Hooters on the Strip I recall that about a week ago, an article in the New York Daily News cast aspersions on Trump Marina because it has a Hooters restaurant:While The Borgata has an outpost of The Old Homestead, a New York steakhouse, the Trump Marina has a Hooters and a Taco Bell. Now, the conversion of the San Remo casino near the Las Vegas Strip, next to the Tropicana and across from the MGM, is being hailed as the greatest thing since shaved tokens. From the LV Sun: Skimpy shorts and tight tank tops already are ubiquitous on the Strip but will be making another debut of sorts at the Hotel San Remo, which has signed a management deal with the Hooters restaurant chain to rebrand the Las Vegas hotel-casino into a Hooters Casino Hotel. The 711-room property, which is east of the Tropicana resort on Tropicana Avenue and overshadowed by its larger and showier neighbors, expects to offer a Hooters restaurant adjacent to the casino floor as well as service from the famed "Hooters Girls." "It's going to be an entirely new property," San Remo General Manager Mike Hessling said today. "You will not recognize a portion of the San Remo when it's done." The property also will have new restaurants, including a Dan Marino's Fine Food and Spirits, a Florida-based chain owned by the former Miami Dolphins football star. The pool area will be about three times its current size, with a Hooters Beach Club and tropical theme. The hotel rooms will be remodeled with a "Florida casual" look and the casino also will be updated. The outside of the property will feature the Hooters owl logo and at night will be lit with the chain's trademark orange tint. Hooters founders will have a management stake in the hotel-casino and are beginning the process of obtaining a state casino license. The property will be run by a joint venture of about nine people including the hotel's current Japanese investors, officials with Clearwater, Fla.-based Hooters Management Corp. and the owners of the two existing Hooters franchises in the Las Vegas area. The franchise owners will keep open those locations, one on West Sahara Avenue in Las Vegas and the other inside the Sunset Station hotel-casino. The hotel plans a late 2005 "grand opening" as a Hooters and will remain open during the transformation. The San Remo intends to keep its 600 or so employees but will hire an additional 400 workers, including Hooters Girls, Hessling said. None of the property's existing employees will be replaced by Hooters Girls, he said. San Remo converting to Hooters brand How about that. A Hooters hotel and casino. Who would have thought? I think I want to have a contest to pick the next restaurant-themed casino. TGI Friday's? Subway? For people from the Pennsylvania/NJ area, how about this: a WaWa casino.

Source: Casino [ptz]