Kevin S. Relyea

In his thirty two years of leading restaurants Kevin Relyea’s teams have never failed to significantly improve the sales, profitability, operations, image and potential of the businesses for which they were responsible. 

Relyea’s career in restaurants began as a teenaged “burger flipper”. He started his career with Jack in the Box (JIB) as a grill cook while in high school, receiving consistent promotions to Assistant Manager, Manager, Area Training Coordinator, District Manager, Area Manager and VP-Regional Operations.  Before leaving JIB in 1994, he had become Vice President of Operations for the most successful division in the company, which included over 250 JIB restaurants with a combined $275M in annual sales.  He was chosen to be a key member of the crisis management team responsible for long-term strategy formation following the company’s E. coli tragedy in 1993.

 In 1994, following a large investment by JIB in Family Restaurants, Inc., (“FRI,” a $1.1B multi-branded international restaurant company which at various times operated such brands as Coco’s, Carrows, jojo’s, El Torito, Chi-Chi’s, Casa Gallardo, Koo Koo Roo, Hamburger Hamlet, Charley Brown’s, Las Brisas, and Keystone Grill.) Relyea became President of its Family Dining Division. This was comprised of the Coco’s, Carrows and jojo’s brands with over $500M in annual sales. After two years, and the Family Dining Division achieving record sales and earnings, Kevin became the Chairman, CEO and President of FRI.

 As CEO of FRI, Relyea was directed by the Board of Directors to lead the turnaround of this newly formed and struggling LBO.  The company had accumulated approximately $570 million in debt and had sustained significant declines in sales and profitability, in spite of the record results in Relyea’s Family Dining Division. With Kevin’s leadership, the company reduced debt from $570 million to $169 million within twelve months and achieved a $32 million improvement in EBITDA.  This was accomplished by turning around failing operations within certain brands; restructuring and centralizing significant corporate overhead functions and selling certain operations and other assets at favorable and profitable prices. 

 FRI, originally a privately held restaurant company became public in 1998 as part of its merger with Lee Iococca’s Koo Koo Roo brand and eventually changed its name to Prandium Inc.  As a result of the continuing enormous debt load following the merger, as part of a turnaround plan, Relyea guided Prandium through a successful pre-packaged bankruptcy reorganization in 2002.

 While leading Prandium, Kevin was responsible for dozens of successful new product and advertising campaigns; a new restaurant design and building program for El Torito and Chi- Chi’s; a new food cost model for casual dining restaurants resulting in a four point reduction in food cost percent; achieving a 30% return on total invested capital in six of seven years; and representing the corporation to analysts, investors, bankers, industry and community leaders and government officials on a broad range of issues.

 Relyea received his MBA from Pepperdine University and regularly completes continuing education programs sponsored by Stanford, the University of Chicago GSB, and Wharton.