“The people who go in there are so culturally different from us, they might as well be aliens. On one of my last nights a man came up from behind me and asked me what I was doing later that night. Probably 38 years old. He must have had two pounds of gel in his hair and teeth glazed over with dark yellow cigarette stains. I responded with the I’m working excuse, both mortified and embarrassed. He runs the Subaru dealership in Harrisonburg…Thinks he’s hot sh*t around here. He made this creepy noise and grabbed my ass – literally got a handful. I don’t even have a big ass so I’m not sure what there was to grab. Then he just walked away like it was nothing. When I told one of the assistant managers, she wasn’t upset or alarmed that he sexually harassed me. It didn’t phase her at all. By the end of the night, she was closing out a check and I saw him grab her ass, while she was playing along. Not all the customers are like that, but there’s just something so creepy about the most of them. What’s even worse is that the management doesn’t care nor do anything about it.”

When my friend, Emma, got a job at our local Tilted Kilt, I didn’t know how to react. I was a little surprised and confused. I couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed for her – I didn’t know what to say without upsetting her. I wanted to show her my support, yet there’s no way I could support a work environment that only exists to exploit women. It was clear Emma was proud she got a job, however not this kind of job. I could tell that she was excited because it was adventurous and out her comfort zone, and she knew that the job would require more than a typical waitressing job. What Emma didn’t realize was that she entered a traumatizing industry that only exists to make money off sexualizing women.

The Tilted Kilt is known for their entertainers, not waitresses, dressed from head-to-toe in skimpy “Kilt Girl” outfits. CEO Ron Lynch says, “the Tilted Kilt’s ultimate goal is to become the most respectable, most recognizable sports bar in the United States.” All servers are women; men can apply and work a cooking, dishwashing, or managing position within the franchise. The required uniform for all the women includes stockings, short “kilt” skirts, and a white crop top that ties right under a red and black plaid bra that looks like it’s ordered right out of a Victoria’s Secret Christmas edition catalogue. They provide three standard sizes for the entire costume – small, medium, and large. If you don’t fit into the outfit, you’re not qualified for the job. The tops are made to show off her breasts and entire midriff. The skirts are made to ride up whenever she walks. All girls are required to buy and wear black heels for their entire shift, no matter how long they’re on their feet.

Before going onto the floor, an applicant must show her Kilt Girl outfit in front of a manager as part of the interviewing process. The Tilted Kilt refers to this as part of the “audition” after their original “casting call,” or interview. They state on their website that they are always on the lookout for “young, fun, college-aged girls who want a part time job.” In one of the Q&A sections, they specifically state, “To land the role, you gotta play it up, girl!” However, they don’t include tag lines or statements referring to what they want male applicants look like or how they should dress.

“I tried on the costume in this gross dressing room. The General Manager looked me up and down and told me that I looked like I would fit right in. My heart was racing; I was getting a rush from it so I agreed to the whole thing. I had to turn around a few times while he inspected how it fit on me. I wanted to get a bigger size (I was wearing both smalls) but he disagreed and said that I looked great. He offered me a job on the spot. I was so excited because I literally had zero dollars in my bank account! I was flattered, but by the time I got home I couldn’t believe what I had just done.”

The Tilted Kilt came to Harrisonburg, Virginia in April 2013. Many local residents were outraged by it’s opening, especially at their local Valley Mall – a family friendly environment, until now. All of the managers encourage the girls to flirt and even lightly touch customers if they are looking for better tips. When it’s slow, girls who have worked there for awhile will take over the assistant managers’ duties.

Emma worked at the Tilted Kilt a little under a month. While she was working there, they had no dishwashers and only a handful of cooks on their staff. During the week, they only had one cook all day and night for the entire restaurant. Emma wasn’t allowed to leave until everything was done – sometimes that meant staying until 2 AM. If she wasn’t too busy, the managers would make her wash dishes in her skimpy uniform, since they didn’t have anyone else to do it. On weekends the restaurant had three cooks, who Emma described as “Kids who didn’t know what they were doing.” All of the girls had to wait until everyone was finished and walk out to their cars together, due to a sexual assault that occurred a few years ago (at a different location). If they walked out of the restaurant after a closing shift without permission from the managers or without the rest of the Kilt Girls, they put loosing their jobs at risk.

