Executives of Spanish-based Grupo Lizarran, whose fast-casual namesake restaurants specialize in Basque-style tapas, plan to put their spin on small-plate dining by dishing up their first restaurants on the American continents this year, beginning in Mexico City and spreading to California by 2006.

Through Mexico City-based master franchisee TapasCat--short for "TapasCatalonia," according to its general manager, Ivan Rodriguez--franchisor Lizarran intends to open at least 40 branded Lizarran Taberna Selecta sites in Mexico and California by 2009, of which 25 percent would be operated by TapasCat. Plans call for the balance to be opened and operated by subfranchisees.

Barcelona-based Grupo Lizarran, which operates and franchises 141 Lizarran Taberna Selecta units in five European countries, said TapasCat expects its first Mexico City site to open next month. That debut would be followed by a second unit in that city before the end of the year. The company added that Rodriguez intends to sign a franchisee in California by 2005, with that operator's first unit expected to be open for business shortly thereafter.

Sources at Grupo Lizarran said the company was scouting sites for 10 Southern California restaurants, in Los Angeles, San Diego and its La Jolla suburb, Anaheim, Huntington Beach and Irvine. The brand then would expand to Northern California, with 14 units planned for San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Napa and Monterey.

In Mexico, TapasCat would spread out to Acapulco, Cancun, Cuernavaca, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Puerto Vallarta, Queretaro and Tijuana.

Small-plate Spanish cuisine has been a staple at such American restaurants as Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises' Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba! in Chicago, where tapas lovers also seek out Cafe Iberico.

Modesto in St. Louis and Zarzuela in San Francisco, among others, feature the small-plate meals. At those restaurants tapas portions generally are priced from about $3 to $9 each, and some offer larger, entree-size portions of Spanish specialties.

In Los Angeles the trend-setting restaurant A.O.C., which opened in 2002, took the tapas approach and applied it to a broader range of European ingredients. At the recently opened Enoteca Drago in Beverly Hills, Italian foods turn up in small courses, supplemented by entree-size options.

In New York the owners of Suba and Mojo are planning a spring opening for the Tapas Room, which reportedly will focus on authentic Spanish dishes.

But the dining format never has reached the heights of popularity found in its homeland, Spain, where entire Web sites are devoted to the subject. Rodriguez and his franchise group said their brand would differ from existing U.S. venues because Lizarran presents its menu in a fast-casual environment. Rodriguez added that the Basque tapas menu would offer a cuisine and menu style that has not yet been tapped in either Mexico or the United States. "People in Europe go, eat three to four tapas and leave," he explained. "It's a 15-minute visit."

The restaurant's repertoire spans across 350 appetizer combinations for its rotating-item menu. Each dish, known in Basque dialect as a pinxho and priced around $1, presents the ingredients speared with a toothpick atop a slice of bread. The drink menu to accompany the snacks lists small, medium or large servings of wines, beers and hard cider.

Like dim sum restaurants that add up the tab from the number of used plates, servers at Lizarran calculate the bill from the number of toothpicks used, typically three to four per person, along with the beverages consumed, Rodriguez said. Tabs average about $7 to $11 per customer, he added. Although chairs are available at Lizarran restaurants, most European patrons consume their tapas and drinks while standing at a high table, he explained.

In Europe the Lizarran Selecta Taberna concept so far has expanded beyond its home country to four other nations, including, for example, a branch in Vicenza, Italy, near Venice, where the restaurant's tapas, paella and sangria specialties are promoted as "autentica" tastes of Spain.

Rodriguez, a former restaurant executive with McDonald's, PepsiCo International and Sodexho, said he anticipates that check averages and prices will be lower in Mexico than in California and that his cost structure also will differ. The franchisee, whose heritage is Mexican and Galician--Galicia is a region in Northwestern Spain--estimated that labor cost in Mexico would run about 15 percent of sales, compared with a projected 33-percent rate in California.

Grupo Lizarran said it intends to invest 5 million euros, or about $6 million, in the Mexican expansion, and six million euros, or approximately $7.2 million, in the U.S. rollout. The units are expected to cost about $150,000 to build, Rodriguez said. He projected that annual average-unit volumes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night service would range from $780,000 to $960,000.

TapasCat would introduce a few new features at its American restaurants, the general manager said. First, the units would include deli counters to sell the company's proprietary meat products, hams and prosciuttos, Rodriguez said. In Mexico the company also would test delivery service. "In Europe people like to be in the street; here [in Mexico City], people like security and delivery," Rodriguez asserted. "Everybody delivers in the D.F. [Distrito Federale, or Mexico City] on motorcycles."

Company president Mateo Ferrero opened the first Lizarran Taberna Selecta in the Barcelona suburb of Sitges in 1988. Grupo Lizarran began franchising in 1996 and grew to become Spain's third-largest restaurant franchisor by 2002, according to company sources. Company revenues were projected at 57.3 million euros, or about $72.2 million, for 2003, compared with 45 million euros, or about $47.3 million, for 2002.

According to company statistics, approximately 68 percent of the Lizarran Taberna Selecta clientele in Spain during the week is male, while on weekends the figure drops to 60 percent.

The Lizarran Taberna Selecta brand is the oldest and largest of five chains in the Lizarran stable and the only one that trades outside of Spain. Rounding out the group are snack shop brands Happy Crak and Happy Factory, organic-food promoter CommeBio Buffet Bar and El Rincon de Lizarran, a small-scale, satellite version of the larger Taberna Selecta.

The Spanish company currently oversees 141 Lizarran Tabernas Selectas, 121 of which trade in its homeland, with the remainder peppered across Andorra, Germany, Italy and Portugal. Grupo Lizarran also signed a franchise agreement for expansion in France, Rodriguez indicated.
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