ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 28, 1996 TAG: 9609300055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
WILLIAMSON ROAD residents and business owners fear a return to a bawdier era.
The announcement that a restaurant known for buxom waitresses in skimpy shorts will open this fall on Williamson Road has drawn protests from residents and business owners who fear a return to bawdier days - and cautious cheers from others who see the restaurant as a potential economic boon.
Hooters, a franchise of a national restaurant chain, will open in November in the building that once housed Valley View Pancake House. The restaurant is owned by Cornett Food Service, a Hooters franchise based in Culpeper.
Phil Cornett, president of the franchise, said Roanoke was a logical next step for the company, which now operates five Hooters locations in Richmond; Charleston, W.Va.; and Pittsburgh.
"Roanoke is the central market for Southwest Virginia," he said. Williamson Road, with its heavy traffic, was a smart business location, he said. "It's a road that everybody who's ever been in Roanoke knows."
It's also a road that has been trying to change its image over the last few decades, said OraBelle McColman, a member of the Williamson Road Action Forum, a community group that promotes North Roanoke. She said she and other residents spent years battling the massage parlors that once lined Williamson Road, and they're worried that the arrival of Hooters, with waitresses dressed as scantily clad Hooters Girls, signals a return to that earlier, rowdier, state.
"I myself am strictly against it," McColman said. "But I don't know that there's a thing in the world we can do about it."
Cornett said he's talked to a few concerned residents. "Whether you're building a restaurant or any kind of commercial establishment, you get some opposition," he said.
While Cornett said Hooters is, first and foremost, a restaurant, he acknowledged that "vicarious sex appeal" is an important part of the business. But for that very reason, he said, the restaurants must be especially careful to operate by the letter of the law, because they know the community is always watching.
Hooters is "a very structured environment," Cornett said. "It looks unstructured. It's not." The waitresses' appearance is monitored strictly; the company issues an apparel do's-and-don't's list the girls must follow. Beer and wine are served, hard liquor is not.
The Hooters Girls are supposed to portray a "wholesome, all-American cheerleader" image, he said. It's innocent, it's fun - and it's good money for the waitresses, who can pocket hefty tips, he said.
Richard Dorsett, vice president of the Williamson Road forum and a member of the board of directors of the Williamson Road Area Business Association, said he understands the worries of fellow businessmen and residents.
"A lot of people are concerned because of the history of Williamson Road," said Dorsett, a chiropractor with an office off Williamson Road.
But he and others said Hooters, while perhaps not an ideal neighbor, may be better than nothing. The vacant restaurant building had been drawing vandals and vagrants, they said, and did nothing to contribute to the area's economy.
"I don't feel that economic development is a bad thing," Dorsett said. "An empty building just attracts the wrong element."
Helen Horne, who operates Tate Sewing Center out of her home next door to the proposed Hooters, agreed. She's never been to a Hooters, she said, but her sister and brother-in-law used to eat at a Hooters when they lived in Florida.
"The building was empty," Horne said. "I don't feel that it's going to cause any harm."
She thinks some of the opposition to Hooters may stem from another restaurant that once operated in Roanoke. Also named Hooters - and now called Girls, Girls, Girls - that place was a different kind of business, she said. It wasn't affiliated with Hooters of America, but some of the negative publicity may have rubbed off, she said.
Her mother, Ethel Davis, who lives with her, agreed. "We're just glad to see somebody going into the building," she said.
The new restaurant will look nothing like the pancake house it's replacing. Cornett's builders have gutted the building and are remodeling from the ground up. When the restaurant is done, it will seat about 200 people and employ 60 to 100.
Cornett declined to put a price on the renovations, saying only that the project cost is "significant," running into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The management team will arrive in October, and it will be responsible for recruiting the Roanoke Hooters Girls. The team will visit gyms, malls and other gathering places to look for applicants, he said.
Cornett opened his first Hooters in 1992. He and his partners had owned a 38-restaurant Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.
Hooters of America Inc., based in Atlanta, has more than 200 franchised and company-owned restaurants. It was started, according to company officials, when the founders went out onto a Clearwater, Fla., beach, found the winner of a local bikini contest and made her their waitress role-model.
Nationally, the company and several franchises have been the target of criticism for what have been called sexist hiring practices. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigated whether the restaurant chain's hiring practices amounted to discrimination against men but failed to find any illegal practices. Sexual discrimination cases continue to languish in several jurisdictions.
Williamson Road merchants and residents will simply have to wait until the restaurant opens to make their final assessment, Dorsett said.
"Even myself, I feel some reservations," he said. "But it's better to have some economic development than nothing at all."
McColman said she hasn't met Cornett or any of the other Hooters folks yet. She's hoping for the best, she said, because it's about all she can do now.
"They may prove to be a good neighbor," McColman said. "But it's something I wish wouldn't come."
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: NHAT MEYER/Staff The Williamson Road building that willby CNBbecome Hooters in November was once Valley View Pancake House.