Most of the Hooters restaurants in Washington, including the Seattle location at south Lake Union, are now closed. The parent company insists it’s not due to any lessened popularity in the chain’s concept. It’s just the matter of a regional franchisee that got into a lawsuit with an unspecified “third party.”

This sort of thing has happened before. Here in the late 1990s, a multistore Burger King franchisee suddenly folded.

Of course this could be an opportunity for some new, all local cleavage-themed restaurant. Perhaps with a neo-burlesque concept. After all, there’s nothing either novel or trademarkable about low-cut waitress costumes. The idea goes back at least as far as the serving wenches in English country inns. (And sometimes the food at Hooters tasted almost as old.)