Location Intelligence: California Pizza Kitchen, Inc.

California Pizza Kitchen, Inc., founded in 1985, by lawyers Larry Flax and Richard Rosenfield, is a leading casual dining chain in the premium pizza segment. It is based in Los Angeles. The company's full service restaurants feature an imaginative line of hearth-baked pizzas, including the original BBQ Chicken Pizza.

In 2003, the new management team, headed by founders Flax and Rosenfield, realized the company's troubles lay in the aggressive expansion strategy that involved questionable real estate sites in areas that couldn't support the restaurants. They knew that significant changes needed to be made, particularly in determining where to open and not to open new stores. The team's first priority was to reign in expansion. They reduced the number of planned openings for 2004 from 28 to 12 or fewer.

To help prove to analysts that the company would grow profitably, California Pizza Kitchen enlisted Buxton to help the restaurant chain focus its efforts on finding and opening optimal new store locations.