'Beach' concept popularity: fun in the sun or just sexism?

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 20, 1992 by Rick Van Warner

Here's a pop quiz. Knockers, Melons, Zoomerz, Hooters are:

A) Common fraternity-house slang terms.

B) The subject of adolescent humor.

C) The names of thriving restaurant concept.

If you caught last week's issue of this publication, you'd probably answer all of the above. Yes, concept that focus significantly on female anatomy - carrying such names as Mugs'n Jugs - are proliferating, proving once again how far sexual equality has not come in our country nor in our industry.

These so-called "beach-style" concepts are brashly reinforcing the image of women as sex objects first, intelligent people second.

To be sure, these operations have plenty of company. Even the most casual television gazer can't help but spot the Swedish bikini team or other scantily clad models in countless beer, cosmetic or automotive commercials. What is even more amazing is that as we head toward the year 2000, the denigration of women appears to be growing, not fading.

In foodservice, apparently, things have come full circle since the days when such chains as Chili Bordello featured female servers wearing lingerie and parading around in what looked more like a New Orleans brothel than a dining room. And it's been nearly a decade since the Playboy Clubs around the country closed their doors.

What's troubling about the current wave of "T&A" concepts is that they come at a time when women are otherwise making significant strides in the world of business. It is ironic that at about the same time the Clarence Thomas hearings brought such issues as sexual harassement in the workplace into the limelight, topless waitresses were serving patrons donuts and coffee in southeast Florida.

The craze is by no means limited to Florida, or for that matter, the Southeast. In Chicago, for example, a recently opened Hooters unit is reportedly serving to a packed house.

Degrading? Yes. Good for business? Apparently so.

Sex still sex in America, that much is indisputable. And it is difficult to fault aggressive operators for cashing in on sexist themes, particularly during a recession. As one such operator notes. "The bottom line is: Good-looking women bring in business."

Still, the popularity of dining concepts centered around the exploitation of women is alarming. As a female colleague remarked, "it is setting the women's movement back years."

Many people will counter, |Heh, lighten up, relax. These concepts are doing nothing wrong, they're just satisfying customer demands.'

|And what about the women who are supposedly being degraded?' the same folks will ask. |Don't they have a right to hold whatever job they wish? That's equal rights,' they will be quick to point out.

Sure, "beach-style" waitresses can always quit, but there is nothing equal about the waitstaff jobs at most of the concepts . . . men and less-shapely persons need not apply.

There is more than "fun" and "casual" ambiance at stake when it comes to exploiting any group of people based on physical, cultural or genetic characteristics.

Clearly the tolerance level would be very different were concepts springing up touting slang names associated with certain ethnic or religious groups. As was the case with Sambo's in the 1970s, many people would be quick to denounce such concepts as "slurs."

But the fact that the same values when applied to women are still acceptable, even popular, today is disturbing.

Women make up more than 50 percent of the foodservice workforce, but an enormously lower percentage of management jobs and just a smattering of the executive level posts.

At a time when the industry should be doing more to shatter the glass ceiling and promote women for their job skills, it is a sad social commentary that women are still being degraded in concepts spot-lighting their bodies.