California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) Case Assignment - University of Virginia

Assignment Task

California Pizza Kitchen

Inspired by the gourmet pizza offerings at Wolfgang Puck’s celebrity-filled restaurant, Spago, and eager to flee their careers as white-collar criminal defense attorneys, Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield created the first California Pizza Kitchen in 1985 in Beverly Hills, California. Known for its hearth-baked barbecue-chicken pizza, the “designer pizza at off-the-rack prices” concept flourished. Expansion across the state, country, and globe followed in the subsequent two decades. At the end of the second quarter of 2007, the company had 213 locations in 28 states and 6 foreign countries. While still very California-centric (approximately 41% of the U.S. stores were in California), the casual dining model had done well throughout all U.S. regions with its family-friendly surroundings, excellent ingredients, and inventive offerings.

California Pizza Kitchen derived its revenues from three sources: sales at company- owned restaurants, royalties from franchised restaurants, and royalties from a partnership with Kraft Foods to sell CPK-branded frozen pizzas in grocery stores. While the company had expanded beyond its original concept with two other restaurant brands, its main focus remained on operating company-owned full-service CPK restaurants, of which there were 170 units.

Analysts conservatively estimated the potential for full-service company-owned CPK units at 500. Both the investment community and management were less certain about the potential for the company’s chief attempt at brand extension, its ASAP restaurant concept. In 1996, the company first developed the ASAP concept in a franchise agreement with HMSHost. The franchised ASAPs were located in airports and featured a limited selection of pizzas and “grab-n-go” salads and sandwiches. While not a huge revenue source, management was pleased with the success of the airport ASAP locations, which currently numbered 16. In early 2007, HMSHost and CPK agreed to extend their partnership through 2012. But the sentiment was more mixed regarding its company-owned ASAP locations. First opened in 2000 to capitalize on the growth of fast casual dining, the company-owned ASAP units offered CPK’s most-popular pizzas, salads, soups, and sandwiches with in-restaurant seating. Sales and operations at the company-owned ASAP units never met management’s expectations. Even after retooling the concept and restaurant prototype in 2003, management decided to halt indefinitely all ASAP development in 2007 and planned to record roughly $770,000 in expenses in the second quarter to terminate the planned opening of one ASAP location.

Although they had doubts associated with the company-owned ASAP restaurant chain, the company and investment community were upbeat about CPK’s success and prospects with franchising full-service restaurants internationally. At the beginning of July 2007, the company had 15 franchised international locations, with more openings planned for the second half of 2007. Management sought out knowledgeable franchise partners who would protect the company’s brand and were capable of growing the number of international units. Franchising agreements typically gave CPK an initial payment of $50,000 to $65,000 for each location opened and then an estimated 5% of gross sales. With locations already in China (including Hong Kong), Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, the company planned to expand its global reach to Mexico and South Korea in the second half of 2007.

Management saw its Kraft partnership as another initiative in its pursuit of building a global brand. In 1997, the company entered into a licensing agreement with Kraft Foods to distribute CPK-branded frozen pizzas. Although representing less than 1% of current revenues, the Kraft royalties had a 95% pretax margin, one equity analyst estimated.2 In addition to the high-margin impact on the company’s bottom line, management also highlighted the marketing requirement in its Kraft partnership. Kraft was obligated to spend 5% of gross sales on marketing the CPK frozen pizza brand, more than the company often spent on its own marketing.

Management believed its success in growing both domestically and internationally, and through ventures like the Kraft partnership, was due in large part to its “dedication to guest satisfaction and menu innovation and sustainable culture of service.”3 A creative menu with high- quality ingredients was a top priority at CPK, with the two co-founders still heading the menu- development team. Exhibit contains a selection of CPK menu offerings. “Its menu items offer customers distinctive, compelling flavors to commonly recognized foods,” A Morgan Keegan analyst wrote.4 While the company had a narrower, more-focused menu than some of its peers, the chain prided itself on creating craved items, such as Singapore Shrimp Rolls, that distinguished its menu and could not be found at its casual dining peers. This strategy was successful, and internal research indicated a specific menu craving that could not be satisfied elsewhere prompted many patron visits. To maintain the menu’s originality, management reviewed detailed sales reports twice a year and replaced slow-selling offerings with new items. Some of the company’s most recent menu additions in 2007 had been developed and tested at the company’s newest restaurant concept, the LA Food Show. Created by Flax and Rosenfield in 2003, the LA Food Show offered a more upscale experience and expansive menu than CPK. CPK increased its minority interest to full ownership of the LA Food Show in 2005 and planned to open a second location in early 2008.

