(FORTUNE Magazine) – EACH SPRING J. Peter Grace, the high-profile chief executive of W.R. Grace & Co. (1984 sales: $6.7 billion), escorts a dozen of his corporate officers on a whirlwind ten-day eating junket around the country. During the binge the brass visit more than 100 restaurants, many owned by their company, some by others. Says Anwar Soliman, 47, the Egyptian-born head of the Grace Restaurant Group, ''It's not fun after you eat five breakfasts, six lunches, and nine dinners.'' The payoff: not indigestion, but renewed corporate dedication to the restaurant business. Grace will have 863 eating and drinking establishments in its collection by the end of this year, 275 more than last year. Through the first nine months of 1985, a period when many restaurant chains had disappointing results, the restaurant division racked up an operating profit of $15 million on sales of $748 million, not bad considering the expenses associated with its acquisitions. It represents about 14% of W.R. Grace's total sales for the past nine months and 9% of profits. The division's standing as a bright spot in the company suggests just how badly off Grace's agricultural-chemical and consumer retailing businesses are. Choosing the right concept, as restaurateurs call it, is probably the most crucial ingredient, and on that score Grace has done well. Although the company picked up some coffee shops as early as 1968, it didn't plunge in a big way until 1976 when it bought the El Torito Mexican chain. Just about then, Mexican food began to get -- you should pardon the expression -- hot with restaurant goers. Grace has become the seventh-largest restaurant company in the U.S., with establishments in six distinct categories: Mexican fast food, with Del Taco; Mexican sit-down dinner houses, with El Torito; steakhouses, with Reuben's; seafood, with Bristol Bar & Grill; so-called family restaurants -- full-menu establishments, heavy on $3 breakfasts -- with Coco's; and watering spots for the young and affluent, with Houlihan's. GRACE has expanded the chains partly by buying no-longer-fashionable restaurants from other companies and converting them. For example, immediately after buying ten Red Coach Grills in 1984, it transformed nine ; into El Toritos. Converting the restaurants was 30% to 40% cheaper than building new ones from scratch. Not all trends in the business are going Grace's way. Declining alcohol consumption is a major source of concern for Mexican restaurants like El Torito, which usually get around 40% of their sales from such drinks. To combat the decline, all of Grace's El Torito restaurants have been pushing something called light margaritas, which pack less of an alcoholic punch but about the same margins. To keep ahead of such changing tastes, Grace is cooking up new concepts. The company is testing an idea called Players; the restaurants would feature dance floors and what are known in the trade as exhibition kitchens, so patrons can sizzle Travolta-style while watching the food fry.