With fewer customers during their regular times, some casual dining chains are expanding into their traditional off-hours to grow sales.

Ruby Tuesday Inc. (RT) is launching weekend brunch at most of its 845 U.S. stores in the coming weeks, after successful tests at about 50 locations earlier this year. IHOP, the pancake house owned by DineEquity Inc. (DIN), is trying to expand dinner sales and enticing families to visit during dinner by offering kids a free meal, through mid-September.

Darden Restaurants Inc.'s (DRI) Red Lobster is also growing its lunch business, while Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. (BWLD), one of the few casual-dining chains with positive sales, is eyeing more late-night sales.

Restaurants already pay for real estate, so expanding into a new meal occasions can help bring in more sales to offset the sizable fixed cost.

"Every restaurant is trying to get the most utilization out of the assets they have," IHOP President Jean Birch said.

Many fast-food chains have adopted the strategy with breakfast, snacking and late-night businesses, though not without controversy. Burger King Holding Inc.'s (BKC) requirement for stores to expand into late-night hours is being fought by some franchisees who argue the added costs of later hours aren't justified by higher sales.

At IHOP, dinner currently makes up 12% of IHOP's business, compared to 36% of sales at breakfast. The company acknowledges it will take time to build sales in the later time slot but hopes it can replicate some of the success it had with growing its lunch business, which now makes up 29% of sales, in recent years.

With customers staying at home and cooking their own meals, restaurants are looking at new avenues to grow sales, which have suffered through a multi-year slump and accelerated with the recession. Casual-dining chains have suffered most, with same-store sales falling 8.4% in July, according to Knapp-Track, despite facing much easier comparisons from last year's sales levels.

Investors still hope restaurants can post positive same-store sales later this year, when the year-ago hurdle becomes even easier to top.

Expansion into new dining hours could help, but even that's not as easy as flipping on the switch during some extra hours. Labor costs need to be managed for the new times, while parking could also become in issue if a neighboring tenant depends on the lot during those hours.

Red Lobster found customers wanting faster turnaround times for lunch, plus its menu didn't have standard lunch dishes at attractive prices. It worked to shave three minutes off lunch service while launching a new menu last November with lunch-relevant food at $6.99.

The launch was moved up more than six months than the chain anticipated, "when it became apparent that the economy was headed into a severe recession," Red Lobster President Kim Lopdrup said. Since then, Lopdrup said, Red Lobster's percentage of sales coming from lunch has increased, though he didn't provide specifics.

Ruby Tuesday's brunch expansion is one of several initiatives to grow sales and help it stand out from competing bar-and-grill chains like DineEquity's Applebee's and Brinker International Inc.'s (EAT) Chili's Grill & Bar, said Steve Rockwell, Ruby Tuesday's vice president of finance.

While it may take time to convince customers to get eggs Benedict at a place best known for its handcrafted burgers, Ruby Tuesday's foray into brunch adds a business line where customers could potentially spend more.

"People are more willing to treat themselves at brunch than they are with lunch," said Darren Tristano, executive vice president at foodservice consultant Technomic Inc.

-By Paul Ziobro, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2194; paul.ziobro@dowjones.com