Bar-goers to hear Harbor hoot soon

Andrew Edwards

Welcome to the home of South Coast Plaza, the Orange County

Performing Arts Center, and if all goes according to plan, Hooters.

“Are you kidding me?” Councilwoman Katrina Foley exclaimed after

hearing that the sometimes-controversial sports bar would likely move

in this June. Foley declined to make any further comments, and

Councilman Eric Bever also said little about the news.

“I don’t know if that’s the direction Costa Mesa is going, but oh

well,” he said.

Hooters, a national chain of sports bars, is “delightfully tacky,

yet unrefined,” according to the company’s own slogan.

The restaurants are known for their chicken wings and their

scantily-clad waitresses.

The chain’s Costa Mesa location would be at the corner of Harbor

Boulevard and South Coast Drive, across from the city’s large Ikea

store, said Fred Glick, president of Hoot Winc, LLC, an

Oceanside-based company that owns Hooter’s locations in California

and three other states.

The new restaurant will replace the Balboa Peninsula restaurant

that shut down in December. Glick’s company took over the Balboa

restaurant in 2002.

The location’s previous owner had operated a Hooter’s in Costa

Mesa near South Coast Plaza that closed in 2000. Glick’s company

decided to leave the pier-side neighborhood to be closer to the San

Diego (405) Freeway.

“We tried to take over the existing location and make it work, but

we wanted to be closer to the Interstate,” Glick said.

Glick expects the permitting process will go smoothly.

His company is set to submit plans to city staffers next week.

Since the new Hooters is slated to be built in the same location as

an old restaurant, Coco’s, Hoot Winc will not need a special permit

to open a new bar.

“We don’t differentiate on a type of restaurant unless you’re

serving alcohol after 11 p.m. or 200 feet from a residence,” said

Mike Robinson, Costa Mesa assistant development services director.

Hooters waitresses wear orange hot pants and low-cut tank tops as

they serve burgers and beer to customers.

Glick knows the chain’s racy image has raised eyebrows, but said

the chain aims to be more fun than scandalous.

“People don’t know who we are and think we’re a strip joint,” he

said. “The people who protest are the ones who never step inside.”