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An exterior view of the Hooters hotel-casino on Tropicana Avenue, east of Las Vegas Boulevard South Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012.
Friday, Dec. 28, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Sun coverage
Hooters is getting a facelift.
The casino and hotel on Tropicana Avenue has struggled since it opened. It fell into bankruptcy last year. Then it was taken over by its creditor. But the resort recently started its makeover and will begin major construction next month in hopes of finally making a mark in Las Vegas.
Orchestrating the changes is a team that previously worked at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Rick Richards, who served as manager there in 2000, arrived at Hooters this fall. He hired four others from his old team, including Richard Wilk and Eric Arnold, to try to rebuild Hooters. They found an unkempt casino with half-empty beer bottles strewn along slot machines like the day after a college fraternity party.
"Rick called a town hall meeting and told everyone to get ready for 2013," said Arnold, executive director of marketing. "You could see morale immediately pick up. Now they're taking more pride in what they do and the way the place looks. And we started making changes daily, so they could see we mean business."
It's small, and that's why they like it. With 696 hotel rooms and 30,000 square feet of casino space, Arnold said, Hooters is roughly the same size as the Hard Rock a decade ago under Peter Morton.
"We think there's a place in Las Vegas for smaller, intimate casinos where everyone knows you," said Wilk, the director of business development and communications. "We think we know how to make this place cool."
Recently, they walked through Hooters and talked about changes for the future:
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Opening up the casino
One of the first steps was literally breaking down walls and opening up the view of the casino.
"We want people to look at this as a casino that has a Hooters restaurant inside of it and not a Hooters with a casino," Arnold said. "We wanted to give better sight lines. Now you can see through to the back of the pool."
Plans are to keep the name out front, trying to build on Hooters' recognizable national brand.
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The deal on new uniforms
These old uniforms are out. After years of the dealers dressing similar to the restaurant servers, the dealers on the casino floor will be getting a new look.
"They'll still be sexy, without looking like they're wearing 1980s gym outfits," Arnold said.
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Hooters at the 'beach'
Remember this picture — or, rather, forget it. The new management would like to. It's not going to look the same by spring. A design that hides the condos, adds cabanas and replaces concrete with sand hopes to bring the new Hooters Beach Club in line with other day clubs in Las Vegas. Don't expect a pricey cover charge, though.
"We want to provide a day club and pool that's more affordable," Wilk said.
It's set to break ground Dec. 30, with opening slated for March.
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Famous faces
Hooters has not been known for drawing celebrities like the hotspots on the Strip. But lately, athletes, actors and musicians have been stopping by.
"I've had a trusting relationship in Hollywood for 17 years, and I think we can bring people here with great service and less red tape than bigger places on the Strip," Wilk said.
During the past month, Hooters has played host to Olympic gold medal swimmer Cullen Jones; boxer Chuck Zito; professional wrestler and actor Bill Goldberg; and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tommy DeVito. UFC fighters Frabrico Werdum (pictured), Ian McCall and King Mo are scheduled to be at Hooters signing autographs today.
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So long, video games
Joy Stixx is out. The Saloon is in. The video game bar, which opened a little more than a year ago, is giving way to a lounge featuring live music. The renovation is currently under way.
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A new show
Hooters recently signed "Purple Reign," the Prince tribute show that had been playing downtown. The casino has given Jason Tenner, the show's star and producer, run of the room, and he's in the process of remaking the space, which also features Kevin LePine's "Hypnosis Unleashed."
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Remodeled rooms
In January, Hooters will begin refurbishing its rooms in blocks of 100. Among the plans are contemporary artwork from the artists at Sticks & Stones, the on-site tattoo parlor. The artists' work will set the tone for the look throughout the resort.
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One thing is staying the same
The Hooters Girls will stay. There will just be more of them, with about 200 servers at the restaurant and poolside. The new management doesn't want to fix what's not broken.
"The restaurant here is the highest-grossing Hooters in the country," Arnold said. Now, it's a matter of helping the rest of the resort become profitable.
HOOTERS says,
"We want people to look at this as a casino that has a Hooters restaurant inside of it and not a Hooters with a casino," Arnold said. "We wanted to give better sight lines. Now you can see through to the back of the pool." (Eric Arnold, Hooter Management)
FONG SHUI says,
"If the front door is in inline with the back door, your money will flow out of the house"
Not the exact wording...the meaning or the thinking is... seeing an exit once you enter a house or a building...the money not stay in house or the structure, it will flow directly out, without stopping.
