Red Robin Restaurant Chain Names President : Management: William C. Baker replaces William F. Miller, who resigned after spearheading the company’s expansion.
Red Robin International Inc. on Monday appointed William C. Baker, a Red Robin director and franchisee, as the privately held restaurant company’s president and chief operating officer.
Baker replaced former Red Robin President William F. Miller, who resigned Friday.
Red Robin has 100 locations, including about 60 that are owned by franchisees. The company, which reported revenue of $200 million in 1992, wants to add 200 outlets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan and other Pacific Rim countries by 1997.
Miller resigned during a Red Robin board meeting last week in Tokyo, a company spokesman said Monday. Red Robin appointed Baker as president and chief operating officer Monday, “effective immediately,” the spokesman said.
Baker, 59, has served as a Red Robin director and is chairman and chief executive officer of Carolina Restaurant Enterprises Inc., a East Coast Red Robin franchisee.
Miller spearheaded the chain’s quick growth since becoming the Irvine-based company’s president in 1989.
“We’re sorry to lose Bill Miller, but with our long-range growth program on stream, it became apparent that he wanted to turn his considerable energies to rebuilding yet another company,” said Red Robin Vice Chairman Chikatsu Niikura.
“It’s time for me to find another challenge, another company to help,” Miller said. “The fact is that we’d pretty well finished all the development issues that were in front of me in 1989. . . . The menus, the store prototype, the decor package . . . it’s all been defined and fixed up.”
Miller, 56, said he will take some time off before “doing another one of these (building) jobs.” Miller previously spent nine years with Lamb Weston Inc. in Portland, Ore., a potato-processing company that is now a subsidiary of Omaha-based ConAgra Inc.
In 1976, Baker was chairman and chief executive of Del Taco Inc., the Mexican-style fast food chain operating in Southern California. He also had served as president of Macco Corp. and Great Southwest Corp., two Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiaries.
A Texas native and a Newport Beach resident, Baker also served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department and as a private attorney.
Baker now serves as a corporate director for a number of public and private companies, including the Bank of Newport, Unicare Financial Corp. and Santa Anita Realty Enterprises Inc.
