What happens after your Hooters shuts down? Ask these Hooters Girls.
“I am not cut out for a job with no fun.”
Priscilla Blossom
Freelance contributor
Tue, July 1, 2025 at 11:00 AM UTC
7 min read
Being a Hooters Girl is “fun.” But Mya Machelle, Drea Rutledge and Whitney Lamb were thrown for a loop when their locations closed.
(Photos: Courtesy of Mya Machelle, Drea Rutledge and Whitney Lamb)
It’s been a rough year for fans (and employees) of Hooters, the restaurant chain known for chicken wings and the revealing orange-and-white uniforms worn by the women who work there. In early June, more than two dozen of its company-owned locations across the U.S. closed their doors for good. It wasn’t exactly surprising, given the struggles casual dining restaurants nationwide are facing. Still, the shutdowns put people out of work, including many oft-mythologized Hooters Girls.
Drea Rutledge, who worked at the now-shuttered Rockford, Ill., Hooters, is one of them.
“We all knew that Hooters filed for bankruptcy back in March, but we just didn’t think it would happen to our store,” Rutledge tells Yahoo Life. “My general manager kept telling us that we were fine. Our sales were good. Everything was good, so we thought we had nothing to worry about.”
Rutledge took to social media to mourn the loss of her job. “My Hooters location shut down but at least these photos look good,” she captioned a TikTok of herself taking selfies in a red bikini.
Other Hooters Girls affected by the closures have been following suit. “I’m in shambles,” one posted, showing off her low-cut black work top. Some said goodbye through dance routines — spinning around in empty dining rooms or gathering their girlfriends to bust a move outside their old workplace.
What’s next for these women who are not only out of a job but also the cache that comes with being a Hooters Girl (one of the few food service industry jobs with its own Halloween costume)? Yahoo Life spoke with a few to find out.
What it’s like to work at Hooters
Rutledge, who is in her early 20s, started working at the sports bar in 2020. She loved it.
“I was always excited to go to work, and I always upheld the Hooters standards and what it meant to be a Hooters Girl,” she says, adding that “being a Hooters Girl was different from being a server.” That’s because Hooters Girls are actually hired as entertainers, a loophole allowing them to strictly hire young, attractive women. (Per the Hooters website, getting hired as a Hooters Girl “is an honor bestowed upon only the most entertaining, goal-oriented, glamorous and charismatic women. Hooters Girls have that special gift for making every guest feel welcome. She’ll have all kinds of opportunities — like appearing in the annual Hooters Swimsuit Calendar. She is an American icon the world over. A waitress she is not.”)
Whitney Lamb was 18 when she applied to work at the Fort Smith, Ark., location on a whim after getting sucked into the corner of the internet that is Hooters Girls’ “Get Ready With Me” videos (think: young women in curve-hugging orange shorts applying makeup). “It looked like a lot of fun,” Lamb, now 22, says. “And I am not cut out for a job with no fun.”
Mya Machelle, a 21-year-old Hooters Girl in the Nashville area, liked the social aspect of the job — namely, swapping stories with customers and coworkers alike. “This is the first job where I actually had coworkers that I hang out with outside [of work] and really created a bond,” she says.
All three women also enjoyed the work opportunities they had outside of the restaurant, including doing promotions and photo shoots, like posing for the Hooters Swimsuit Calendar.
And despite making regular What I Make in a Day TikToks during a Hooters shift, Rutledge insists she wasn’t really in it for money alone. “Everybody would always ask me, ‘What did you like about working there?’” she says. “And every single time, I would always say the experience, the opportunities and everybody you meet, because the right person you meet could change your life.”
But like any job, it had its downsides. Lamb says some days just felt extra long, especially when she wasn’t feeling particularly peppy but had to remain cheerful and talkative for her customers. “In the long run, though, it forced me into a better headspace,” she adds.
The party’s over
On June