It will be just another smoky casino.
The name is Hooters, the brand is Hooters, it is like trying to turn a fast food chain in to fine dining. The crowd will be the same frat boys.
Have Breast cams, mount 2 cameras on the waitresses, pointing out I guess (stereoscopic) then feed images over the Internet. Pretty classy idea. Of course hooterrs has to do with owls.
Location, location, location. The facelift won't help, kind of like putting a skirt and lipstick on a pig at this point, in the end you still have a pig. It was first a Howard Johnson in 1973 then Paradise and then the Treasury Hotel, they didn't make it so why should Hooters. It was fun when it first opened but then the novelty wore off. Bottom line is that its far enough off the strip for people to think twice about going to dinner/gamble or staying there.
If you think changing the sight line or picking up some beer bottles will help a seriously depressed property like Hooters, then you've been reading to many fairy tales. If any management team or person could increase revenue in the gaming business, the "Major" casinos would have already hired them at a much higher salary than Hooters could ever pay. It takes lots of capital and a major renovation to even begin to think about making Hooters a real player in Vegas and I don't think banks are lining up with loans papers in hand. bigger casinos have bit the dust here and I imagine sooner or later someone will realize it's time to bring in the demo crew.
It was San Remo before Hooters. San Remo was quaint little casino. We went to Hooters the week it opened, and it was bad rec room decor. Really screwed up the floor.
Famous Faces? I've never heard of any of them. Signing autographs? No need to rush down there to beat the crowds. Seriously, what has happened to Las Vegas? Mid-level casinos paying $10 for 4 of a kind on a machine; 10 whole dollars, whoopee.
Considering the new owners were able to get this property for pennies on the dollar, I think they will do ok. The key is getting people over there to gamble, and with the right gimmick, they will make money.
Dear manager,
Please... for all that's holy... CHANGE the Hooters girls uniform in the casino. Make it distinctive from any old Hooters restaurant. Sex it up just a bit. Cleavage, boy shorts, high heels, SOMETHING, anything different.
I'm a dealer at this property and I took real offense to what was said by the "three Amigos" in the article. This article stated that they had a town hall meeting with us, that is correct, what it fails to say is that they came into the town hall meeting acting like they were gifts from the gods (kind of the way they sound in the article). They went out of their way to point out to us, who love this property that it was a piece of crap and not to worry because they were here now. I could even be ok with that being the message they wanted to say, but you would think that they would have said it to us without putting us and the property down in the same breath. We all understnad and want someone to update the property but to do it in the way they did was unacceptable Maybe a refresher course in management 101 could be of some assistance. As for the comment about our uniforms well let's see the Hooters uniform has been a proven staple for the corporation and has worked out wonderfully for some time now and for them to refer to them as 1980 gym uniforms was just plain stupid. I think the owners of this property will soon realize the mistake they made by bringing in this "Hard Rock" crew and get rid of them. This article was just the thing to point out their arrogance to everyone (although we all have been seeing it since they arrived). This is also just the tip of the iceberg as a dealer you get to hear and see a lot of things and these guys are up to no good. I hope for the sake of this wonderful casino they act fast before they destroy the entire place
Isn't Navegante supposed to be running the casino? Does this Rick Richards even have a gaming license?
my sources tell me the entire management team from Navagante has been fired and the property owners are trying to manage the place. It can't be worse than what Navagante was doing, those guys were idiots.
Anyone can go in and do a "hipster" update but the 8 items mentioned above won't fix the problem(s), the major one being the name of the place. Unless you're going after a trailer park demographic, Hooters needs to be taken off the building. Couples with money won't go there and casino hosts hired to draw (and retain) guests will continue to fight an uphill battle against the fierce competition nearby. New uniforms, poolside sand and a Fremont Street cover band = Slight initial uptick, then failure. Bet on it.
FREE TIPS: NAME? Something like the "Bahama Bay" in Orlando (so the tropical theme can be retained w/o doing a costly makeover). MARKETING? Hire friendly and actually deliver over-the-top, quality guest service without exception. Make it the friendliest place to play/stay in Vegas and word WILL get around. ENTERTAINMENT? Jeff Civillico is a clean, funny, future headliner stuck at The Quad (IP) doing a 2pm afternoon show. Steal him for pennies.
See? Not that hard.