Hooters Calendar 2024: Sarasota, Naples women show off their swimsuits in Bahamas photos
The new Hooters Calendar hit Hooters restaurants across the world this month. Look inside, and you’ll find three Southwest Florida women showing off their swimsuits as Miss January, Miss June and Miss November.
“I’m really excited!” says bartender/server Grace Burchett, 25, of the Naples Hooters, who appears as the main photo for November. “It’s really an honor to be a featured girl again.”
The calendar also showcases Sarasota Hooters employees Sarah Magda and Miya Vidales as Miss January and Miss June, respectively.
“Wherever there’s a Hooters, you can see the calendar,” says bartender/server Magda, 24. “It’s a surreal feeling, honestly, knowing that somebody across the country can see it ― or someone who’s in a different country, even.”
Magda and Vidales don’t just work together at the same Hooters, though. They’re also roommates and best friends from the same Illinois town (New Lenox).
“So it’s even a cooler experience being able to do it and experience it together,” Magda says about the Hooters Calendar photo shoot and the upcoming Hooters Calendar Tour. “Now we get to do the tour together.”
In all, 79 Southwest Florida Hooters employees appear in the 2024 calendar ― either in the main calendar or the poster included at Southwest Florida Hooters restaurants. They all work at Hooters restaurants in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, Cape Coral, Port Charlotte and Bradenton.
More than 200 women from across the United States appear in the main calendar every year.
Hooters Calendar photo shoot in The Bahamas
The three Southwest Florida “month girls” all shot their photos in The Bahamas in May.
Both Burchett and Vidales had to get up at 5 a.m. for photo sessions on a Marsh Harbor beach in the Abaco Islands. But they say they didn’t mind at all.
“That was really amazing to shoot there,” Burchett says. “It was just gorgeous.”
Vidales agrees. “What can you not love about being in the Bahamas?” she says.
Magda’s photo shoot was in the afternoon, but she says she still got up at 5 a.m. to cheer on her Hooters friends.
“Oh my gosh, it was so much fun,” Magda says. “Every year, they make you feel just so special.”
Hooters Calendar veterans
All three women have appeared previously in the Hooters Calendar.
The same photographer who shot Burchett’s Miss March photo for the 2023 calendar, Cameron Melcher, also shot her Miss November photos for 2024. So she felt like she was in good hands.
“He makes it so fun,” she says. “I’m so comfortable with him.”
Burchett loves the photo, including the fact that her swimsuit is Hooters’ signature color: Orange. “It’s very on-brand,” she says and laughs.
This will be Vidales’ fifth time in the calendar, but her first in the main calendar. Before, she was only featured in the poster.
She thinks her growing confidence helped her make it into the main calendar this year. She started at Hooters when she was 19. Now she’s 23.
“Honestly, I think it was the confidence I gained from working at Hooters and just being surrounded by 30 girls, four nights a week, and just bartending there and meeting new people,” Vidales says. “And I just got more comfortable.”
Where to buy the 2024 Hooters Calendar
The calendars cost $15 each ($25 online). They’re sold at Hooters restaurants everywhere and online at hooterscalendar.com. The online versions, however, don’t include the poster featuring more Southwest Florida Hooters employees.
Even better, $1 from each calendar sale will be donated to cancer research through the Kelly Jo Dowd Breast Cancer Research Fund.
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“I love a good cause,” Vidales says. “And I’m happy to be a part of it.”
The calendar release also coincides with Hooters’ annual “Give a Hoot” fundraising campaign to raise more money for breast-cancer research.
Many of the Southwest Florida Hooters employees will be visiting local Hooters restaurants Dec. 13-17 for the annual Hooters Calendar Tour. Details will be announced later.
For more information on the tour and Southwest Florida’s Hooters restaurants, visit hootersflorida.com.
— Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. To reach him, call 239-335-0368 (for tickets to shows, call the venue) or email him at [email protected]. Follow or message him on social media: Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), X (formerly Twitter) (@charlesrunnells), Threads (@crunnells1) and Instagram (@crunnells1).
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: 2024 Hooters Calendar shows women from Sarasota, Naples, Fort Myers