Discontinued Operations (Notes)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2013

Discontinued Operation, Income (Loss) from Discontinued Operation Disclosures [Abstract]

Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations, Disclosure [Text Block]

Discontinued Operations

On May 7, 2012, the Company completed the Spin-off of Fiesta, a former wholly owned subsidiary of Carrols which included the Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana restaurant brands, through the distribution in the form of a pro rata dividend of all of Fiesta's issued and outstanding common stock to Carrols Restaurant Group’s stockholders whereby each stockholder of Carrols Restaurant Group on April 26, 2012 received one share of Fiesta’s common stock for every one share of Carrols Restaurant Group's common stock held. As a result of the Spin-off, Fiesta is an independent public company whose common stock is traded on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “FRGI.”

As a result of the Spin-off, the Company has no remaining Fiesta assets and liabilities as of December 30, 2012. The consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss and consolidated statements of cash flows present Fiesta’s businesses for the three months endedApril 1, 2012 as discontinued operations.

The unaudited consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss for the three months ended April 1, 2012, included certain general and administrative expenses associated with administrative support to Fiesta for executive management, information systems and certain accounting, legal and other administrative functions, which had previously been allocated to Fiesta. The allocation of certain of these expenses do not qualify for classification within discontinued operations, and therefore are included as general and administrative expenses within continuing operations. In addition, certain expenses directly related to the Spin-off which had previously been allocated to both the Company and Fiesta have been included in discontinued operations in their entirety.

The following table details Fiesta's revenues and loss from operations and expenses associated with the Spin-off which have been reported in discontinued operations:

	Three Months Ended
	April 1, 2012
Revenues	$	126,142
Loss from discontinued operations before income taxes	(2,619		)
Net loss from discontinued operations	$	(624	)

In connection with the Spin-off, on April 24, 2012, Carrols Restaurant Group and Carrols entered into several agreements with Fiesta that govern the Company’s post Spin-off relationship with Fiesta, including a Separation and Distribution Agreement, Tax Matters Agreement, Employee Matters Agreement and Transition Services Agreement. Amounts earned by Carrols under the Transition Services Agreement were $1.3 million in the three months endedMarch 31, 2013, and are expected to be approximately $3.3 million for all of 2013.