Diners gobble up liquor and Pizza combo at CPK eateries.

CALIFORNIA Pizza Kitchen customers can now skip the ice tea and order mixed drinks with their barbecue chicken pizzas.

And the changes taking place at the 176-restaurant chain, which began adding full bars to its new restaurants last year, appear to be showing some returns.

The four CPK restaurants that opened in 2004--three using the new concept--averaged $55,387 in weekly sales, according to company filings. That bests sales at restaurants opened in the two prior years, although it lags behind sales at older restaurants.

Richard Rosenfield, co-president and cofounder of the Los Angeles-based company, said he's pleased with the early showing and noted that the new concept will be incorporated in all upcoming units. The company has added six restaurants this year--the latest opened in Lakewood this month--and is set to add 10 more in 2005.

"It is a pretty significant change." said Rosenfield. "It is dramatic when we go to full bars. flat-screen TVs (and) increased adult ambiance." The new restaurants will be about 6,000 square feet, compared with 5,000 square feet at the older locations.

Janet Lowder, president of the Rancho Palos Verdes-based consulting firm Restaurant Management Services, noted that restaurants typically remake themselves every three to five years. Selling alcoholic beverages, she said, "is a good way to increase your average check and increase your profits because alcoholic beverage sales are very profitable."

Changes instituted at the new restaurants will eventually filter through the entire chain, said Rosenfield. The color scheme is also being softened to golden, earthy tones to move away from the stark black, white and yellow patterns that have marked the chain since its 1985 founding.

In adding bars, California Pizza Kitchen follows the lead of LA Food Show, the company's higher-end multi-cultural spinoff that is being expanded beyond its first location in Manhattan Beach. LA Food Show has done more dinner business than California Pizza Kitchens, where dinner and lunch business are evenly split.

Last week, California Pizza Kitchen announced that Rosenfield and Larry Flax, the other co-president and co-founder, had agreed to a five-year management deal. The company also reported a higher-than-anticipated increase in first-quarter same-store sales, to 9.3 percent.

Rosenfield said that the improvements were attributable, at least in part, to a renewed focus on restaurants in the company's California stronghold. Rosenfield and Flax took over the company in 2003 after former Chief Executive Fred Hipp, who was blamed for a poor expansion Strategy and stepped down.

Staff reporter Rachel Brown can be reached by phone at [phone], ext. 224, or by e-mail at [e-mail].