Chuck Boppell Title: President and CEO, Worldwide Restaurant Concepts Inc. Age: 59 Education: B.A. in Economics from Whitworth College, Spokane, Wash. Career turning point: While he was in high school, his dad lost his clothing manufacturing business and Boppell turned to the restaurant industry to put himself through school. Personal: Married, three children, six grandchildren Most admired person: Andy Pearson, former president of PepsiCo. “He cut to the things that were important and didn’t deal with the things that weren’t important.” Chuck Boppell came out of retirement with a new recipe for Sizzler. He’s been stirring things up ever since Two years ago, Chuck Boppell cut his retirement short and returned to the restaurant business. He missed the pace, the people and the way that success and failure can be measured almost instantaneously by customer reactions and sales. So in 1999, Boppell took the reins of Sizzler International Inc. If it was a fast-paced, changing environment he was after, one might argue Boppell got more than he bargained for. In his first two years as president and CEO, Boppell has presided over the company’s return from a Chapter 11 reorganization completed in 1998; engineered an $11 million remodeling and repositioning effort for the company’s Sizzler restaurants; commandeered the acquisition of a new chain, Pat & Oscar’s; and seen the company through an E. coli outbreak that resulted in one death, many illnesses and a number of lawsuits. All the while he has been charged with boosting flagging sales, earnings and poor stock performance. In the first quarter of its 2002 fiscal year ended July 22, Sizzler’s net income dipped to $1.7 million, or $.06 per diluted share, on revenues of $61.3 million. That compares with net income of $2.9 million, or $.10 per diluted share, on revenues of $54.7 million in the same period last year. Shares have recently been trading around $1, down from more than $2 a year ago. Despite the lackluster results, Boppell, who formerly held positions as senior vice president of operations for Pizza Hut and president of Taco Bell before those companies were sold by PepsiCo Inc., believes the company is inching toward a turnaround. Sizzler now operates or franchises some 344 restaurants worldwide under the Sizzler brand and is the exclusive franchisee for 107 KFC restaurants in Queensland, Australia. Earlier this year, the company acquired San Diego-based Pat & Oscar’s, an upscale, casual dining chain. And the company is expanding its Sizzler chain internationally. In August, the company changed its name to Worldwide Restaurant Concepts Inc. to reflect its broadening business base. Even its headquarters is about to change, with a planned move from Culver City to the Sherman Oaks Galleria in November. Question: What does the name change reflect about the direction of the company? Answer: We felt (the name) Sizzler International didn’t give enough credence to the other divisions, and we expect Sizzler to be a strong division but not the predominant division over the long term. So by naming it Worldwide Restaurant Concepts, it more appropriately reflected our present position as well as our future growth. Q: Where will your future growth come from? A: Each division has its own growth strategy. We’ll probably add another four to (the KFC chain in Australia) this year. And we’re also growing the Sizzler chain in Asia. On the Pat & Oscar’s side, our growth strategy is to use (San Diego) as our base and push out from that so people know who we are before we get to the market. So we’ll probably fill out 90 percent of the San Diego market this year and then we’ll be more aggressively pushing up into Orange County where we now have three restaurants and then San Bernardino, Riverside and then into L.A. County. Q: Sizzler has been around for more than 30 years. How can you keep it fresh? A: This past year our emphasis has been on getting away from the volume feeding and getting into quality and value, so we’ve taken the idea of a buffet restaurant and gone to a grill concept that has a great salad bar. We significantly upgraded the quality of our beef and, by putting in charbroilers and different cooking techniques, we think we deliver as good a steak as you’ll find in any comparable restaurant. Q: What has impacted the financial performance? A: Eighty percent of our company-owned restaurants are in California. And California has been pretty hard hit with the increase in gas prices and utilities. When you look at our average guest (at Sizzler), we’re in the mid-scale some people might say more blue-collar neighborhoods, and when you add $100 to $200 a month to someone’s utility bill, it’s a significant hit. So yes, we’ve seen a deterioration from that. Q: Why did you acquire Pat & Oscar’s? A: With the aging of the Sizzler facilities you have more blue-collar neighborhoods that don’t have the traffic patterns they had when they were originally built. On the Pat & Oscar’s side we’re brand new and it’s in an upscale neighborhood, so it draws different people. I would say in general they’re younger, they’re more affluent, they tend to be more mobile. Pat & Oscar’s serves products that travel well. As much as 50 percent of the volume in any restaurant is outside that restaurant in the form of delivery, pickup, catering luncheon meetings for businesses. Primarily, their menu features pizza, chicken, ribs, and so we’re running exceptionally good numbers out of small spaces. Q: What are the expansion plans for Pat & Oscars? A: When we bought it, it was eight (restaurants). It’s now, as of this week, 12 restaurants. By the end of our fiscal year which is May, it will be 15 to 16 restaurants. Our plan is to open 30 to 50 percent of the base each year, so we would be adding five to six restaurants a year in the near term. Q: How did the E. coli outbreak at Sizzler in the Midwest last year impact the company’s performance? A: It influenced our sales, there’s no question, because there was publicity and people are fearful. I guess the good news would be that we were insured, that it won’t financially impact us long term, but it does affect your sales trends until people become comfortable that you’re a safe place to eat. And we’ve taken the steps to correct that as far as safety and food handling. Q: What were some of the things involved in making the decision to move to the Valley? A: We wanted to stick close enough to this location that we wouldn’t lose valued employees, but at the same time we wanted to have enough flexibility that we could find the best deal for our shareholders. It was a combination of the facility out there being new and the support services around it that made it attractive, along with the number of employees that worked here that were driving over Sepulveda Pass. Our expectation was that if we did it correctly we would lose a relative small percent of our staff. So we’ve done things like flexible work hours, flexible workdays, a van pool with multiple pickup points. Q: What is it that you find so appealing about the restaurant business? A: The best thing about the restaurant business is you see almost immediate results either in the faces of your guests or in your sales. This is capitalism at its best. Every day people tell you whether you’re competitive or not.
