Pasta Bravo was a

fast casual restaurant A fast casual restaurant, found primarily in the United States and Canada, is a restaurant that does not offer full table service, but advertises higher quality food than fast-food restaurants, with fewer frozen or processed ingredients. It is a ...

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

. At its height, Pasta Bravo operated 16 restaurants throughout the

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

and

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

counties.

History

Pasta Bravo was founded by Tim Aspel in 1988, at The Crossroads Center in Irvine. Some of the meals were Meat Lasagna and Chicken Parmigiana in addition to more contemporary offerings such as Chicken Basil Cream and Greek-Style Shrimp and Arugula. Pasta Bravo soon gained popularity and expanded to a total of 16 restaurants in Orange and San Diego counties. In August 2002, Pasta Bravo and

Yum! Brands Yum! Brands, Inc. (sometimes called simply Yum!) is an American multinational fast food corporation. It is a spin-off of PepsiCo, after they acquired KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. PepsiCo divested the brands in 1997, and these consolidated as ...

agreed to test co-branded Bravo/

Pizza Hut Pizza Hut, LLC is an American multinational pizza restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, by brothers Dan and Frank Carney. The chain, headquartered in Plano, Texas, operates 19,866 restaurants worldw ...

restaurants. In 2003 Yum! acquired the Pasta Bravo concept from Pasta Bravo, Inc. for $5 million ($ million today), intending to pair it with Pizza Hut. The first freestanding Pizza Hut/PastaBravo was opened in

Clarksville, Tennessee Clarksville is a city in Montgomery County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 166,722 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tennessee, fifth-most populo ...

by franchisee Carreca Enterprises Inc. After the deal with Yum!, the Pasta Bravo chain was closed within eight years. When the last restaurant closed, in December 2011, Aspel remarked, "The future wasn't in what I was doing anymore. Over the years, people's tastes ha gone from carbs to proteins." Three months later, Aspel switched to a grilled seafood concept with locations of Spike's Fish House.

References

{{Yum! Fast casual restaurants Restaurants in California Defunct restaurant chains in the United States Companies based in Irvine, California Defunct companies based in California Restaurants established in 1988 Restaurants disestablished in 2011 1988 establishments in California 2011 disestablishments in California Yum! Brands 2003 mergers and acquisitions Defunct restaurants in California