HOOTERS to Open in Dubai...

Dubai: Hooters, a US restaurant chain famous for its scantily clad waitresses, may open this year in Dubai as it expands to the Arabic peninsula for the first time, the company's local partner said on Tuesday.

"I am trying to secure a location to open one restaurant this year. A year from now I will have two to three potential locations," Jamal Al Shaheen, a Kuwaiti investor, who has the franchise rights for Hooters in Dubai, told Dow Jones Newswires.

Waitresses at Hooters, which describes itself as a "beach-theme" restaurant, wear tight revealing tank tops and skimpy shorts.

Al Shaheen said the original plan was to open a restaurant on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah. But delays on the gigantic construction site caused him to opt for a new location on the city's glitzy Jumeirah Beach Road.

The new location for Dubai's first Hooters ought to be sealed by summer's end, Al Shaheen said, and the restaurant should open about six months later.

Al-Shaheen, a partner in Kuwaiti firm Marketing Management Group, or MMG, doesn't expect any conservative backlash over Hooters' staff uniforms, saying the tight tops and shorts are no more revealing than normal outfits on the nearby Dubai beach.

The franchise has more than 430 restaurants in the US and 23 other countries, including China.

The Georgia-based Hooters, charges a franchise fee of US$75,000 per location and says initial investment in a restaurant ranges between $800,000 and $1.5 million.