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Colorado-Springs, Colorado-based Stellar Restaurant Solutions is a rapidly expanding provider of call center operations to the restaurant industry. According to an article in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Stellar has grown from 50 employees a year ago to more than 250 today. The increased staff requirements have prompted the company to add 20,000 square feet to its operations center, located behind Mr. Biggs Family Fun Center in downtown Colorado Springs.

Stellar’s CEO, Steve Bigari, is also the founder and former CEO at Mr. Biggs, having stepped aside last year to concentrate on Stellar’s growth. Bigari formed Stellar Restaurant Solutions in 2007, teaming i3, his consulting business, with Stellar Global, an Australia-based global call center and outsourcing provider, the Gazette noted.

Stellar’s call center accepts takeout and delivery calls for local restaurants, including pizza chain Borriello Brothers, as well as nationwide chains like Qdoba Mexican Grill and P.F. Chang’s. At a recent news conference, Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach praised Bigari’s decision to keep Stellar’s corporate headquarters in Colorado Springs, the article said.

Adding more space to Stellar’s current facility may not solve the growing company’s problems, however. The company plans to add more than 2,000 jobs in the next year and a half. In order to handle that kind of expansion, Stellar is considering a home-based workforce. To prepare for this, the company will soon test a small number of home-based call center operators.

Bigari told the Gazette that the home-based call center operators would still receive at least one or two days a week training at Stellar’s facility. “Our agents take on the persona of the brand; they’re fully immersed in the culture and the food and they’re experts at what the brand does,” he told the Gazette.

The technology to permit home-based call center personnel is already in place, according to Bigari. “It’s really the operational and cultural aspects that we need to test,” he commented in the article. “If it works, Stellar could draw workers from across the Springs, Pueblo and south Denver, because now you only have to think about getting to the office one day a week.”

While Stellar intends to keep its call center in Colorado Springs, the company is contemplating creating new call centers elsewhere. “We need the redundancy of getting out from under the snow and any natural disaster,” Bigari told the Gazette. “We’re actively looking at other cities for redundant centers, but our headquarters will be here.”