Puck struggles to find the right recipe.

After years of spotty results with his mid-priced restaurant chains and supermarket products, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck is refocusing much of his business towards less costly licensing and franchise operations.

Much of the growth will center on the chain of Wolfgang Puck Express Cafes, an upscale fast-food eatery where patrons order made-to-order food cafeteria style. Puck said his company has signed enough franchise agreements to have more than 100 express cafes nationwide in the next three years.

The revised approach, Puck said in an interview, "requires a lot less cash and a lot less people. It would be harder for us to do everything we want to do without doing more licensing."

Puck said he intends to "sell off everything that is not part of our core business, anything that is not our brand. I think we have to concentrate on our core business."

He plans to expand his high-end restaurants, opening several concepts similar to Spago and Chinois over the next three years. That includes a yet-to-be-named fine dining bar and grill restaurant in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, a city where Puck already has four upscale restaurants.

But Wolfgang Puck Worldwide Inc., his Beverly Hills-based company that handles licensing deals and operates his non-fine dining restaurants, may close most of its nine Wolfgang Puck Cafe casual dining restaurants in the Los Angeles region, according to area restaurant owners and real estate brokers who have looked at sites in Woodland Hills, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Ontario.

Puck may also convert the sit-down cafe on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica into a new fine dining restaurant, according to Bobby Burns, part owner of the Marmalade Cafe chain, who has looked at several of the cafe locations.

Burns said he was interested in the Santa Monica location, but Puck officials told him it's earmarked to for one of the new fine-dining spots. "That would have been a nice location for us," he said.

'Nothing is static'

It's unclear what will happen to the seven out-of-state cafes, but the local closings could leave only two remaining sit-down cafes in L.A.: one in Hollywood at the corner of Laurel Avenue and Sunset Boulevard and another at Universal Studios Citywalk Hollywood.

Puck spokeswoman Jannis Swerman said there are ongoing discussions about what to do with the cafes, but no decision has been made.

"We're at a stage when we have to look at the business and see if they are working," she said. "Nothing is static. Sales and trends change so we're going through an evaluation."

Puck also said he wants to sell off the Cucina! Cucina! chain of 15 Italian restaurants he bought a year ago which includes locations in Washington, Oregon and California.

"Evidently, they didn't do their homework when making the purchase," said Janet Lowder, president of L.A.-based Restaurant Management Services, a consulting group. "It's a way to get into a market very quickly, but I couldn't see them operating another brand because they have their plate full with the brands they already have."

Puck said the restaurants didn't fit with the rest of the company and were difficult to manage.

"Hindsight is always 20/20," Puck said. "At that point we thought we'll buy a few small restaurant companies and operate them under their different names, but then we figured out that didn't work for us and to convert them was too expensive. We never knew how we were ever going to manage them."

Any money generated by closing the cafes and selling off the Cucina! Cucina! chain will be invested back into the high-end restaurants, operated by a separate company called Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, as well as for overseeing the franchises for his Wolfgang Puck Express Cafes.

Franchising cafes

While sales at his high-end restaurants have held relatively steady over the past two years, Puck's other businesses have shown mixed results.

The Irvine Co., which owns the Irvine Spectrum mall, filed a lawsuit in June against Puck's company, alleging that its Wolfgang Puck Cafe was behind $72,000 in unpaid rent. Irvine Co. spokeswoman Jennifer Hieger declined to comment on the status of the litigation, but she said her company is in "constructive" discussions with Wolfgang Puck executives.

Puck is also going through a divorce with his wife of 19 years, Barbara Lazaroff, who is also his business partner. He said the divorce would not affect the company's operations. "It's business as usual," Puck said. "We are still going to be business partners. Barbara has her say and I'll have mine."

The company's main vehicle for growth, Puck said, would be the Express Cafes, of which there are 40 scattered nationally.

Within file last two months franchised locations opened in Nashville, Tenn., Charlotte, N.C. and Atlanta. Puck said 10 more will be operating by the end of the year and by next spring another 10 will open.

"We are expanding them rather fast," he said. "Well, it's fast for us. For McDonalds, maybe it's not so fast."

The company originally had set a goal of 300 locations over a 5-year period, according to Randall Hiatt, president of Irvine-based Fessel International Inc., a restaurant consulting group. "They are way south of their goal," he said, "but it seems to be the one dynamic that's really working for them."

Less hands-on

Puck said his other focus would be to continue licensing his name for consumer products. Already, the Wolfgang Puck brand appears on everything from cookware and bottled coffee drinks to canned soups and frozen pizzas.

"Maybe Martha Stewart will always be bigger in the housewares department, but I want us to be the No. 1 player in the upscale food business," he said.

Along with that, Puck is taking a less active role in developing the products that bear his name. Two years ago he sold off his frozen pizza business to grocery giant ConAgra Foods Inc. and this year WP Beverage Partners LLC developed a bottled latte drink.

The same will hold true with LSG Sky Chefs, the world's largest provider of in-flight catering, which is developing a meal line bearing the Puck name. "He believes it should be left to the people with experience doing this kind of thing," Swerman said. "But he still has final say."

Last year Puck hired Barb Westfield as senior vice president of consumer marketing to broaden the company's licensing program. Among other things, Westfield is incorporating more retail operations into Puck's express cafes, where cookbooks, videos and other branded products will be sold.

But industry consultants say that licensing does not pay much, especially when it comes to grocery stores. On average, profitable restaurants can earn a 20 percent margin, while groceries have margins closer to 2 percent, according to Lowder.

"Plus, he's limited to high-end supermarkets," she said. "He's not going to be in Food for Less, that's for sure. He's not going to be able to fit into every place, which hurts him."

Referring to the recently released Wolfgang Puck bottled latte drink, Puck concedes as much. "This isn't the drink for Spago," he said.