You expect fireworks of flesh, TV glare, hot sauce and an ocean of orange when you walk into any Hooters location.
But this wasn’t any night.
Much to my displeasure, it was Game 4 of the Nuggets- Spurs’ first-round battle in the NBA playoffs. On the screens, the game was tied in the 90s. In the house of Hoot (1390 S. Colorado Blvd., 303-782-0232), there were tables filled with baseball caps and wing bones, bored girlfriends and boys leaping out of their sweatpants with every other score.
I don’t like basketball. Or wings. Or beer. Or loud TVs in bars. Or NASCAR hoods on the walls. Or obnoxious jocks. But the color was overwhelmingly fantastic, and my friend Caitlin, a first-timer, was down, so I had no choice but to indulge in the home team, who, with 1:35 to play, was tied with San Antonio at 103.
It wasn’t long before Caitlin gave me her feminist line about the Hooters girls: “It’s too much. They might as well just strip – they’d make more money.”
“Actually I admire them,” I said, lacking sarcasm and chauvinism. “If you’re going to rock a bar like this, why not go all the way? It’s the added cheese on the top.”
Obviously, they don’t make Hooters for me. Or Caitlin. But given the service – waiting 15 minutes as our waitress, Moira, sat at a table full of guys watching the game – who are they trying to lure?
Later, when Moira came back with our second round – an order that took 15 minutes to fill – the Nuggies had fallen back in OT worse than our waitress had fallen behind on her lone active table. When the game was over, the lights went bright, and everybody went home, save for us. But as we finished our drinks, we realized Hooters is just like any other bar.
When you prick them, do they not bleed? When you season your fries, do they not have to refill the salt shakers?
Staff writer Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
Funky: Before he left, one regular pulled a chair toward the big screen, mounted it and reached high for a Miller Lite/Mobil 1 hood hanging there. He tapped it, as if for good luck, and then left quietly, avoiding the dumbfounded stare on my face. Awesome.
Skunky: The NASCAR wall hangings I can handle. But there are few things I hate more than blaring commercials when you’re talking to somebody.
