La Salsa's prexy Boppell to tackle taqueria return - La Salsa Holding Inc., Charles L. Boppell

LOS ANGELES - Dousing a diversification drive and cooling off an overheated expansion, the 40-unit La Salsa Holding Inc. has recruited veteran chain leader Charles Boppell as its new president and vowed to refocus on its origin taqueria format.

Boppell, formerly president of Taco Bell, Godfathers Pozza and Hudson's Grill and a veteran of the old Saga Corp. contract foodservice conglomerate, replaces Ty Peabody, a veteran of Pioneer Chicken, Sennsen's Ice Cream and Host International.

Peabody was promoted from chief operating officer to president just 10 months ago upon the election of venture capitalist and former Saga chairman Charles Lynch as La Salsa's outside chairman of the board.

But Peabody "is phasing out, and then he's going on his way," Lynch said, adding that the departing executive's final assignment will be to negotiate the sale of six under[erforming La Salsas opened in rapid succession in San Diego County this summer.

Those branches - converted from acquired chicken-broiler restaurants to become La Salsa's first and only drive-through outlets - are "not doing well," Lynch said. "That's an expansion we should not have done ." He called the concept diversification ill-advised during a rapid-expansion mode such as La Salsa's.

Lynch said the chain also would curtail further developments of a higher-scale full-service variant, whose only two prototypes operates in new shopping malls in Las Vegas and Costa Mesa, Calif.

In the future new La Salsa units will conform to a "strictly taqueria" format, he emphasized, referring to founder Howdy Kabrin's counter-service role models. The units storefronts with exhibition grills and self-service salsa bars offering varieties of the chain's signature condiment as complements to moderately priced soft-shell tacos, burritos and other made-to-order specialties.

La Salsa's renewed focus on its original taqueria format comes as other chains, including El Torito, Taco Bell and Arby's, have shown interest in a more authentic Mexican style of fast food.

In Southern California Taco Bell tested a concept called Salsa Rio Grill, and Arby's is studying the Green Burrito brand. El Torito - citing the success of La Salsa - recently launched the downscale Taqueria La Fresca in a "restaurant-within-a-restaurant" test at an El Torito in Irvine, Calif.

Since La Salsa' inception in 1979, it has expanded slowly from Southern California to as far afield as Montreal. System-wide sales were $13 million last year, during which the chain grew by 12 units to comprise 13 company-owned and 17 franchised branches.

Sales were expected to grow to nearly $28 million this year with the opening of a total of about 20 additional units - 10 more than actually had opened by this month.

Lynch said Bopell could apply "more multiunit experience" to La Salsa's growth objectives.

Boppell began his career with Saga Corp. in 1965, concluding his 12-year stint there as general manager of Saga Food Systems, a business-and-industry cafeteria and vending division.

He joined PepsiCo in 1977 and was senior vice president of operations for Pizza Hut before advancing to a 2-year-long assignment as president of PepsiCo's then-1,600-unit Taco Bell.

Setting the stage for the dawn of the John Martin regime at Taco Bell, Boppell left the chain in 1983 to become president and chief executive of Godfathers Pizza. But he was ousted by its then-parent company Diversifoods little more than a year after the pizza chain's growth stalled.

Boppell abandoned foodservice for four years and owned a Toyota dealership in Ventura, Calif., before signing on as president of the Ventura-based Hudson's Grill car-themed diner chain in 1989. In August he ended a four-year tenure - during which the chain grew from 11 to 18 units, expanding to Texas and Oregon - and was replaced by Hudson's Grill director David L. Osborn.

Osborn, who owns the chain's six-unit Texas franchise, is in the process of selling company-owned Hudson's Grill units in California to franchisees and relocating the public company's headquarters to his offices in Dallas to trim overhead.

"The California market is so soft, and the laws everybody talks about are so oppressive," Boppell said, explaining Hudson's Grill of America Inc.'s front-office move and consolidation.

Nonetheless, Los Angeles-based La Salsa will concentrate on development in California to "secure the beachhead," Boppell said, adding that the chain's first unit in the Sacramento market was scheduled to open this month.

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