Photos: Tilted Kilt restaurant opens in South Anchorage

A new restaurant has opened its doors in South Anchorage. Andt the newest location in the national Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery chain is also opening eyes. The Old Seward restaurant, the chain's 100th location, is just one of a ballooning number of so-called "breastaurants": eateries that offer a growing variety of food, cold beer, and scantily-clad servers.

Think Hooters, but with bigger menus, better venues, and more television sets.

Its owners and staff agree that one of the main draws is the women: servers and bartenders who sport very short kilt-styled skirts, bare midriffs, and tartan-patterned push-up bras. But they claim that the restaurant's atmosphere, food quality, and friendliness will be more important in the business' success or failure.

And the stakes are high. There is fierce competition brewing among chains in the niche industry. Hooters, the largest of the "breastaurant" chains, has seen profits and sales decline over the last three years. (Its Anchorage location closed in 2008.) But the top restaurants among newer chains like Tilted Kilt, Twin Peaks, CANZaciti Roadhouse and Bone Daddy's have seen annual growth of 30 percent in recent years, according to the restaurant research group Technomic.

It's a trend that has now come to Anchorage.

Read more: New Anchorage restaurant part of a trend of offering patrons a mouthful -- and an eyeful

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