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Winging them to lunch

Ridership remains steady on a free Hooters shuttle designed to take office workers to Channelside.

By Rick Gershman
Published March 17, 2006

DOWNTOWN - Hooters: It's an oasis of beer-and-chicken wings cuisine and attractive, young, snug-orange-shorts-clad women.

That might seem like a world away from the 9-to-5, buttoned-down business world of downtown Tampa.

In a sense, it is. Though the Channelside Hooters is less than a mile from most downtown offices, getting there is another story .

The restaurant can be a challenging destination for some office workers, especially those with short, structured lunch breaks.

For much of the year it can be too hot to walk to Channelside in business attire, and getting a car out of parking adds its own wrinkles.

That's why the restaurant, for $330 a day, funds the Hooters Channelside Express, a circulating shuttle service operated by HARTline. The free service connects the southern half of downtown to Channelside.

The shuttle kicked off in January 2004 with strong ridership, counting 1,788 riders in its first 15 days.

But two years later, do downtown workers still give a hoot about the Hooters shuttle?

Ridership has been steady, if unspectacular. Lately, the shuttle has averaged about 1,400 rides per month, HARTline spokeswoman Jill Cappadoro said.

It was a little lighter in February, with just fewer than 1,100 riders, but that also can be partially attributed to the short month.

"I think we've been really pleased with ridership," Cappadoro said. "With the shuttle, your lunch hour starts the minute you step on board. The travel time can be part of your social life. And you won't have to give up a coveted parking space in a garage."

Hooters approached HARTline about running the service, Cappadoro said, to help bring in the business crowd. On a given weekday, downtown Tampa swells with more than 50,000 office workers.

It would seem Hooters would need a lot of customers to defray the costs of the shuttle. But a Hooters representative said the numbers weren't so important.

"I don't think that we really look at it that way; we just want to be a good community partner," said Denise Williams of Provident Advertising, Hooters' in-house marketing and public relations firm.

"We just wanted to provide an amenity, and we think it's been very successful. And, of course, there's the advertising when people see the trolley going around town."

As much as Hooters is a place to kick back and relax - depending, of course, on when or whether you need to get back to work - the shuttle service runs like clockwork.

One of the two trolleys stop at Channelside or the circulator's other four stations every 10 minutes. They run Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The most popular place to jump on and off is at Kennedy Boulevard next to Lykes Gaslight Park , between Tampa and Franklin streets.

HARTline also says prospective riders on Madison Street, where there are no designated stops, can catch a ride by waving down the trolley operator between Ashley and Marion streets. Otherwise, riders can board only at designated stops.

Last week, Jenny Moore took the shuttle with her co-worker Jeff Plourde. They work for Vitality Food Services in the Park Tower.

"Our company pays for our parking, but we park way, way down'' from the building, Moore said.

It would take too much time to get to their cars for lunch, she said, but she often needs a break from the closer lunch destinations.

"There's not a lot around here except sandwich shop, sandwich shop, sandwich shop," she said.

Of course, trolley riders can go to any Channelside destination for lunch or shopping once they disembark. Moore and Plourde weren't planning on eating at Hooters that day.

Plourde said he'd been there one time before, on a business lunch. Moore said she'd been there a few times, but she likes more variety in her lunch menu.

Moore appreciates that the service is free and wouldn't mind paying a nominal charge, like the 50-cent charge for HARTline's other in-town rubber-wheeled yellow trolleys.

"I would find that very reasonable," she said. "I wouldn't object to paying to help support this, because downtown is already so desolate."

And while Hooters has faced criticism over the years by some groups that consider the restaurant demeaning to women, Moore said she has no problem with that.

In fact, she said, she'd like to see a restaurant chain staffed by cute guys in appealing apparel.

"And instead of showing sports," she said, "they'd show Lifetime."

As of last week, HARTline had only one trolley specifically decorated as a Hooters shuttle. The other is a regular in-town trolley that usually bears a Hooters banner.

Cappadoro, the HARTline spokeswoman, noted that even the decorated Hooters Channelside Express shuttle doesn't bear any images of sexy women or any other salacious touches.

"Hooters has been very sensitive regarding the community and what's appropriate," she said. "They do a lot for the community, they donate a lot of money . . . and they're donating this service."

HARTline and Hooters recently renewed the semiannual agreement to run the shuttle through September.

Though people use the service to enjoy lunch spots throughout Channelside, that's okay with Hooters, Williams said: "We're pretty much all friends over there. We just want people to come to Channelside."

And Hooters has fans in Mary Ellen King and Susan Jones, who work downtown in the Verizon building. They take the shuttle regularly.

"We actually ate at the St. Pete Hooters just the other night," King said. "Here we either go to Hooters or Stumps (Supper Club). It's quicker than walking and cooler in the summer. And parking is at a premium."

Said Jones: "If we drove, we'd both lose our spots."

Rick Gershman can be reached at rgershman@sptimes.com or 226-3431.

[Last modified March 17, 2006, 11:23:34]