Rollout: July 2004

Company: T.G.I. Friday's

Headquarters: Carrollton, Texas

Units: 759

Region: 528 in the United States; 231 internationally

Description: 15 ounces; 2 inches high from base of bowl. Sauted chicken breasts with oregano chimichurri, artichoke and a mix of diced tomato and basil; served with creamed spinach blended with bacon and finished with a house-made Parmesan crisp. Atkins-approved.

Developers: Phil Costner, vice president of research and development, Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, parent company of T.G.I. Friday's; Larry Doyle, corporate executive chef, Carlson Restaurants Worldwide

The components of T.G.I. Friday's Chicken La Boca are indulgent tender sautéed chicken breasts partner with Sicilian chimichurri, artichoke quarters, fresh bruschetta mixture and creamed spinach. A house-made Parmesan crisp completes each serving.

The good news for carbohydrate counters is that the dish also happens to be endorsed by Atkins Nutritionals Inc. and weighs in at only 10 net carbs.

Since T.G.I. Friday's and Atkins Nutritionals formed a strategic partnership in late 2003, they have brought new appeal to low-carb dining and have launched three menu programs together. "The partnership has been extremely successful for both companies," says Mark Rodriguez, president of North America Atkins Nutritionals Inc.

T.G.I. Friday's has an exclusive arrangement with Atkins and is the only restaurant authorized to use the Atkins trademark on its menu. According to surveys done by Opinion Dynamics, a market research and consulting firm, about 12 percent of American adults claim to follow a reduced-carbohydrate diet. Rodriguez estimates that about half that number are Atkins adherents.

Phil Costner, vice president of R&D for T.G.I. Friday's, says [Chicken La Boca fit into the company's plans to update Atkins entrées.

"Once we got the original Atkins line out, we really made a decision to shift away from the old way of thinking, which is [placing] a big piece of protein and a big hunk of broccoli on the plate and saying, 'There, that's an Atkins-friendly dish,' " Costner says.

"We said, 'You know, we need to create great food that happens to be Atkins-approved.'

We wanted to bring bold flavors to the table."

By the time a dish makes it onto T.G.I. Friday's menu as "Atkins-approved," it has been through a rigorous development and testing program to assure that it will fall within

Atkins' prescribed nutritional parameters, most notably, carb counts.

Once development chef Larry Doyle, Costner and their team have a dish they consider "pretty close," they send it to an independent testing lab. Costner explains that a process called "chemical burn" reduces the food to ash, and the lab analyzes the ash. "Once we have the chemical-burn results, the level of confidence is exceedingly high that [the dish] is going to fall within the parameters," Costner says.

Next, the dish gets sent to the Atkins organization, where it again receives scrutiny from an independent third-party lab. Atkins and Friday's R&D staff confer, taste, tweak and adjust until the dish reaches the stage where it can receive the Atkins Approved designation. For the flight of food that included the Chicken La Boca dish, Costner estimates that about 40 Atkins-friendly items were developed, with just a few making it to the final cut of menu rollout.

Consumers also have a chance to sample the dish and offer opinions prior to rollout but do not always know the food is from T.G.I. Friday's or that it is Atkins approved, Costner says.

"In my opinion," he notes, "the consumer's voice has to reign supreme. That's the one you really have to listen to as a development person."

With Chicken La Boca, Costner continues, "The feedback is, 'Wow, I can't believe this is low-carb,' or 'I didn't know low-carb food could taste this good or it could look this good,' or 'Are you sure this is low-carb'?"

Shortly after the partnership was formed, T.G.I. Friday's promoted the Atkins-approved menu category as part of a television advertising campaign. Since then, most promotion has been by word of mouth. Costner estimates that Atkins-approved menu items account for approximately 8 percent of T.G.I. Friday's sales and estimates that a typical T.G.I. Friday's might sell 8 to 10 servings of Chicken La Boca daily, compared with 25 to 30 servings a day of a best seller, such as the chain's cheeseburger. The dish is priced between $8.99 and $9.29, depending on the region. T.G.I. Friday's average guest check is $11.50 to $12.

For Chicken La Boca, T.G.I. Friday's uses frozen creamed spinach and chimichurri prepared for the chain by an outside vendor. The rest of the dish is prepared on site, with no need for special equipment. Costner estimates the food cost for the menu item somewhere in the neighborhood of 29 percent to 32 percent.

Rodriguez and Costner see a rosy future for the continued partnership between T.G.I. Friday's and Atkins, and others agree.

Brad Honigfeld, chief executive of Briad Group, Friday's largest franchisee, which operates 15 Friday's restaurants in Connecticut and New Jersey, says, "Our entire Atkins line has obviously set us apart from our competition in terms of being a distinction from our competitors. Phil has just done an outstanding job in terms of producing items that are tasteful and fit the category extremely well.

"The Chicken La Boca dish is a tremendous item," he continues. "It's very tasteful. It's hearty. It's just an exceptional product that we at Friday's are all very proud of in the franchise community."