Q3 2024 Sweetgreen Inc Earnings Call

call with their corresponding gap measures. Our earnings release can be found on our investor website. And now I'll turn the call over to Jonathan to kick things off.

Thank you, Rebecca, and good afternoon, everyone.

Jonathan: At Sweetgreen, we're committed to redefining fast food through a relentless focus on innovation across both food and technology. We're setting a new standard, quality ingredients, culinary innovation, and a great guest experience intersect with our cutting-edge technology, the Infinite Kitchen, to transform convenience and accessibility to real food in a way that's never been seen in our industry.

Jonathan: For the third quarter, we reported sales of $173.4 million, representing 13% year-over-year growth. We opened five restaurants, intentionally opening three of them late in the third quarter to align with our infinite kitchen production schedule.

Jonathan: We began the third quarter with two Infinite Kitchens, and as of today, we operate 10, three of which were opened in the past two and a half weeks.

Jonathan: Fames for sales in the third quarter grew 6%. This consisted of a 4% benefit from menu price and 2% positive traffic and mix. Growth was led by emerging markets with the Midwest, Texas, and the Southeast all comping double digits.

Jonathan: Restaurant level margin for the third quarter was 20.2 percent, expanding by over 100 basis points compared to last year, marking another strong quarter in our company's history.

Jonathan: As a result of restaurant-level profit expansion and GNA discipline, adjusted EBITDA came in at $6.8 million for the quarter.

Jonathan: Let me highlight some of our third quarter achievements against our two-fold strategy to one, strengthen our brand by delivering exceptional products and guest experiences, and two, deepen our connection to guests through strategic expansion and operational excellence.

Jonathan: Among the five new restaurants we opened in Westport, Connecticut, Newport Beach, California, Montvale, New Jersey, Columbus, Ohio, and Charlotte, North Carolina, three are powered by the Infinite Kitchen. Newport Beach, Montvale, and Charlotte.

Jonathan: Our openings in the short north area of Columbus and uptown Charlotte, two new markets for us, had some of the best opening weeks in our company's history.

Jonathan: These successful new market launches follow Seattle's strong opening at the beginning of the year. Successful openings like these further our conviction that our brand has significantly greater reach than our current physical footprint and that there is significant white space for our category-defining concept.

Jonathan: As we continue to accelerate the development pipeline, we are excited to have added a strong and dynamic leader to our team.

Jonathan: Chris Tarrant joined in late August as our Chief Development Officer. Chris brings nearly two decades of real estate experience in the restaurant industry with a proven track record of spearheading and executing critical development strategies for global brands.

Jonathan: We have been working with Chris to accelerate our pipeline for growth. For fiscal year 2025, we expect to open at least 40 new restaurants, approximately half of which will be Infinite Kitchens. This means that by the end of 2025, we expect to have nearly tripled the number of Infinite Kitchens in our fleet.

Jonathan: Our Infinite Kitchens are transforming the guest experience by enabling a faster and higher quality food experience.

Jonathan: This is reflected in guest surveys at our Penn Plaza restaurant, the first Infinite Kitchen Retrofit opened in mid-July. Guests cite improvements not only in speed, but product quality and consistency.

Jonathan: We attribute this to the Infinite Kitchen's advanced temperature control systems designed to optimize food freshness and quality. By integrating precise climate management for ingredients and prepared items, the Infinite Kitchen maintains the ideal conditions needed to ensure consistent flavor, texture, and food safety.

Jonathan: Guests can now receive their orders within 5 minutes, making Penn Plaza the fastest way to get sweetened in New York City. Half of surveyed guests reported visiting more frequently since the Infinite Kitchen renovation.

Jonathan: Additionally, team members at Penn Plaza have expressed that the efficiency of Infinite Kitchen allows them to focus on their true passions, preparing food, elevating the culinary experience, and providing exceptional hospitality.

Jonathan: This is creating a more engaging work environment. In September, turnover for the class of Infinite Kitchens open for the full month of September was meaningfully lower than both our class of new restaurants and the fleet average.

Jonathan: While still early days, an initial learning from Penn Plaza has been a noticeable increase in native digital sales with higher ticket and frequency. We believe the Infinite Kitchen, together with our revamped loyalty program launching in 2025, can accelerate our industry-leading digital presence.

Jonathan: Penn Plaza is also achieving all the financial metrics we see across our class of infinite kitchens, including 700 basis points and labor savings.

Jonathan: We are currently retrofitting Willis Tower in Chicago and Wall Street in New York with the Infinite Kitchen. Renovations will be complete by the end of the fourth quarter. We are delivering a reimagined experience that meets the needs of today's digitally connected consumer.

Jonathan: Our dual commitment to technology innovation and culinary excellence positions Sweetgreen as a leader in the fast-food space.

