#44. Try 25 New Restaurants in Portland, OR

One evening last week, Dan had to make a trip out to one of his clients, the distribution warehouse at Columbia Sportswear.  He was taking out some office cubicle walls to set up a temporary office for one of his employees.  He needed my car to take everything out to Columbia, so he tempted me into going with him, by offering to take me out to dinner afterwards.

I agreed to go along and later, was glad I did, because the traffic was horrible and it took us forever to get out there.  If Dan had made the trip alone, he wouldn't have gotten home until probably around 9pm and then we wouldn't have really been able to spend any time together.

After we dropped off the cubicle walls, we headed out to dinner...  to HOOTERS of all places!

Dan had suggested it and I totally agreed, which I think surprised him a little bit.  I was a little curious though. You always hear people, (okay, men?) justifying the place by saying it has really good food.  Well, I wanted to find out, and wings sounded pretty good that night.

We walked into the restaurant, and it was definitely filled mostly with men.  The restaurant as a whole was pretty empty, so we were able to pick a table we wanted.  We were greeted by a cute, young, blonde waitress (what, you expected something else?) who asked if we wanted to start with a couple of beers.  Uh, sorry honey, we're a boring married couple, here for the wings!  Two large waters, please.

After spending a few minutes looking at the menu, we decided to share several "appetizers".  We had BBQ wings, sliders, curly fries and the best of all, fried pickles.  

I was skeptical about the pickles but they were pretty amazing.  And what you've heard is true, the food was actually very good, but I thought it was the sliders, not the wings, that were the best!

All in all, it was a pretty crazy experience.  I was trying to take it all in without staring too much.  I guess I really didn't expect that the waitresses would really all be young, skinny, beautiful girls, but they were.  And I really didn't expect that the uniforms could really be that skimpy, but they were.

Also, I couldn't really figure out if we were in a restaurant or a bar.  There wasn't really any designated bar area like there is in most restaurants.  So I figured that the whole place was considered a bar, and you had to be 21 to enter.  But then, a family with 3 young kids walked in, and I was really confused... 1) My theory about Hooters being a bar was shot, and 2) who considers Hooters to be a family restaurant?

And finally, as my friend Kelsey would say, why in the world haven't they updated the Hooters uniform?  As in, those slouchy socks paired with nylons?  Really?!