Last month, Prandium announced plans to seek a buyer for its chain of 14 mid-price Hamburger Hamlet restaurants in Southern California and Washington, D.C. Though the Hamburger Hamlet chain is doing well and its performance justifies expansion, Prandium said in a statement that the parent company "does not have the resources at this time" to fund the burger chain's growth.

About half of the 40 jobs Prandium plans to eliminate are at the company's Irvine headquarters. Most of the others will come at its Chi-Chi's subsidiary office in Louisville, KY.

As part of the shakeup, Kevin S. Relyea—a restaurant industry veteran who serves as Prandium's chairman and president of Chi-Chi's—will also become Koo Koo Roo's president. He will replace Gayle A. DeBrosse because, Relyea says in a statement released last Friday, he and DeBrosse have agreed that the company "cannot afford two presidents."