Does Brad Blum really want to become chief executive officer of struggling restaurant chain Cosi? At least one prominent financial writer thinks he does.

Howard Penney, in a column published by CNN, wrote that Blum, who is a Cosi shareholder, is not only serious about his wish to toss out the chain’s board of directors and become its chief executive officer, but actually has a chance to make the controversial move happen.

That’s because Blum has already succeeded in the restaurant arena. Blum ran the Italian Olive Garden chain in the 1990s and also led Burger King Holdings before that chain offered up its IPO in 2004. Blum also runs a successful investment fund, BLUM Growth Fund LLC.

Blum and Cosi have been in the news lately in a public war of words between Blum and the restaurant chain’s board of directors. As a recent story in Nation’s Restaurant News reveals, Blum, who owns 6.8% of Cosi’s shares through his investment fund, sent a letter to his fellow shareholders demanding a new board of directors. In the letter, Blum also offered to serve as Cosi’s chief executive officer and chairman for a yearly salary of just $1.

In his letter, Blum said that Cosi needs to make several changes to reverse its declining economic fortunes. He called for cleaner restaurants, better service and, most importantly, a pared-down menu that would allow the chain to focus on boosting the quality of core menu items.

As the Nation’s Restaurant News story reports, this didn’t sit well with Mark Demilio, Cosi’s interim chief executive officer. He wrote a letter to employees and franchisees in which he criticized Blum for offering no new ideas to turn around the restaurant chain. The interim executive also wrote that Cosi has already begun making positive changes, most notably boosting its catering sales and online orders.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Cosi stock, which stood at $11.21 in March of 2006, had fallen to a low of 56 cents in September of this year. The stock did jump a bit after Blum’s letter to shareholders.

The WSJ also reported that in August NASDAQ told Cosi that it might delist its stock because of the poor performance.

Is the future, then, a bleak one for Cosi? Not everyone thinks so. Penney in his column wrote that Cosi still has good potential to be a big success. And an analyst quoted in the Nation’s Restaurant News said that Cosi could succeed again if it focused on its core menu items, such as the flatbread that helped build its initial success.