When life gave L.A. chef Alan Jackson lemonade, he wrote a cookbook.

Five years after opening the first of what is now a chain of a 11 cafeteria-style restaurants named Lemonade, Jackson is preparing for the launch this fall of a cookbook he co-wrote with television producer JoAnn Cianciulli.

The 256-page book, “The Lemonade Cookbook: Southern California Comfort Food From L.A.’s Favorite Modern Cafeteria,” has 120 recipes, including 11 for the chain’s namesake seasonal lemonades. The book is scheduled to be published by St. Martin’s Press in October.

Jackson said that while the cookbook is a branding opportunity for his growing restaurant chain, that was not originally the intent.

“It was just something I always wanted to do,” he said. “It’s the kind of cookbook my wife and I would have sitting on the kitchen counter and dog-ear.”

While there is passion behind the project, Ian Olsen, Lemonade’s chief operating officer, took a more pragmatic view of the project: the hardcover cookbook, he said, will help pave the way for the chain’s eventual expansion outside California.

“I think what it does is it creates resonant branding for us,” he said. “We haven’t been outside Southern California, so this will be a tool to help in our expansion efforts.”

The first step outside Los Angeles County will come next month, when the Mid-City based Lemonade will open a restaurant at the Fashion Island shopping center in Newport Beach.

By 2015, the company expects to have at least 20 restaurants in Southern California, including ones opening in Studio City and Toluca Lake this fall. At least three San Diego restaurants are already in the works.

From there, Olsen said San Francisco is a likely candidate, though he’s also entertaining East Coast and international prospects, too.

“We see ourselves as being a California brand, but it’s part of our development and expansion plans to continuously broaden our audience, too,” he said.

–Bethany Firnhaber