In addition to crediting its inventive menu, analysts also pointed out that its average check of $13.30 was below that of many of its upscale dining casual peers, such as P.F. Chang’s and the Cheesecake Factory. Analysts from RBC Capital Markets labeled the chain a “Price– Value–Experience” leader in its sector.5

CPK spent 1% of its sales on advertising, far less than the 3% to 4% of sales that casual dining competitors, such as Chili’s, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and Outback Steakhouse, spent annually. Management felt careful execution of its company model resulted in devoted patrons who created free, but far more-valuable word-of-mouth marketing for the company. Of the actual dollars spent on marketing, roughly 50% was spent on menu-development costs, with the other half consumed by more typical marketing strategies, such as public relations efforts, direct mail offerings, outdoor media, and on-line marketing.

CPK’s clientele was not only attractive for its endorsements of the chain, but also because of its demographics. Management frequently highlighted that its core customer had an average household income of more than $75,000, according to a 2005 guest satisfaction survey. CPK contended that its customer base’s relative affluence sheltered the company from macroeconomic pressures, such as high gas prices, that might lower sales at competitors with fewer well-off patrons.

Restaurant Industry

The restaurant industry could be divided into two main sectors: full service and limited service. Some of the most popular subsectors within full service included casual dining and fine dining, with fast casual and fast food being the two prevalent limited-service subsectors. Restaurant consulting firm Technomic Information Services projected the limited-service restaurant segment to maintain a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5%, compared with 5.1% for the full-service restaurant segment.6 The five-year CAGR for CPK’s subsector of the full-service segment was projected to grow even more at 6.5%. In recent years, a number of forces had challenged restaurant industry executives, including:

• Increasing commodity prices;
• Higher labor costs;
• Softening demand due to high gas prices;
• Deteriorating housing wealth;
• Intense interest in the industry by activist

High gas prices not only affected demand for dining out, but also indirectly pushed a dramatic rise in food commodity prices. Moreover, a national call for the creation of more biofuels, primarily corn-produced ethanol, played an additional role in driving up food costs for the restaurant industry. Restaurant companies responded by raising menu prices in varying degrees. The restaurants believed that the price increases would have little impact on restaurant traffic given that consumers experienced higher price increases in their main alternative to dining out—purchasing food at grocery stores to consume at home.

Restaurants not only had to deal with rising commodity costs, but also rising labor costs. In May 2007, President Bush signed legislation increasing the U.S. minimum wage rate over a three-year period beginning in July 2007 from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. While restaurant management teams had time to prepare for the ramifications of this gradual increase, they were ill-equipped to deal with the nearly 20 states in late 2006 that passed anticipatory wage increases at rates higher than those proposed by Congress.

In addition to contending with the rising cost of goods sold (COGS), restaurants faced gross margins that were under pressure from the softening demand for dining out. A recent AAA Mid-Atlantic survey asked travelers how they might reduce spending to make up for the elevated gas prices, and 52% answered that food expenses would be the first area to be cut.7 Despite that news, a Deutsche Bank analyst remarked, “Two important indicators of consumer health— disposable income and employment—are both holding up well. As long as people have jobs and incomes are rising, they are likely to continue to eat out.”8

The current environment of elevated food and labor costs and consumer concerns highlighted the differences between the limited-service and full-service segments of the restaurant industry. Franchising was more popular in the limited-service segment and provided some buffer against rising food and labor costs because franchisors received a percentage of gross sales. Royalties on gross sales also benefited from any pricing increases that were made to address higher costs. Restaurant companies with large franchising operations also did not have the huge amount of capital invested in locations or potentially heavy lease obligations associated with company-owned units. Some analysts included operating lease requirements when considering a restaurant company’s leverage.9 Analysts also believed limited-service restaurants would benefit from any consumers trading down from the casual dining sub-sector of the full- service sector.10 The growth of the fast-casual subsector and the food-quality improvements in fast food made trading down an increasing likelihood in an economic slowdown.

The longer-term outlook for overall restaurant demand looked much stronger. A study by the National Restaurant Association projected that consumers would increase the percentage of their food dollars spent on dining out from the 45% in recent years to 53% by 2010.11 That long- term positive trend may have helped explain the extensive interest in the restaurant industry by activist shareholders, often the executives of private equity firms and hedge funds. Activist investor William Ackman with Pershing Square Capital Management initiated the current round of activist investors forcing change at major restaurant chains. Roughly one week after Ackman vociferously criticized the McDonald’s corporate organization at a New York investment conference in late 2005, the company declared it would divest 1,500 restaurants, repurchase $1 billion of its stock, and disclose more restaurant-level performance details. Ackman advocated all those changes and was able to leverage the power of his 4.5% stake in McDonald’s by using the media. His success did not go unnoticed, and other vocal minority investors aggressively pressed for changes at numerous chains including Applebee’s, Wendy’s, and Friendly’s. 

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