Red Robin Moving Its Headquarters to Denver

Red Robin International Inc., a 138-unit restaurant chain, will move its Orange County corporate headquarters to Denver in October as part of an ongoing restructuring of the company.

The relocation is part of founder Gerald Kingen’s plan to return the upscale burger and sandwich chain to the mid-priced niche where it enjoyed its greatest success.

It was uncertain how many of the 60 employees at the company’s corporate office in Irvine would lose their jobs in the move. Red Robin officials did not return telephone calls Tuesday.

In a recent interview, Kingen said relocating made sense because the chain has only 22 restaurants in Southern California. “Our strongest presence is in Washington, and one of our largest franchisees is in Colorado,” he said.

Kingen, who has been commuting to Irvine from his Seattle-area home for several months, sold his stake in Red Robin in the mid-1980s but reacquired a controlling interest earlier this year.

He opened his first Red Robin in 1969 when he purchased a tavern in the Seattle area. A second Red Robin restaurant that opened in the mid-1970s more closely resembled the current restaurant chain, which features a burger-based menu and a bar area.

Red Robin continued to expand into the 1980s, but Kingen ran out of cash to finance a planned expansion and considered making an initial public stock offering. The privately held company instead allied itself with Japanese investors, who funded the chain’s expansion.

Kingen left the company shortly after the new investors came in but continued to own and manage several unrelated restaurants in the Seattle area. He said recently that the Japanese investors “remain on board” but that he has taken “a big equity position” and will help direct the chain’s future growth.

Restaurant industry observers said that privately held Red Robin, which doesn’t divulge sales or profit figures, has strayed in recent years from its mid-priced niche. The chain began as a hamburger emporium, but gradually its menu expanded both in size and price.

Kingen believes the restaurant chain has plenty of room to expand both through company-owned stores and through a renewed franchise program. But he anticipates a slow, steady approach to growth rather than a rapid expansion.

“When I was young and naive, I envisioned 500 locations in five years,” Kingen said. “But I’ve since learned that haste makes waste.”