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Loyola guy gets Hooters franchise grad gift
(This story wold have been better if it gave the guys GLO)
A Gift That Stands Out
John Trani got the graduation present no red-blooded frat boy could refuse: his own Hooters restaurant
BY MATT SMITH
Sources say Hooters is like a PG-rated, hetero-male cheerleader fantasy.
In the annals of gift-giving, certain moments stand alone.
In the year 32 B.C., Mark Antony gave Cleopatra the Riviera. In A.D. 36, God gave mankind his only son. And in the spring of 2003, Shirley and Nick Trani were so proud of their male child that they gave him, on his graduation from college, the most wonderful, inspiring, thoughtful gift a Southern California frat boy could possibly desire. They gave John Trani, who turned 24 last month, his own Hooters restaurant in San Francisco.
"We have a lot of faith in our son," says Nick Trani, who runs a string of Carl's Jr. franchises in the Modesto area.
"We're real excited about it because we like the concept. It's a good family restaurant," adds Nick's wife, Shirley.
Hooters is a chain of roadhouse-style restaurants along the lines of Chili's or Chevys, but with the added value of waitresses in orange running shorts and décolletage-friendly T-shirts. The chain's logo features an owl, suggesting, speciously, that the name refers to something other than boobs. There are currently no Bay Area Hooters franchises; if all goes well, John Trani will open the region's first in the former Steelhead Brewery space on Fisherman's Wharf, as soon as the Tranis finish remodeling it.
Perhaps sensing our excitement, John Trani didn't return our week's worth of calls requesting comment.
But that didn't matter; it's his parents, Nick and Shirley, who are the real heroes of this tale. They put their son through college at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he became fraternity programming coordinator of the Greek Council. They encouraged John to come up with a dream business plan, with the promise that they'd help him realize it. When John suggested buying and running a Hooters, which my sources tell me is like a PG-rated, hetero-male cheerleader fantasy, plus burgers and beer, Nick and Shirley plunked down a reported quarter-million dollars to help Trani junior realize his San Francisco dream.
It takes a village to raise a child, and Nick and Shirley Trani have entrusted their little darling, and his new Hooters, to the good people of San Francisco. With SF Weekly's long-standing commitment to family values in mind, we convened a uniquely qualified panel of consulting experts, including performers and entrepreneurs in the S.F. live adult entertainment industry, to proffer advice aimed at making sure John's San Francisco fantasy is a happy one.
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