California Pizza Kitchen to expand in India

New York City California Pizza Kitchen plans to open its first restaurant in India in the summer of 2010, after signing franchise agreements with two partners.

The Los Angeles-based chain said on Wednesday it expects to open a minimum of 15 restaurants in India over the next decade.

The company’s partners in the India venture are JSM Corp., a Mumbai-based group that franchises the Hard Rock Cafe across India, and Daud Arabian Trading, a unit of Oman's Daud Group, which has opened restaurants under such U.S. brand names as McDonald's in the Middle East.