By JILL ROSENFELD

Staff Reporter

Fatburger Corp. figures that bigger isn’t always better.

The Santa Monica-based burger chain last month trotted out the Baby Fat, the downsized version of its signature Fatburger.

Designed for smaller appetites, the Baby Fat features a two-ounce patty and sells for $1.29, whereas the basic Fatburger patty weighs five ounces and costs $2.69. The chain also sells a six-ounce Kingburger.

Why the smaller burger? In part, the Baby Fat will help draw a wider range of customers as the chain expands to more suburban areas like the Santa Clarita Valley and Orange County.

“Smaller options encourage people to come with families,” said Angelina Morse, a Fatburger executive who oversees the introduction of new products. “We want to have options, particularly as we expand into communities where there’s a demographic that’s much more family oriented, with young families, especially.”

Analysts point out that the larger chains sell burgers in a range of sizes so parents can get Whoppers for themselves and smaller burgers for young children. By its very name, however, Fatburger’s appeal largely has been to those with bigger appetites.

At a mid-Wilshire Fatburger last week, for example, hip hop singer Frankie Lox said he could not imagine buying the Baby Fat.

“Fatburger is the bomb,” he said. “But I’ve got to have full size.”

Fatburger was acquired in 1990 by Island Trading Co., a New York investment firm associated with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell.

With annual revenues of around $9 million, the chain has 27 stores, most of which are in L.A. County. It is in the process of opening three restaurants in the Orange County area, and will open another eight California stores within a year.

Long term, its business plan calls for opening 75 to 100 stores in the next five years one quarter company-owned and the rest franchise units.

Fatburger officials say they hope to expand their customer base with the Baby Fat without losing the chain’s reputation as a purveyor of premium burgers.

“This is in no way an attempt to provide a bargain burger,” said operations coordinator Andrew Gibb, one of the nine multi-hatted executives in the chain’s Santa Monica headquarters. “What we want to do is give the same taste and feel of a Fatburger for those who are not up to a full portion.”

The Baby Fat is priced at $1.46 with tax, Morse said, in order to compete with In-N-Out’s basic hamburger.

“It’s the same size and the same price as the In-N-Out burger,” she said. The In-N-Out burger weighs a little over two ounces, and also goes for $1.46.

Gibb said the Baby Fat is selling well, given the fact that it is a new product that hasn’t been widely advertised. “It’s representing 2 to 4 percent of our sales in corporate-owned stores,” he said.