The new agreements are with CFRA Inc., which operates 23 IHOP restaurants in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, for four new IHOP restaurants in the Nashville, TN market; with Mohamed Ahmed to develop four sites in the counties of Jackson, Rockdale and Walton in Georgia as well as in the city of Snellville, GA; with William "Doc" Wilhelm to develop five new IHOPs in Northeast Virginia; with FWC Enterprises for six new restaurants in Monroe-El Dorado and Shreveport, LA; with William Trout for two locations in Fairfax County, VA; with Farid Afani Ruzik to develop two stores in the counties of Riley and Pottawatomie in Kansas, as well as in the city of Salina, KS; and with George Ebinger for two IHOP locations in Ocean County, NJ.

In addition to these multiple store commitments, IHOP signed four single-store development agreements during the second quarter, which the company expects will be opened in the next 12 to 18 months in California, Georgia, Illinois and New York.

IHOP during the last two years has switched its growth strategy to rely far more on franchisees than on company-led development, an approach that has been part of an overall effort to modernize and streamline the company. The total of new restaurants slated to open in 2005, for example, will include 55 to 60 that are expected to be developed by franchisees, five to eight restaurants developed by IHOP's area licensee in Florida, and two to four that will be developed by IHOP Corp. in Cincinnati. The majority of the new restaurants are expected to open in the second half of the year.

At the end of the second quarter, the company's franchise pipeline included signed or optioned commitments for franchisees to develop a total of 339 new IHOP restaurants over the next 11 years. The company is in the final stages of agreements for additional franchise development that could add up to 62 more restaurants to its development pipeline, which would increase total signed, optioned and pending commitments to as many as 401 restaurants. As of June 30, IHOPs total restaurant count stood at 1,207 locations in 48 states and Canada.