delays on the gigantic construction site caused him to opt for a new location on the city's glitzy Jumeirah Beach Road.
The new location for Dubai's first Hooters ought to be sealed by summer's end, al-Shaheen said, and the restaurant should open about six months later.
Al-Shaheen, a partner in Kuwaiti firm Marketing Management Group, or MMG, doesn't expect any conservative backlash over Hooters' staff uniforms, saying the tight tops and shorts are no more revealing than normal outfits on the nearby Dubai beach.
The Dubai Hooters isn't the first one planned for the Middle East. Plans to open a Hooters restaurant in Lebanon have been shelved because of fighting in the country, al-Shaheen said.
The franchise has more than 430 restaurants in the U.S. and 23 other countries, including China.
© The Associated Press
Okay, so if this restaurant opens before we leave Dubai in the next year or two, I'll publicly eat my Red Sox baseball hat. Perhaps even at the Hooters.
I can't tell you how insane this idea is. Yes, Dubai is very Westernized, and yes, they seem to love all American themed restaurants here ... but one that focuses on breasts? Never in a thousand years. They don't expect backlash? They're idiots, then. Yes, there are bikinis on the beach, but not in public restaurants or malls. Nooooo.
Remember, the national dress for local women in Dubai is the abaya - covering the whole body in black. While older women wear a face veil, younger women generally only cover their hair - just like other Muslim women around the world.
So yeah, I think Hooters low-cut shirts and short-shorts might not go over well.
And, lastly, Beach Road isn't "glitzy". That's just dumb. It's not glitzy by a long shot. It's the same kind of road that in the states would be named "Atlantic Avenue" or "Pacific Street", depending on which coast you favor. It's just a street that's near the ocean. I'll take some pictures this week.
So not glitzy. |
