Bikinis Sports Bar & Grill

Restaurant founder Doug Guller reports having gotten the idea for Bikinis Sports Bar & Grill in 2001 on an Australian vacation after being offered a beer by an attractive waitress while watching rugby. Guller theorized that a combination of sports, beer, and sex appeal would be particularly recession-proof. The first restaurant was opened in Austin in 2006, and a total of 14 locations have subsequently opened, all of which are now closed. Most of the locations were in the Interstate 35 corridor in Texas (San Antonio). The CBS TV show Undercover Boss featured Bikinis Sports Bar and Grill, airing on December 28, 2014. The show featured Guller posing undercover. He interacted with a bartender who said she normally wears a bikini top but felt uncomfortable wearing that on camera, so she opted to wear a T-shirt. He felt she was overserving an intoxicated patron. Not knowing that Guller was the CEO, she was candid about not being interested in the job as a career. The lack of enthusiasm ultimately led Guller to firing her on camera. A waitress with a good attitude was rewarded with breast augmentation surgery. These scenes provoked controversy on social media, especially on the Bikinis Facebook pages and on Twitter. Since May 2015, the Bikinis located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex (DFW), which was featured on Undercover Boss, had been in the process of being rebranded by ATX Brands as Gino's East Pizzerias. This would make DFW the second populated metropolitan statistical area in Texas (besides Houston and San Antonio) to lose its Bikinis restaurants. DFW locations Arlington and Richardson have been shuttered since February 11, 2015, with the Mesquite location following suit after April 15, 2015. The Austin location ceased operations on December 23, 2018. ==Marketing==

Bikinis Sports Bar & Grill utilized a marketing campaign which has included several high-profile publicity stunts. The restaurant chain had a loyalty program formerly known as the Bikinis Black Card where patrons earned points for rewards. Patrons who had over 1000 points on their black card account would judge one of their in-store bikini contests. During the opening of Bikinis, Texas in July 2013, Black Card account holders also got a chance to meet Carmen Electra in person. The restaurant chain hosted a monthly bikini contest. Some of the contests were seasonal until February 2014 when the company began phasing out the contests based on the ratio of active waitstaff who would sign up and enter in lieu of the newly established Miss Bikinis USA Pageant. Bikinis, Texas In 2012, Guller purchased the ghost town of Bankersmith saying that he would rename the town to "Bikinis, Texas" after his restaurant chain. Other events which have been planned to be associated with the town include a "Miss Bikinis USA" pageant and a possible reality show. "Breastaurant" trademark In September 2011, Bikinis Sports Bar & Grill filed a request with a United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the term "breastaurant". The term was successfully registered in October 2012 and was marked by the trademark office as "Un-Revivable" on May 24, 2019. The Huffington Post suggested that the trademarking of "breastaurant" was a consequence of the boom in breastaurant sales figures in the early 2010s. ==References==