Coco’s Sells First 3 Franchises : Restaurants: Two are bought by a Burger King franchisee, who plans to locate them in Rancho Santa Margarita and Anaheim Hills.

The Coco’s Bakery Restaurant chain announced Friday that it has sold its first three franchises, including two to Orange County’s largest independent Burger King operator.

John Gantes, who operates six Burger King restaurants, said he plans to open his first franchised Coco’s in Rancho Santa Margarita in the next two weeks, followed by another in the Anaheim Hills. Another franchisee, Tim McCarthy, plans to open a Coco’s in Cathedral City, near Palm Springs.

This is just the start of what the chain hopes will be a string of franchised Coco’s restaurants, which would allow the chain to continue growing without having to overburden the parent company, Restaurant Enterprises Group in Irvine.

The franchising effort also comes in the wake of Restaurant Enterprises’ purchase of 107 former Bob’s Big Boy restaurants in Southern California from Marriott Corp. They are being converted to Coco’s or Carrows restaurants, which are also part of Restaurant Enterprises’ coffee-shop chains.

Coco’s has found a unique market sandwiched above mainstream coffee shops and below white-tablecloth dinner houses.

Restaurant Enterprises decided to turn Coco’s into a franchise because a leveraged buyout left the parent company strapped for expansion funds and “in the restaurant business, if you don’t grow, you get left behind,” said Kenneth L. Harris, president of the CFC Franchising Co. division of Restaurant Enterprises Group.

Gantes operates his restaurant ventures through the Breckenridge Group in Rancho Santa Margarita. He said that he started in the restaurant business through full-service restaurants in Orange County before becoming a Burger King franchisee.