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TWST: Let’s begin with the approach that you’ve taken to the restaurant industry.

Mr. Forst: It is probably no different from what most investors and analysts are looking at. It includes looking at the long-term viability of a concept, looking at the investment return on individual restaurants, looking at the quality of managements. The restaurant industry is one of the largest industries in the United States and it’s not going to go away. It’s growing at a faster rate than inflation. However, it is a highly speculative business. There is probably as much failure in this industry as in any industry I’ve ever looked at. In the short term, it is very fast moving and a lot of it depends on fads, promotions and advertising.

TWST: What distinguishes the long-term winners in this industry?

Mr. Forst: You need to have a quality management team that can build new restaurants. You cannot succeed long term without expanding, but you also have to have a very consistent, long-term operating focus. A lot of interesting concepts come and go because they are not executed well. Execution is probably more difficult than arriving at a viable concept. In fact, there are viable concepts that come up, and people steal the concept or knock them off and are sometimes more successful than the originator, because they can operate them.

TWST: You’ve described BUCA (Nasdaq:BUCA) as a unique restaurant concept. Tell us what is unique about BUCA.

Mr. Forst: They provide an irreverent, southern Italian, family-style dining experience. Certainly Italian food is not unique in any regard. It is probably one of the most popular cuisines in the United States, after hot dogs and hamburgers. But what they do differently is they serve everything family-style. You and I could not go to dinner there and feel we’ve gotten good value. BUCA gives too much food for two people to eat. You need to be in a party of anywhere from four to 10 people to get your money’s worth out of this concept. The typical entrée is a two-pound chicken cacciatore — two pounds of chicken with pasta on a huge platter that’s enough to serve four to six people. And the restaurants themselves, as I said, are very irreverent. They have hundreds of pictures of notable Italian people and scenes. You have to be in the restaurant. I almost can’t describe why it is so different. The restaurants are broken up into six or seven different rooms. Most of the tables are large. It’s hard to find a two-top.

TWST: Where are the restaurants located and how many units do they have?

Mr. Forst: They started in Minneapolis, but most of the stores are on the West Coast: Washington state, California. And they are now expanding into mid-market locations such as Indianapolis and Cincinnati. So they are hitting a number of mid-sized states as well as the larger markets. The company currently operates 51 restaurants.

TWST: Do you still have an aggressive buy on the stock?

Mr. Forst: I do, yes. This is a company whose earnings could grow between 40% and 50% a year, and it is trading around 20 times next year’s earnings. The shares are inexpensive compared to the other names I have mentioned so far.