***

We are fortunate enough to grow up in an era that has so many women who fight for our rights – equal employment opportunities, equal pay, pro-choice options, and so much more. Women have come so far in society, it’s disappointing and insulting that the “breastaurant” industry still exists and makes millions of dollars every year. The Tilted Kilt was named one of the fastest growing companies in 2015. The franchise opened in just 2003, however they’ve already made $250 million dollars in revenue by objectifying women. The Valley Mall location has a sign in the kitchen that says, “Girls, don’t be hanging out in here while you have customers. Our customers come here to talk to pretty girls.” scribbled out in pen and written on a loose leaf paper torn out of a notebook. Emma’s biggest problem with the Tilted Kilt was the way the management told her to interact with her customers, especially her older male “regulars”.

“I would hang out with the cooks, because I was f*cking scared for my life out there. But then I got in trouble by one of the managers.”

Spending my time and money at the Tilted Kilt isn’t something I ever want to do ever again, unless I plan to expose them even further. The food is overly-priced for bar snacks and their menu is full of things like their “Big Arse” burgers. Yes, even their menu is sexualized.

“I can’t even look at you when I talk about the menu there,” Emma admitted when I asked her what she thought of the food.

The overall atmosphere of this place screams wanna-be restaurant/strip club without the poles. This particular franchise has white-colored frosted windows so people in the mall cannot look inside without physically going in. The pub is located right next to a Books-A-Million and diagonal from an Auntie Anne’s pretzel eatery. It’s a typical mall environment, except for the fact that this restaurant is attached to it. The Tilt Girls often see children trying to jump so they can see what’s happening inside. They don’t know any better, after all.

From the moment I walked into the restaurant I could tell that it had a strange vibe. The “regulars” have a presence unlike the other customers and they make their presence known. I don’t know what is worse – feeling like I had to bring a friend with me every time I went to the pub for safety reasons, or feeling just as equally sexualized as the Kilt Girls by the men who were in the restaurant when I was a customer. There was even a man who hit on me, although I was merely a bystander minding my own business. He spends hours at the bar, then walks around the pub like he owns the place, gossiping about the girls to one another. He wore a bright coral dress shirt and khakis. You would think he was the manager, other than the fact that he was drinking at the bar. As I got up from my table to leave he made his way over.

“You’re ought to be cold outside in just that, aren’t you honey?”

I looked down at my olive green sorority sweatshirt, thick black leggings, and fairly-new Nike tennis shoes. Was he seeing what I was seeing? What the hell? I couldn’t believe that he was commenting on how I was dressed, like I was dressed inappropriately or calling for his attention. I blushed and said something to dismiss his comment and he chuckled. I quickly hustled out – that was the last time I would be eating at the Tilted Kilt. When I returned home, I told Emma what had happened – how I felt violated and disrespected while just being a customer at the place. She immediately recognized who the man was; she interacted with him on multiple occasions. Emma knew him by first name and agreed that he acted and said things that are totally out of line. She reassured me that he was harmless, from what she experienced.

“The girls get competitive over him. He likes one of the girls the best and he’s very judgmental towards the rest of the Kilt Girls. He talks and gossips about the girls, and then the girls will go around and worry that they aren’t giving him enough attention.”

***

The term “breastaurant” is a term that came to the surface when the popular Hooter’s chain picked up in the 1990’s. Breastaurants are restaurants, usually with sports bars, where women employees serve food aligned with sexualized costumes. It all really comes down to who controls the system, who works for the system, and who supports the system to keep it going.We already have enough objectification elsewhere, why must we have it in the food industry?

“I would rather never get male attention for the rest of my life then keep getting attention from these people.” – Emma, Ex-Tilted Kilt Girl/Entertainer