Jonathan: Although we have traditionally been known as a salad lunch destination, we are actively shifting this perception with menu innovation and new protein varieties.

Jonathan: Our expanded menu of chef-crafted, craveable offerings is resonating with current guests and attracting new ones. Following the release of caramelized garlic steak and other protein plates, we introduced our fall harvest menu in mid-September.

Jonathan: Inspired by seasonal ingredients and flavors, we are featuring maple glazed Brussels sprouts, which are air fried for a caramelized char, then glazed with house-made maple sauce.

Jonathan: Together, these menu items are driving strong sales during dinner and weekends, with dinner holding a 40% mix. Both dinner and weekends show higher check averages compared to weekday lunch.

Jonathan: As we expand and optimize our menu beyond salads, we're committed to our high sourcing standards.

Jonathan: This includes prioritizing fresh, seasonal, and organic ingredients that are free of artificial additives and cooked without seed oils.

Jonathan: We also see significant upside opportunities to grow our attachment rate. We continue to introduce sides, desserts, and drinks that are both delicious and better for you.

Jonathan: In Los Angeles, we are testing broader beverages as well as ripple fries. Our ripple fries are air fried with avocado oil and served with pickle ketchup and garlic aioli sauce.

Jonathan: We are laser focused on menu relevancy and reinforcing our culinary and supply chain ethos to build traffic and check over the long term.

Jonathan: To enable culinary innovation, we are focused on reducing operational complexity in our restaurants.

Jonathan: During the quarter, we simplified our broccoli prep and tested de-stemmed kale in select markets, which we plan to roll out fleet-wide next year. We are also in the process of updating cooking recipes to optimize oven capacity while improving the consistency of our cooked ingredients.

Jonathan: By reducing back-of-house complexity, we can shift some of our team members' focus into prioritizing the guest experience and speeding up throughput. While we continue to see progress on wait times and order accuracy, it remains a focus for us.

Jonathan: In a business of seconds and cents, we believe every operational detail matters, not only to drive efficiency, but also to enhance the Sweetgreen experience. As part of our commitment to continuously improve the team member experience, we're rolling out an AI-driven labor scheduling system.

Jonathan: With this tool team members can take ownership of their schedules through an app all while aligning staffing needs with guest demand.

Jonathan: By harnessing machine learning and reducing the administrative load, head coaches can focus on spending more time with guests, coaching our teams, and driving better results in our restaurant.

Jonathan: Just this week, we expanded our pilot to 70 restaurants across six markets.

Jonathan: We anticipate having this tool fully deployed across the fleet in the second quarter of next year.

Jonathan: Our goal is to create an environment where team members feel valued, supported, and set up for success. We are seeing sequential improvements across key people metrics, such as head coach stability and 90-day team member retention.

Jonathan: We believe in offering a career, not just a job, and we are investing in promoting our leaders from within.

Jonathan: In addition to culinary skills, we offer leadership training that spans the full employee life cycle. In as few as three years, team members can become a head coach and earn a six-figure package, including equity and sweet green.

Jonathan: As part of accelerating our footprint, we are excited about the number of new restaurant leadership roles we are creating.

Jonathan: Since the beginning, our vision has been to redefine fast food and create positive change in the food system through a focus on taste, freshness, convenience, and sustainability.

Jonathan: We remain committed to elevating our brand, our unique sourcing approach, and our culinary strength. We will continue to deploy technology innovation to drive efficiencies in our financial model while enhancing experiences for both our teams and guests.

Jonathan: We believe this commitment will enable us to sustain substantial growth, positioning us to lead and expand the category for years to come.

Jonathan: I'd like to thank our team for their hard work and dedication for another solid quarter. Now I'll turn the call over to Mitch, who will take you through the financials in more detail.

Mitch: Thank you, Jonathan, and good afternoon, everyone. Our commitment to redefining the future of fast food through a focus on culinary and technology-enabled innovation has led to top-line growth and expanded restaurant-level profit margins.

Mitch: Total revenue for the quarter was $173.4 million, up from $153.4 million in the third quarter of 2023, growing 13% year-over-year.

Mitch: Same store sales for the third quarter grew 6% against the prior year period. This consisted of a 4% benefit from menu price increases and a 2% positive traffic and mix.

Mitch: Strong performance was led by the emerging markets, which includes double-digit same-store sales growth across the Midwest, Texas, and the Southeast. Year-to-date same-store sales growth is 7%. Our average unit volume in the third quarter was $2.9 million.

Mitch: During the quarter, we opened five restaurants, ending the third quarter with a total of 236 restaurants. As of today, we've opened five restaurants in the fourth quarter, for a total of 20 new restaurants year-to-date.

Mitch: Restaurant level profit margin in the third quarter was 20.2% compared to a 19% margin a year ago.

Mitch: This is more than 100 basis point improvement from the third quarter of 2023. This marks our seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year restaurant-level margin expansion. Year-to-date restaurant-level profit margin is 20.4%.

