Officially Over: The "Bailout" Sales Gimmick

Everyone's doing it - and it's done. Here's a new promotion from Florida-based Ker's Wing House.


Please. Stop it. This is not smart or funny or even topical anymore. Bailout. What? What do you mean? Are you bailing me out of the high cost of dining out? OK, I'll grant that's a pretty cheap bunch of shrimp, but a bailout it is not. And as long as I'm dragging your ideas through the dirt, can I pick on your middle school art direction? I'm not an Art Director, but I play one at work - which always pisses off the real Art Directors - but an American flag? Really? Nice bevel on the restaurant name. I guess you were going for the "retro 1996" look? Oh, cool use of a yellow starburst/seal. Overall grade: D+.

For those not in Florida and Texas, Ker's Wing House (usually just called Wing House) is a cheap knock-off of Hooter's, where the food is the secondary attraction. (Read the story of Ker's here - originally called "Knockers." Wow.)

Wing House is all about service, and that service comes in the form of young women who touch the arms of men and say, "Can I get you another beer, hon?" or "How we doin' on the those wings, babe?" as she grazes a customer's shoulder with freakishly enhanced flotation devices that protrude from her tank-top. Then, the lonely boys at the table get a little buzzed and start to imagine that the Wing House girl really likes them, prompting them to leave a ridiculously over-proportioned tip and ask for her phone number. She smiles a very practiced, shy smile and says something about how her boyfriend wouldn't like that, to which the drunkest of the boys responds that he could please her way better than her boyfriend. Then the manager comes over and tells them to leave. He has many tattoos and a beer belly, so the boys wisely heed his advice. But they'll be back. And they'll ask to be seated in her section.