Restaurant News Resource - Kona Grill Restaurant Industry News

Kona Grill, Inc. (NASDAQ: KONA) has appointed Berke Bakay as president and CEO. Bakay succeeds Mike Nahkunst, who is leaving the company for personal reasons.

Rude brings to Kona Grill more than 20 years of commercial development experience, including serving as director of real estate for Petsmart and vice president of development for P.F. Chang's China Bistro.

Kona Grill, Inc. (NASDAQ: KONA), an American grill and sushi bar, announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to $5 million of the company's outstanding common stock, effective November 22, 2011.

Michael A. Nahkunst has more than 35 years of restaurant experience

Double-digit same-store sales growth in the third quarter drove significant improvement to the bottom line

The closure of Sugar Land is consistent with the strategy to eliminate unprofitable locations and focus on the existing 23 successful Kona Grill restaurants

As the result of strong sales growth during the quarter, the company has increased its third quarter revenue guidance and now expects revenue to range between $24.1 million and $24.2 million, which is a $500,000 increase on the high end of its guidance previously revised on August 1, 2011. T

Mr. Ryback has over 20 years of restaurant operations experience and has served as the Senior Vice President of Operations since joining the company in February 2010.

Restaurant sales increased 13.6% to $25.8 million from $22.7 million in the same year-ago quarter. The sales improvement reflects a 9.1% increase in same-store sales driven by strong traffic, higher average guest check and approximately 2.2% in menu pricing, as well as additional revenue from the Kona Grill in Baltimore, Maryland that opened during the fourth quarter of 2010.

For the fourth quarter 2009, sales increased 7.7% to $20.0 million from $18.6 million a year-ago, while comparable restaurant sales decreased approximately 8.1%.