Ladies Slight: The Problem with D.C.’s New Crop of “Female-Friendly” Restaurants? They’re Insulting to Women
You could easily mistake the images flashing across STK Steakhouse’s website for a Maxim spread. A spiky red heel piercing a bloody steak. A pair of red lips and perfect white teeth biting into a chunk of rare meat. A leggy model in stilettos and a tight, tiny dress carrying a cleaver. “Not Your Daddy’s Steakhouse” is the restaurant’s tagline. “Atmosphere. Temptation. Steak,” the homepage reads.
The atmosphere and temptation, of course, are aimed toward horny, and perhaps hungry, men—especially the kind with bordello fantasies. Although you wouldn’t know it from STK’s advertisements, the international restaurant chain, which will open its eighth location in Dupont later this year, calls itself a “modern steakhouse geared toward females.” That’s not STK’s only sexist contradiction. Between its menus bound in faux crocodile skin and cocktails with names like “French Kiss” and “Pink Elegance,” the restaurant invokes more gender stereotypes than an episode of Real Housewives.
In the D.C. area, STK isn’t the only place trying (however misguidedly) to feminize establishments often seen as chiefly appealing to males, like steakhouses and sports bars. There’s also Bracket Room, a “female-friendly” sports lounge opening in Clarendon this summer from The Bachelorette and Bachelor Pad star Chris Bukowski. Meanwhile, Wing Hub sports bar in Bethesda rebranded as Maggie’s last summer and made a number of changes to attract more female customers—although it isn’t overtly marketed as a restaurant geared toward women.
It’s one thing to distance steakhouses and sports bars from the realm of old boys clubs and guys’ nights out. But small plates and sexy décor? If this is what these restaurants believe women want, their target audience should be insulted. In their attempts to appeal to women, restaurants like STK end up condescending to them.
Then again, STK and its ilk aren’t really about appealing to women, anyway. They’re about using women to attract men. “We wanted to create an environment where girls can go and party,” says Devon Mosley, marketing and PR director of The ONE Group, the hospitality company which owns STK. “Truly, our CEO’s mentality is where the girls go to play, the men will follow.” (No surprise: The CEO, Jonathan Segal, is a man.)
That’s also Bukowski’s mentality when it comes to Bracket Room. Before his TV debut, the reality star studied hospitality management and business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and worked in bars there. “Our whole thing was to get girls to come because, basically, [then] the guys come,” Bukowski says.
Even Maggie’s owner Jeff Trilling echoes the sentiment: “Once a woman comes in here and she loves our food, then it’s so much easier for the guy to bring his girlfriend or wife back here.”
What women want to eat, apparently, isn’t greasy buffalo wings or 32-ounce ribeyes. When I ask Mosley which aspects of STK are supposed to appeal to women, the first thing he mentions is the raw bar, not red meat. The steaks, he later points out, are available in large, medium, and small sizes. Bracket Room doesn’t have a finalized menu yet, but Bukowski says it will serve small plates with lots of healthy options.
Those offerings aren’t especially different than the menus at plenty of local restaurants whose concepts have nothing to do with gender. But in the context of a female-oriented restaurant, the small portions and healthy foods peddle the notion that women don’t want to eat a lot, and that they don’t enjoy nachos or New York strips. The idea that a steakhouse is somehow a “man’s” restaurant is already backward, but the suggestion that women want a feminized version of one is even worse.
Even more offensive is the idea that what women want is a place for men to hit on them. “It’s for the crowd that wants that sleek sexy flirtatious experience,” says STK’s Mosley. Purple, cream, and black are the dominant colors, and the stools at the bars are elevated, making them “very easy to walk up to and make conversation.” The booths are curved and open to each other, “so that everyone is facing each other.” Rather than a restaurant that caters to women—whatever that means—STK appears to have been designed as a pickup playground. It may not be your daddy’s steakhouse, but it’s definitely your sugar daddy’s steakhouse.
