Some restaurants tend to have a cult following. Many people showed up to gather outside the last Hooters to close its doors in West Virginia to hold a candlelight vigil ahead of the building’s demolition.
Famous for its hot wings and scantily-clad servers, the Hooters restaurant located in Kanawha City, Charleston, West Virginia, closed its doors during the COVID-19 pandemic back in March 2020 and never reopened. Developers eventually announced the building would be demolished to make way for a Sheetz gas station, which caused sadness within the community.
Organizers said the candlelight vigil started as a joke between friends but it took off on social media and hundreds of people, including former Hooters employees, turned out to pay tribute to the iconic restaurant.
“I started out coming in to get a job and it became so much more because I met so many lifelong friends and my co-workers,” Danielle Hughart, a former employee who attended the vigil, said.
Leo Browning, one of the organizers of the event, said that the vigil ended up being more than a tribute to a beloved restaurant. It also helped raise money for a local family in need. “One of our close friend’s daughters, she was just diagnosed with a very, very rare disease and it’s very serious. If she don’t get help then she’s not going to be with us much longer,” Browning said.
The organizers said that the money raised at the vigil will help the family travel to California for the treatment.
As for the former Hootser, the crew from Rodney Loftis & Son Contracting arrived to demolish the business to make way for the coming Sheetz.
Source: https://wchstv.com/news/local/hundreds-attend-vigil-at-former-hooters-a-mix-of-smiles-and-tears