Employees key to unlocking restaurant growthEmployees key to unlocking restaurant growth

Before a restaurant chain in turnaround mode can graduate to the stage where it resumes unit growth, several areas of the business must improve. But the leaders of two brands opening their first new locations in years — Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill and Boston Market — agree that investing in people matters most of all.

Orlando, Fla.-based Smokey Bones is scheduled to open its 66th unit next spring in Bay Shore, N.Y., on Long Island, which will mark the brand’s first new restaurant since 2006. Darden Restaurants sold the chain to Boca Raton, Fla.-based Sun Capital Partners in January 2008, when the casual-dining brand had 73 locations.

Chief executive Chris Artinian, who joined the brand in June 2012, said Smokey Bones put several chan...