Bukowski is still working on Bracket Room’s décor but is aiming for a “cleaned-up upscale look” with a “softer atmosphere.” The lounge will also have a VIP area—less the stuff of a sports bar than a velvet-rope nightclub. A press release says Bracket Room will “boldly redefine the upscale, state-of-the-art sports bar, with wit and irreverent charm.”
As a sports fan and a former sports marketing manager, the 26-year-old Bukowski says he’s wanted to open a sports bar for a long time. The idea of opening a female-friendly one came to him two or three years ago, he says, before he appeared on ABC’s primetime dating shows. But his 2012 appearance on Bachelor Pad, in which former Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants live in a house together and compete for $250,000, suggests he may not be the most in touch with women’s preferences. Over the course of the season, the chiseled-abs, blue-eyed Bukowski became the show’s villain, hooking up with and then ditching two of the female contestants.
Nevertheless, Bukowski maintains a sizable female social media fan base, which he’s consulted for input on the sports lounge. (He has more than 97,000 Twitter followers and claims 95 percent are women.) Bukowski also has a female business partner, Nicole Pettitt.
STK is likewise headed by a man, but Mosley is quick to point out that the hospitality group’s senior vice president, Celeste Fierro, is a woman. As far as creating an environment that appeals to women, though, Mosley says the restaurant group didn’t rely on any customer research or focus groups. Rather, “life experience” and “common sense” guided the restaurants’ direction, Mosley says.
At Maggie’s, the attempts to appeal to women aren’t as garish. You won’t find phrases like “female-friendly” on Maggie’s website or in its marketing materials. The restaurant still has a sports-bar look, with jerseys on the walls and flat-screen TVs, though female servers now wear pink shirts. (Men wear black or burgundy.) In order to widen his customer base, Trilling is building an outdoor Tiki bar this spring with a margarita and daiquiri machine. He’s also added a pizza oven and nearly doubled the menu offerings to include more sandwiches, subs, salads, and sides.
But Trilling says the most important change was ditching the name Wing Hub. “It’s a lot easier to get a female in the door with the name Maggie’s than it is Wing Hub,” Trilling says. “Perception is a big deal. It’s also a big deal with the human resource directors, the majority of which are females, in trying to get catering business.”
When the restaurant was still Wing Hub, Trilling says he informally surveyed his few female customers to see if they’d come more frequently if the bar was named Maggie’s. “Emphatically yes,” Trilling says. “Every single girl I talked to. Not one said no. Not one said it doesn’t make a difference.” Meanwhile, his male customers told him they’d be more likely to bring their girlfriends or wives if the place was called Maggie’s. Between the new name and the menu changes, Trilling says his female customer base is up 15 to 20 percent from six months ago. His patrons are still predominantly male, but Trilling has noticed a lot more couples and dates.
As for where Maggie’s comes from, Trilling explains it was the name of a Tenleytown pizzeria that his father Joe ran for several decades. The pizzeria, which opened in the 1950s, was originally owned by a guy named Phil “Maggie” Magenello.
“Yes,” Trilling says, “It was a nickname for a man.”
Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.
Photo by Cynthia Cortes
9:48 pm
Just a hint to restauranteurs and other men seeking more female customers (rather than women for their male customers to hit on): learn the difference between "girls" and "women."
10:10 pm
Better luck in Phoenix, or something. Any Yelp review will tell ya DC's full of entitled chicks who want flirty bartenders and comp'ed apps - they'll eat anything as long as the entree's under $16! Seriously dudes, this is not a market where you win points with small portions.
5:33 am
It's never about what women want, it's about what men think women want. They think we want appletinis and salads and sexy waiters and stilettos and small words on the menu. Here's a hint, assholes: if you have good food, good whiskey and you don't sell whipped cream vodka, I'll probably like your place just fine.
9:33 am
Calling women "girls" is bad. But calling them "females" seems to go in the opposite direction of what these guys say they are trying to attract.
9:55 am
I'd guess there'd be more success in attracting female patrons if there were more female chefs and women owned restaurants. Even then, lots of spots (like steakhouses and barber shops) have reputations for being masculine. I don't see it as easy in any way to break that mold.
