The offices of FoodFirst Global Restaurants on the ninth floor of downtown Orlando’s CNL Tower II are not the bustling headquarters of a national restaurant company — at least not yet. Only a handful of offices are occupied, boxes are still being unpacked and the main floor is full of empty desks, awaiting workers to bolster the startup company. Chairman and CEO Brad Blum’s corner office overlooks Orlando and beyond, a region that has fostered restaurant industry successes, among them Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Ruth’s Chris and Sonny’s Barbecue.

Blum thinks FoodFirst could one day be listed among those nationally known companies. In what could be the final and toughest act of the 64-year-old Blum’s career, he’s trying to build a new restaurant company, starting with the March $100 million acquisition of the group that owned the struggling restaurant brands Brio Tuscan Grille and Bravo Cucina Italiana.