The Tampa, Fla.-based, 266-unit chain has two restaurants operating in hotels and is happy with the results. So much so that it hopes to open one or two restaurants inside hotels in 2009, and two to four a year after that.

The original idea was serendipity. Beef 'O' Brady's President Nick Vojnovic was driving home from dinner with his wife and happened to notice a "restaurant for lease" sign at the Brandon, Fla., Best Western. The space and equipment wouldn't need too much investment, and the location could serve lunch customers from a nearby warehouse district.

Vojnovic proposed the idea to Beef's founder's family, who owned the original unit just three miles away. It didn't work out for them, but the hotel owner, Chris Lewis, decided to franchise the concept himself. The unit opened in Sept. 2008.

"My initial thought was just to do a big lunch business because of all the surrounding commercial and maybe happy hour, and let's go book parties," Vojnovic recalls. "Chris felt that if he was going to do it, he was going to do it right. He went from a $150,000 budget, and he did $300,000." The figure is still significantly less than the $500,000 an average Beef's costs to open.

The second hotel unit, at the Tradewinds Resort on St. Pete Beach, Fla., opened in December. Another opportunistic case: Beef 'O' Brady's holds its family-oriented company retreat there.

The chain targets families in small towns that are not served by other casual-dining chains. "Because Beef's is kind of a Middle America brand, we felt we could find hotels in Middle America that have a restaurant that really isn't doing well," Vojnovic says.

"If we can find those folks, we think it would be a very viable business model where they could put a Beef 'O' Brady's in there and attract the local youths and the soccer teams, the Little Leaguers, and also help their guests," he explains.

While it's early for results, the company expects the units in hotels to make about the same as a typical Beef 'O' Brady's: approximately $1 million in sales.