That said, I think that any woman who likes to "hang with the guys" and smoke cigars, eat red meat, drink hard booze and act "manly," will easily hang out with a group of male friends at a Morton's, a sports bar, or at a strip club for that matter, without flinching.
10:53 am
DC's problem is too many womyn and not enough women.
11:25 am
As a woman, I honestly can't think of a single restaurant I would feel uncomfortable eating at--sometimes I'm really in the mood for a good old-school steakhouse or a divey joint with beer-sticky tables and hygiene-challenged bathrooms.
But I'm definitely more inclined to go back again and again to places with good food, warm but not overbearing service (no cutesy patter, please), clean restrooms, and a hook for my bag/coat under the bar. It's truly the little things, not a huge campaign obviously geared toward luring women who will in turn lure the men. (Seriously? Ick.)
But stuff like this is a no-brainer, and shouldn't necessarily be thought of as attracting men or women. It's just plain good management. You open yourself to a wider clientele if you establish generous policies like allowing half-portions, offer vegetarian and/or health-conscious items that aren't obvious afterthoughts, and train your staff well (and treat them well, to minimize turnover).
And Wing Hub is a stupid name, anyway, no matter who you're catering to.
1:52 pm
Here's what I want: a restaurant or bar where ANYTHING OTHER THAN SPORTS AND NEWS IS ON! That ANNOYS ME! Why not Food Network (it IS a restaurant), or some movies, perhaps? ANYTHING BUT SPORTS OR THE NEWS!!! I BEG OF YOU!!!!!!
8:44 pm
If ladies want to go out in a group, then they DO NOT want wolfish gents prowling around their table trying to horn in on their dining experience. These attempts to woo "females" to come to restaurants with photos strangely reminiscent of S&M just aren't appealing to my 40ish XX self, and I don't know any D.C. lady who'd take that bait. Also, I don't know of any group of women who want to be the bait for a restaurant to lure "higher-paying" men to the place - unless those ladies are, say, under 26 years old.
In which case, have fun, kids. I'll head to my fave dive bar for wings. ; )
9:00 am
I agree with Sidman and MH about the STK concept. (It doesn't appeal to my under-26 XX self either.)
I don't need much other than great food and service to make me want to go to a restaurant, but one aspect that I wish more restaurants offered is the option of smaller portion sizes. Not because of any diet, but because sometimes I'm just not that hungry. I don't enjoy getting the stink-eye from a waiter because I dared to share a 28oz steak with my boyfriend instead of getting one each. And of course, cheaper options are always welcome.
This is pretty much the main reason I go to the Fojol Bros' food trucks. I wouldn't be keen on getting Indian food from a white hipster in brownface otherwise, but I do love getting a satisfying little bowl of butter chicken for $2.
2:20 pm
the whole thing pisses me off..
i like steak houses and sports bars just fine..
my girlfriends and i never have trouble finding a
spot to eat/chat/ drink in...i have never had issue
with the size of my steak? wtf? and really
if you substituted the words "African Americans" for "Women".. how would that go over????
good grief..
xo
3:40 pm
Being familiar with STK and the concept behind Bracket Room I think there is a distinct difference between the two. From what I've read and heard in interviews I believe the concept behind Bracket Room is not to completely just to cater to women but just to make it more comfortable for women. By doing this it is the small details that are mentioned in the other comments that will be included. The major details are providing great service and great food which we all know is the most important detail to any restaurant/bar. At the end of the day Bracket Room wants to be a place where people can go even when there isn't a big game on.. Personally, I prefer to go to a bar where I know women will be in attendance. I'll definitely check out STK and Bracket Room.
7:17 pm
The worst part about all of this is that photo with the ill-fitting red shoe and the awkwardly centered heel. What the hell is going on with this? Is this modern hedonism? To stand like a Robert Palmer girl in the center of beef? The lighting is ghastly.
Other than that, I'd say a good restaurant for women like myself would be ones that feature foot massages and melted cheese.