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California Pizza Kitchen, often known as CPK, has struggled in recent years, which has led to bankruptcy, new ownership and leadership changes.
The casual dining chain, whose claim to fame is inventing The Original BBQ Chicken Pizza, turns 40 – and it’s planning some big changes that include ramping up its franchising strategy.
In November, CPK signed a partnership agreement with Sundine LLC to acquire three company-owned CPK locations in Las Vegas along with plans to open six additional units across both Nevada and Utah over the next several years.
“This is a significant moment in CPK’s growth strategy as we officially welcome our first major partner in the domestic business,” CPK President Michael Beacham said in a statement.
After the pizza chain emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, a group of investors took over as shareholders and are now known collectively as CPK Parent.
A year later, then Chief Executive Jim Hyatt relocated the CPK headquarters from Los Angeles to Costa Mesa, and the company revealed plans to activate a domestic franchising program for the first time to accelerate revenue and unit growth in key territories.
By 2022, the board altered the leadership team and removed Hyatt, Chief Operating Officer Brad Gramlich and corporate chef Brian Sullivan, who had been with the chain for 34 years. The C-suite shakeup ended with Jeff Warne, an independent director on the board since 2020, taking over as CEO.
“When I came on board, we were trying to put all the systems and processes in place so that we could restart growth,” Warne told the Business Journal.
He assumed the role having more than 23 years of experience in the restaurant space, at the time.
He was CEO at Perkins & Marie Callender’s LLC and before that, CEO at O’Charley’s Inc. for over four years. Additionally, he was president and COO at Pick Up Stix for two years and spent six years as COO of TGI Friday’s. Warne is also co-owner of Nashville’s Burger Republic.
“Even after restructuring, we had a challenging capital structure. We still carried a lot of debt, and so it was difficult to do growth on our own steam,” Warne said of joining CPK.
“We really needed to have partners in our growth story,” Warne said. “We weren’t as engaged in franchising, and refranchising, in terms of getting other growth partners in the brand so that we had other avenues of growth versus just our own company growth, because we were going to grow far too slow on our own capital.”
The company’s 2024 systemwide sales were $406 million, down 10% from the year before, according to data from Technomic Inc.
“Our same store sales performance, we’re happy to report, are positive year-to-date,” Warne added.
Enthusiastic Growth Partners
The deal for all three refranchised locations in Las Vegas closed in May, according to Warne.
The only U.S. franchisees CPK has had are the current operators of its non-traditional outposts at airports. Warne said the chain will be showing up in more non-traditional locations soon.
“We needed other people in the brand to enthusiastically grow with us,” Warne said.
Beacham joined the team in 2024 as head of global development after serving in executive roles at Planet Hollywood-parent company Earl Enterprises and ghost kitchen operator Reef Kitchens.
Warne said Beacham “has laid all the groundwork to really get this business going.”
There are currently 111 company-owned restaurants in the U.S.
“Aligning with top-tier operators like Sundine, in key markets outside of California, is not just about building new restaurants—it’s about ensuring the continued long-term equity of our brand and quality of our guest experience,” Beacham said.
The company is looking for franchise partners in Florida, the Mid-Atlantic region and along the East Coast. Warne used Nashville, the city where he moved from before OC, as an example of what CPK considers an “opportunity market.”
With only one restaurant in the city, he sees potential for five or more.
“This is one where a great partner in a market like Nashville will build out our presence to the degree that it could or should be,” Warne said.
CPK aims to select three to four new franchise partners per year. The ideal franchisee is an operator with two or three other brands in their portfolio, according to Warne.
“It’s great to have small operators because they’re very vested in it, but the growth rate will be limited by their available capital. So that’s where we’re looking for bigger, more sophisticated operators, because they typically have more capital and they have the sophistication and the infrastructure to build a system out pretty quickly,” Warne said.
CPK’s Las Vegas partner Sundine operates more than 85 restaurants and retail units, including Del Taco and Jack in the Box stores.
The pizza chain will still retain a significant number of company-owned restaurants, mainly a 50 to 60 store base in California while the rest of the U.S. will be made available for refranchising.
Finance Geek Turned Concept Developer
Warne refers to himself as “a reformed finance geek.”
He started his career as a certified public accountant at Coopers & Lybrand, now PwC, for almost seven years. He then went to business school at the University of Chicago for his MBA with plans to become a portfolio manager.
After graduating, he started at Carlson Companies Inc. in Minneapolis as vice president of business planning. He was then asked to be the CFO at TGI Fridays in 1998 when it was still under Carlson.
“I fell in love with it the moment I got there,” Warne said.
After six years at TGIF, he joined Pick Up Stix as COO. In 2006, he jumped to O’Charley’s in Nashville and moved his way up from president of concept to CEO. He was later appointed CEO of family-dining chains Perkins and Marie Callender’s up until the two companies were sold separately in 2019 – 13 years after the Orange County-based cafe and pie chain merged with Perkins.
During this time, Warne felt secure enough to embark on his own in the industry. In 2011, he became a franchisee of Nothing Bundt Cakes and a year later, he created the restaurant concept Burger Republic, where he remains a co-owner.
“Now, I’ve been my own concept developer,” he said.
Warne said he was traveling around the world with his wife when CPK approached him about going from board member to CEO.
“From the outside looking in, I was always kind of blown away by kind of the hallmarks of the brand. The culinary innovation was always something that everybody talked about.”
His ultimate goal for the brand? “To make sure that we can accelerate the growth and replicate what we’ve done so successfully for 40 years.”
CPK’s Midlife Crisis
Chief Marketing Officer Dawn Keller said that when she joined California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) in 2024, she realized that the team needed to rejuvenate the brand.
“Because all sorts of new entrants have come into the market and our actual footprint has gotten a little smaller over the years, especially coming out of the restructuring from five years ago,” Keller told the Business Journal.
She noted marketing efforts were historically focused on product launches and promotions rather than brand building.
The Costa Mesa-based casual dining chain then hired Iris to be its new creative agency, with the goal of focusing on brand building. Keller said their aim was “getting our name out there more.”
“But also showing up in a way that is more modern, has more personality and edge, so that we are more relevant,” she continued. “Especially to today’s even younger consumers who are going to be our people fueling the next four years of growth.”
With CPK turning 40 this year, Keller decided to tease a fake rebrand to mark the anniversary and “garner chatter and reaction.”
In March, CPK posted a reel on Instagram showing a new flashy metallic logo with people in black hoodies eating pizza, along with an all-caps message: “THIS IS THE NEW CPK. FRESH. TO. DEATH.”
They later framed the publicity stunt as a “midlife crisis” about staying “fresh” with customers.
“We wanted the fake brand to be about 85% preposterous, 15% believable, so that it was treading the line and getting people to question it,” Keller said.
The campaign also featured actress Busy Phillips, who had been a hostess at CPK before working in the entertainment industry.
“My job was to remind CPK that at 40 years old, there’s no need for reinvention,” Phillips said in a statement.
“Some of the stuff was a bit preposterous, a little outrageous, but it had the desired effect,” Chief Executive Jeff Warne said.
The fake rebrand is the type of marketing that Keller hopes to continue in the future.
“We’ll definitely have more personality, a little more edge, a bit more spice if you will, a little more humor.”
— Emily Santiago-Molina