After 24 years, one of Hooters' Jacksonville-area restaurants abruptly closes

Weeks after Red Lobster abruptly closed all but one of its Jacksonville-area restaurants, another storied restaurant chain has closed at least one of its area locations.

Hooters, which has three Northeast Florida restaurants, confirmed Monday morning that dozens of its restaurants nationwide had closed, Nation’s Restaurant News reported.

Among those closed is the chain’s Orange Park location at 1740 Wells Road.

On Monday, an outgoing voicemail message and Google listing confirmed the restaurant’s closure.

Two other area Hooters locations — at 4521 Southside Blvd. and 8938 San Jose Blvd. — remain open.

Opening in 2000, the Orange Park restaurant had been a fixture at its Orange Park location for nearly 24 years.

“Like many restaurants under pressure from current market conditions, Hooters has made the difficult decision to close a select number of underperforming stores,” Hooters said in a statement to Nation’s Restaurant News.

Founded in Clearwater in 1983, the chain known for its “World Famous Wings” and waitstaff dressed in orange shorts and white tank tops, Hooters opened its first Jacksonville-area restaurant in 1986 on San Jose Boulevard near Baymeadows Road.

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A year later, Hooters would become one of the original tenants of the Jacksonville Landing — and one of its last tenants, closing in June 2019, before the Landing’s closing and demolition the same year.

By 2000, when the Orange Park restaurant opened, Hooters had as many as five area restaurants. Now just two remain.

Elsewhere in Florida, Hooters closed restaurants in Gainesville, Lakeland and West Palm Beach.

“Ensuring the well-being of our staff is our priority in these rare instances,” Hooters said in the statement. “With new Hooters restaurants opening domestically and internationally, new Hooters frozen products launching at grocery stores, and the Hooters footprint expanding into new markets with both company and franchise locations, this brand of 41 years remains highly resilient and relevant. We look forward to continuing to serve our guests at home, on the go and at our restaurants here in the U.S. and around the globe.”

Teresa Stepzinski of the Times-Union contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Hooters abruptly closes Orange Park, Florida restaurant