Former CPK chief Trojan finds new home at House of Blues

Nation's Restaurant News, Oct 14, 1996 by Milford Prewitt

LOS ANGELES -- Having restrained his entrepreneurial urge long enough, Greg Trojan, the president and chief executive of PepsiCo's California Pizza Kitchen, has resigned to assume similar duties with HOB Entertainment, the parent company of the House of Blues.

Trojan was named president and chief operating officer at HOB, reporting to and sharing key management power with Isaac Tigrett, the founder and chief executive.

His appointment comes just one month before the House of Blues opens a 41,000-square-foot restaurant and concert hall complex in Chicago -- its largest unit to date -- initiating a growth spurt after nearly four years mired as a three-unit chain. Trojan replaces Richard Cervera, Taco Cabana's former president, whom Tigrett tapped last summer to take over the day-to-day reins of the company while Tigrett concentrated on chain growth and refining the concept.

Cervera resigned after a few months on the job over what Tigrett described as "different points of view on the corporate culture's relationship to the business."

Although Trojan's training and skills were honed in the tightly structured management hierarchy of PepsiCo, he said he is well-suited for HOB, whose corporate culture is informal and influenced by the entrepreneurial drive and spiritual leanings of Tigrett, a Buddhist who professes psychic powers.

"The reason I decided to join the House of Blues is its infancy aspects, of being part of something at an early stage and watching it grow," he said. "I realized I love doing that. I think it is the fun part of being a business person."

Trojan joined PepsiCo in the corporate headquarters in Rye, N.Y., during 1991 in the planning and development department. He was promoted to Pizza Hut, where he became general manager for the chain's Southern California market. He later joined CPK in May 1994 and was named president a year later.

Tigrett said Trojan and he see eye-to-eye on many fronts, mainly that HOB is unlike any other restaurant concept and requires an entrepreneurial attitude to nurture its growth. But he noted that Trojan is equipped with the background and training to sharpen MOB's growth and operations.

"You know, we've had an interesting history in running a company for a number of years without a CEO or a COO," Tigrett said. "We made stabs to hire, going through agencies, and it just did not work out. And this company has gone about as far as it can go, at three units, without a COO.

"I really couldn't imagine doing a fourth unit without someone like Greg. He has phenomenal talent and the ability to create the infrastructure to run the company that we will need if we intend to do a public offering, which is what we are contemplating."

Trojan said that even though he worked in a formal corporate environment for most of his career, he is not a stranger to the role of being an entrepreneur.

"CPK was far from a huge, bureaucratic, staid organization," Trojan said. "It was a fairly young company, and it is clearly on its growth curve. So in many respects, joining the House of Blues is not an unfamiliar, entrepreneurial environment to me.

"It is undeniable that I have a different background from Isaac. But that is exactly why I am here, to complement Isaac and to build the infrastructure.

structure. I don't see this as threatening or imposing in any way. It's just what I've been looking for."

Meanwhile, the company expects to open a massive restaurant and concert hall in November in the Marina City Commercial Complex in Chicago, the internationally recognized "corncob"-designed towers on the Chicago River. Three to four years from now, HOB intends to open a 400-room hotel, with 30 suites, at the site. The restaurant will occupy three levels and will include a 70-foot-long cocktail bar. The menu will feature the chain's traditional Southern fare. The concert hall will house television production studios as well as multimedia and radio broadcast facilities.

Tigrett dismissed observations that the chain's unit growth has stagnated. Pointing out that the chain will be opening units in Myrtle Beach, Fla., and Orlando in 1997, Tigrett said retarding the chain's growth is a way to build up brand excitement in the future.

"Eventually, if we are successful, we're going to have bus loads of grandparents and kids and families flocking to our places," he said. "But now that is not the demographic I want.

"I want the hip and the cool, and the more I can hold back that family demographic, the greater will be our ability to leverage the brand in the future."

Tigrett, who bristles somewhat when people put the House of Blues in the specialty theme segment, boasted that the company is going to change the business of eating out and entertainment.

"I was blessed to have a 20year career that has taught me how to create an international cultural brand," he said. "I've made every mistake there is to make three or four times. The House of Blues is not an emulation of the Hard Rock or any of the children that the Hard Rock has spawned.