Want to hear more? This is the first interview in the new Upsize Entrepreneurs Series, sponsored by Crown Bank, featuring notable Minnesota entrepreneurs in print and in podcast. To hear the entire interview, click here.

Kam Talebi, 41, CEO of Crave Restaurants, sits in one of his stylish new locations, in the West End development in St. Louis Park, where he was the first tenant to open in October 2009. Jackhammers blast away outside as workers rush to complete new storefronts for retailers finally moving in, many having backed off when the economy collapsed shortly after Crave’s lease was signed. With the lunch rush getting underway on a gorgeous June morning, Talebi (rhymes with PAL-a-bee) details why he believes that economic meltdown became the perfect opportunity for his $17 million company to start a nationwide expansion. The former technology company entrepreneur vows that fundamentals will guide his decisions, not the wow factor that restaurants, retail and real estate ventures too often chase.

Upsize: Tell me about your company as it stands today.

Talebi: Currently we have three locations here; we started in Minneapolis. The original one was in the Galleria, in 2007. Subsequently we started in the Mall of America, in April of last year. And the third one was in October of 2009, here in West End.

Upsize: And you’ve just started your first out of state restaurant.

Talebi: In the midst of our second and third restaurants, we thought the concept had a lot of strength from a brand perspective and from a concept perspective. We wanted to take it outside of the borders of Minneapolis. Florida has always been a strong market for restaurants. We looked at several different locations, and Orlando came up, outside of the Millennium Mall. It became available for us and we jumped on it quickly and were able to put together a lease quickly. That was our first location out of state.

We are going to start construction on our fifth restaurant, in Omaha, Nebraska, as part of a Mutual of Omaha lifestyle development, involving retail, theaters, an athletic club and condos. We are anticipating construction in the next two or three weeks, and hopefully we’ll open in late August, early September. We continue to look for other markets, and are analyzing other deals. We have deals in the works in the state of Florida in other locations including Coral Gables, and possibly a couple of others. And we’re also looking at the East Coast, Boston, New Jersey.