Kuwait Times

Published Date: June 20, 2007

DUBAI: Hooters, a US restaurant chain famous for its scantly clad, large breasted waitresses, may open this year in Dubai as it expands to the Arabic peninsula for the first time, the company's local partner said yesterday.

"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.

Dubai, ruled by the Al-Maktoum dynasty, has placed itself at the center of an oil-fueled economic boom in the Gulf by offering a tax-free Western lifestyle to white collar expatriate workers.

The moderate emirate, home to the $12,000-a-night (euro9,000-a-night) Burj Al-Arab Hotel, allows alcohol to flow in its trendy restaurants, bars and nightclubs that attract hordes of tourists and foreign executives.

Western expatriates choose Dubai in favor of larger but more restrictive Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia, where Muslim laws ban liquor and require women to dress modestly.

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 website.

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. One is due to open in Israel this year. 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 US  and 23 other countries, including China. Atlanta, Georgia-based Hooters, charges a franchise fee of $75,000 (euro56,000) per location and says initial investment in a restaurant ranges between $800,000 (euro600,000) and $1.5 million (euro1 million). - AP