Starbucks Meets Hooters, Vietnamese Style

by Susan Davis on 08/06/09 at 6:45 pm

Not that type of hooter silly

They say most trends start in California and work their way eastward, so it’s a sure bet that some folks can’t wait till this one starts moving.  The Vietnamese-style coffee shops in Southern California have a secret for keeping their businesses recession proof, and it seems to be working.  Extremely well.

Customers who order the rich, creamy brew or one of the other menu items are served by young women wearing form-fitting spandex, lingerie-type bikinis and see-through sarongs.  The waitresses look more like they work in a bordello than a business and their assets leave very little to the imagination.

“It’s kind of like Starbucks meets Hooters,” says 19-year old Tina Nguyen in an interview with USA Today.   Nguyen is a waitress at Café Lu, whose outfit that day exposed a bare midriff between a tight jersey and black micro-mini tube skirt.

Oh.  And don’t forget the five-inch heels.

Although having scantily clad servers is nothing new (think Las Vegas bars and casinos), the trend is growing in the Little Saigon area of Orange County.  There are approximately 50 to 60 similar type Vietnamese coffee shops operating in the communities of Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Westminster, which have been ethnically diverse for the last 25 years.

Whether this trend moves to other localities remains to be seen.  The increasing number of workers using their laptops at free Wi-Fi hotspots suggests that cafés will have a major growth spurt in the near future. The question, however, is whether revealing outfits and hot lattes is enough to keep customers coming back for more.

Watch out, Starbucks!