Better her than us, we always say, whenever we read another of SF Gate blogger Beth Spotswood’s Tourist Trapped columns. [Ed. Note: Spotswood has threatened to drag us along on one of these excursions, and so far we’ve politely demurred.] After taking one for the team and checking out No. 9 Fishermen’s Grotto and the Rainforest Café, among other choice Wharf spots, this week she goes to Hooters, ostensibly to meet a couple of cast members from The Amazing Race who were hosting a viewing party there. “As a woman, I’m not really offended by it,” writes Spotswood of the mammary-centric franchise. “[It] just made me… uncomfortable.”
This discomfort had more to do with the styling of the poor waitresses (“The sweet girls working there, lovely as they are, walk around in an incredibly unappealing uniform, like a sexed up version of the Hot Dog on a Stick ensemble… tiny tank tops, even tinier shorts, tan pantyhose, 1980’s work-out socks and sneakers.”), the truly terrible food (“I’ve never had fried pickles before but these [were] the worst fried pickles I’ve ever had.”), and the strange practice the management seems to allow for taking out the trash during service ("Past us, a server pushed an overflowing trash can through the restaurant, sort of bumping it into dining tables. At this point, after 1980’s work-out socks, disgusting pickle chips and sad families, a massive pile of filthy garbage making it’s way through the middle of the restaurant no longer fazed me.”)
But here’s an interesting note for the high-rollers out there with a healthy sense of irony to stick in their back pockets: The menu offers a Gourmet Chicken Wing Dinner, which consists of 20 chicken wings and a bottle of Dom Perignon for $259.99.
Tourist Trapped: Hooters [SF Gate]
Earlier: A Harrowing Tale of an Evening at Joe’s Crab Shack, Followed By a Double Homicide [Grub Street]
