Salad Creations, a Margate-based restaurant chain, was the veteran restaurateur's brainchild. But in less than three years, the concept's modest beginning has expanded to eight franchised locations operating in South Florida and Ohio and company revenues of more than $5 million.

The restaurants offer a menu of salads, wrap sandwiches, soups and smoothies, but the most popular choice among customers is the option to "Create Your Own Salad" from three types of lettuce and more than 40 toppings.

"We didn't think it was going to take off as quickly as it did," Levine said. "We just wanted to learn the concept and make sure we could do it right before we started expanding. ... Now we're at the point where we're ready to explode."

This year, Salad Creations franchisees will open five more restaurants in South Florida, and the chain will grow by at least 25 locations nationwide, including some in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., Levine said.

Salad Creations also recently partnered with real estate developers in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Dubai to open restaurants abroad and is considering selling franchise development rights in Australia, Canada, England and Switzerland, he said.

Levine says the company's rapid growth shows that his instincts in creating a quick, easy franchise business were right-on, and he has set a big goal for the company's expansion: more than 5,000 locations worldwide over the next 10 years.

Levine said he receives between 300 to 400 franchisee leads each week, and up until a few months ago, the company had not advertised opportunities to franchisees.

The biggest challenge to the company's growth, he says, is finding the right locations and hiring salad chefs that make the "Create-Your-Own" salad experience fun and time efficient.

While the fresh salad theme is in line with America's health-food conscience, some food industry experts question whether the little-known company can execute the aggressive growth schedule it anticipates.

"The concept makes sense and ... has legs to travel not only domestically but internationally, but it's extremely optimistic that he's going to be able to roll out thousands of units," said Richard Lackey, a global food industry real estate expert. "It's taken Burger King and McDonald's 50 years to open 10,000 stores."

"We don't want a customer to see us as a chain like McDonald's," Levine said. Besides, he said, maintaining Salad Creations as a franchise-only business allows it to expand at a measured pace and keeps things simple from a financial and operations perspective.

Nevertheless, the food industry has seen tremendous growth in quick franchise restaurants so competition among similar restaurants could limit growth, Lackey said.

And Salad Creations isn't the only player in the salad and soup franchise arena. Soup Plantation, based in San Diego, started a chain called Sweet Tomatoes in 1983 and has 97 locations, including six South Florida locations. There's also Souper Salad, started in 1978, with 88 locations, and Saladworks, founded in 1986, which has 72 franchises.

Many of these chains have had difficulties building brand awareness and that hurts many franchisees when they seek new locations, because landlords charge higher rents to nonbranded tenants, Lackey said. That leaves franchisees, Lackey said, in a no-win situation: either they choose pricier prime locations and make slimmer profit margins or they settle for second-best locations that may not draw target customers to the location.

But Salad Creations thrives in malls, suburban strip centers and downtowns, Levine says. And franchisees have a loyal customer base, he said, noting company research shows that guests visit Salad Creations almost twice a week compared with the industry standard of roughly once a month.

Laurie Solomon eats lunch at the company's location in downtown Fort Lauderdale at least once a week.

"The food is very fresh," Solomon said. "I like the idea that I can get anything I want without having to make it myself."

Jaclyn Giovis can be reached at jmgiovis@sun-sentinel.com