Weekly Wrap April 7: Solo Diners, Uber-OpenTable Partnership, and More

Hooters — the restaurant chain first known for its orange-clad, all-female wait staff and then its chicken wings — filed for bankruptcy, the company announced Monday. But the decades-old brand said it isn’t going anywhere.

In the bankruptcy process, the company plans to sell all of its 100 company-owned restaurants to two franchisee groups that operate Hooters locations in the Tampa, Florida, and Chicago areas. The combined group collectively operates a third of the US franchised-owned locations, according to the press release.

Hooters joins other fast-casual restaurants, such as BurgerFi and Red Lobster, which filed for bankruptcy amid rough business conditions. The company’s workforce has also come under fire, with lawsuits ranging from racial discrimination to gender discrimination. Hooters closed dozens of restaurants last year, blaming rising food and labor costs.

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Hooters said it will continue to operate its business as usual, although it said it is “evaluating the Company’s operational footprint” for its company-owned locations. That means it may end up closing some locations during its bankruptcy process. Private equity firms Nord Bay Capital and TriArtisan Capital Advisors bought Hooters in 2019.

The buyer group includes the original Hooters founders, including Neil Kiefer, CEO of franchisee group Hooters Inc.

“For many years now, the Hooters brand has been owned by private equity firms and other groups with no history or experience with the Hooters brand,” Kiefer said in a press release Monday. In an interview with Bloomberg News last week, he said that the turnaround plan includes making the chain more family friendly.

This is part of the paradox of solo dining. Even as Americans are spending more time on their own, many find eating out alone to be rife with awkwardness and judgment. And many restaurateurs, who already run their businesses on thin profit margins, worry that tables for one will cost them.

Reservations for solo dining in the United States have risen by 64 percent since 2019, according to data from OpenTable, and 21 percent from 2022 to 2023, according to Resy. The increase in eating alone is probably even greater, given that many people simply walk in.

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Several diners described the experience of entering a restaurant hoping to treat themselves to a relaxing meal, then feeling guilty for taking up space, or fearful that they’re being judged by everyone around them.

“When you walk in by yourself, the look on the host or hostess’s face changes,” said Rajika Shah, a lawyer in Los Angeles who used to dine alone frequently, as she moved often for work and wanted to explore local dining. “It is sometimes a look of panic, like ‘What are we going to do with this person?’ Or sometimes it is a look of sympathy.”

Ms. Shah, 51, said she is often led to the worst table in the dining room, neglected by her server, and then rushed out at the end of the meal. She blamed the tipping system — because workers are reliant on tips, she said, they may be less attentive to those who spend less than groups.

“I am just so tired of being treated like a second-class citizen,” she said.

Even the menu can feel exclusionary: The shareable small plates that dominate many menus make it expensive and “difficult to eat a balanced and well-proportioned meal alone,” said Amanda Lao, 55, who lives in Chicago and started solo dining while traveling for her former job as an auditor.

When I visited New York from Los Angeles in January, I dropped by a buzzy new bar in Midtown Manhattan with great anticipation. The place looks stunning in photos and is featured on all the best new bars list.

However, its sizzle devolved to fizzle the moment I sat down. Some of the details that make or break a good experience were missing. 

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Despite these pluses, the place left me cold because it felt less like a bar and more like a destination serving drinks—a critical distinction, in my mind. The former is a place with good drinks and warm hospitality; the latter is a spectacle and as the cocktail scene moves forward, I know these types of venues will likely launch with greater frequency. Their visually distinct atmospheres and elaborate drinks will cajole the Instagram and TikTok crowds to eagerly book 90-minute reservation weeks in advance. 

But where exactly do these upscale places mean for the future of the bar landscape?

Is an Upscale Bar Even a Bar?

The line separating a classic bar and a high-end destination bar points to the cocktail scene’s evolution. Classic cocktails on the menu were a mark of distinction years ago. Not anymore. To stand out, and stay competitive in a crowded landscape, an establishment may feel the need to lean into elements that make space a destination, where near $30 drinks can be justified. 

This mindset is not unlike restaurants. The three-Michelin star spot and the mom-and-pop greasy spoon technically fit under the same restaurant umbrella, but they’re viewed through different filters. It feels like the time is right to apply those filters to the bar industry.

Uber (NYSE: UBER) and OpenTable (part of Booking Holdings Inc., NASDAQ: BKNG), global leaders in transportation and restaurant tech, have formed a new strategic partnership to provide seamless dining experiences for millions of highly engaged consumers around the world. The first-of-its-kind collaboration will pair Uber’s ride-hailing and delivery services with OpenTable’s expansive restaurant network across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia and Ireland.

In the months ahead, the companies will develop integrations of the Uber Eats, Uber, and OpenTable apps to offer dining reservation access and seamless transportation options, membership benefits, and more. And for the more than 1 million restaurants worldwide that partner with the companies, the collaboration between two trusted platforms brings additional opportunities to drive revenue, engage existing diners—and reach new ones.

President Trump announced a sweeping set of tariffs on countries around the world on Wednesday, setting the stage for a global trade war and adding a new set of disruptions for a restaurant industry that is already combatting a shaky economic outlook. 

The Administration announced a set of reciprocal tariffs on trading partners of at least 10%, with some key exceptions for countries such as Russia and Cuba that are already facing broad sanctions. 

The new import taxes are designed to eliminate trade imbalances between the U.S. and other countries, and Trump argues that many other nations have tougher trade restrictions than does the U.S. The administration argues that trade deficits increased by over 40% over the past five years, ultimately hurting domestic manufacturing capacity. The tariffs vary by country, based on individual trade imbalances, and are as high as 50%. 

But tariffs are import taxes on goods imported into the U.S., and are typically paid by companies importing those goods. Those companies typically pass those tariffs onto their customers, driving up the cost of those goods. 

For restaurants, which import a range of goods such as wine from France or kitchen equipment from Vietnam, the result adds a layer of cost uncertainty at a time when much of the industry is working to regain consumer traffic. 

“Applying new tariffs at this scale will create change and disruption that restaurant operators will have to navigate to keep their restaurants open,” Michelle Korsmo, CEO of the National Restaurant Association, said in a statement. “The biggest concerns for restaurant operators—from community restaurants to national brands—are that tariffs will hike food and packaging costs and add uncertainty to managing availability, while pushing up prices for consumers.”