Hooters closes Long Island's only location, in Farmingdale

Long Island's last Hooters, in Farmingdale, has closed, management at the sports bar and restaurant confirmed Monday. 

Known for its wings and beer, the eatery on Route 110 at 25 Smith St., closed without warning Monday, according to a post on the restaurant's Facebook page.

"After much deliberation, we've made the difficult decision to close this location," restaurant owners said in the post. "We are incredibly grateful for the many years of great times, cold beer, hot wings, and unforgettable memories shared here. Thank you to our guests, team members, and community for the support over the years."

Matthew Skupp, who had been general manager of the restaurant for two years, said he and his staff were caught off guard by the sudden closure. 

“It was just a gut-wrenching sucker punch to tell everyone that we’re closed,” said Skupp, who learned of the closure from franchise management around 6 a.m. Monday.

"I felt devastated having to call my management teams and other staff members to tell them that we're closed and that nobody has a job anymore," he said. 

Other than during the Super Bowl, sales at the eatery have been slowing for about a year, Skupp said, attributing the decline to consumer spending habits.

The restaurant had more than 20 employees, he said.

The closure of the Island's last Hooters comes at a time when casual restaurants have struggled to keep up with declines in customer foot traffic, increased business overhead and higher menu prices that have changed consumer buying habits. For the Farmingdale eatery, the closure also comes less than a year after the national chain filed for bankruptcy after declining annual sales and financial woes as debt mounted. 

The Farmingdale Hooters is owned by a franchisee and is one of only three locations in New York State. The remaining locations, in Fresh Meadows and Albany, remained open on Monday. 

The restaurant franchisees did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Recent closures of the chain have impacted only corporate-owned restaurants, not franchises like those in New York, though Skupp said news of Hooters' bankruptcy may have led some customers to believe the Farmingdale location was already closed.

Atlanta-based Hooters, founded in Clearwater, Florida, in 1983, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, spurring the closure of about 30 corporate-owned stores nationwide last summer.

Dan Gadbois, regional area supervisor for Hooters of New York/New England, the franchise owner of the New York State locations, said at the time that "Hooters is a strong brand,” and its Long Island site would remain open. 

The building that houses Hooters on Smith Street is owned by Amcon Realty LLC, a Cold Spring Harbor-based real estate firm.

“They were a great tenant,” said Lynn Constandy Albers, co-owner of Amcon Realty LLC. Albers said she did not know the reason for the eatery's closure.

Alpers said Hooters had been her tenant for 13 years and the business never missed a payment. 

Sales at the restaurant chain, were down to $677.9 million in 2024, a 15% decline from 2023, according to sales estimates provided to Newsday last year by Technomic, a restaurant industry research firm based in Chicago. 

Kevin Schimpf, senior director of industry research for Technomic, said while Hooters, which is privately owned, has not reported 2025 sales figures, estimates from the research firm show that the total number of restaurants, including both corporate and franchises were down to about 208 at the end of last year.

The chain had around 302 stores at the start of 2022, according to Technomic. 

Other locations on Long Island, in East Meadow and in Islandia, closed between 2012 and 2013, following failed rebranding efforts by a different franchise owner, Newsday previously reported.