Mitch: Restaurant-level profit for the third quarter was $34.9 million, a 20% increase year-over-year. For a reconciliation of restaurant-level margin to comparable gap figures, please refer to the earnings release.

Mitch: Food, beverage, and packaging costs are 28% of revenue for the quarter, remaining relatively consistent with the prior year period, with slightly unfavorable protein costs.

Mitch: Labor and related expenses were 27% of revenue for the third quarter and more than 100 basis point improvement year over year. This improvement is primarily due to higher revenue and improvement in labor optimization. This more than offset prevailing wage rate increases.

Mitch: Occupancy and related expenses were 9% of revenue, slightly below the prior year period.

Mitch: For the third quarter of 2024, general and administrative expense was $36.8 million, or 21% of revenue, as compared to $36 million, or 23% of revenue in the prior year period.

Mitch: This increase in general and administrative expenses on a dollar basis was primarily due to a slight increase in support center spend partially offset by a 1.8 million decrease in stock-based compensation expense.

The

Mitch: Net loss for the quarter was $20.8 million as compared to a loss of $25.1 million in the prior year period.

Mitch: This improvement in net loss is primarily due to a $5.8 million increase in our restaurant-level profit and a $1.8 million decrease in stock-based compensation, partially offset by an increase in depreciation and amortization expense primarily associated with an increase in restaurants, as well as an increase in general and administrative expenses.

Mitch: Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes stock-based compensation and certain other adjustments, was $6.8 million for the third quarter, a $4.3 million improvement from the third quarter of 2023.

Mitch: Our year-to-date adjusted EBITDA of $19.3 million versus a $1 million loss this time last year continues to demonstrate our focus on profitability.

Mitch: At the end of the quarter, we had available cash balance of $235 million. We generated a positive operating cash flow of $37 million during the first nine months of 2024, an increase of $20 million over the same period last year.

Mitch: For the fiscal year 2024, we are raising guidance to reflect our strong performance year-to-date.

24-26 net new restaurant openings

Revenue ranging from $675 million to $680 million.

Same store sales growth between six and seven percent.

Restaurant level margin between 19.5% and 20%.

Adjusted EBITDA between $18 million to $20 million.

Mitch: Our guidance reflects the retrofitting of two high-volume restaurants with the infinite kitchen.

Mitch: Willis Tower in Chicago and Wall Street in New York City. As a reminder, 2024 is a 52-week period, whereas 2023 was a 53-week period.

Mitch: As we close out the year and head into 2025, we have an incredibly strong foundation to build on and the right leaders in place to execute our strategic priorities.

Mitch: We have high confidence in our unit growth roadmap of 15-20% per year for the foreseeable future. Our 2025 new unit pipeline will consist of at least 40 new restaurants, approximately half of which will be powered by the Infinite Kitchen.

Mitch: Our confidence to accelerate our unit growth and IK deployments is validated by the strength of our 2024 openings, a third of which are in new markets. Double-digit seems for sales growth in emerging markets such as the Midwest, Texas, and the Southeast.

Mitch: and the superior operating and financial model of our 10 Infinite Kitchens running today across the country. Our performance through the first three quarters of 2024 has demonstrated the powerful effects of the Sweet Green Flywheel.

Mitch: Our category-defining brand, menu and technology innovation, combined with our relentless focus on great operations, continues to drive strong financial performance.

Speaker Change: We are continuing to broaden the perception of sweet green beyond salads and are excited to open in more communities next year. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to start the Q&A.

Speaker Change: Thank you. At this time I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Please limit your questions to just one per caller. Thank you.

Your first question comes from Raul Krosopali. Please go ahead.

Raul Krosopali: Good evening guys, thanks for all the color today. Can you discuss the brand awareness in the context of broadening the appeal of Sweetgreen as you focus on organic traffic growth?

Raul Krosopali: and evolved TAM to a wider demographic and different income cohorts. I mean, how do you think about you don't need to be a salad person to be a sweet cream person as a brand becomes national?

Speaker Change: Hey Raul, thanks for the question. So broadening the appeal is something we've been focused on for a while. Really the way we think about Sweet Green is

Speaker Change: What sets us apart is our unique sourcing philosophy as well as the craft we work with.

Speaker Change: in terms of how we prepare our food in our restaurant. It's really this idea of creating high quality, special food experiences.

Speaker Change: Started with salads as our core offering, but we've begun our thoughtful expansion about almost exactly a year ago We launched protein plates

Speaker Change: They've done really well, both in terms of driving dinner, broadening our consumer, helping us drive check and transactions, and as you mentioned, really helping us from a TAM perspective. Some of the places where it's over-indexing is in some of our emerging markets.

Speaker Change: You know, we followed up a few months ago with caramelized garlic steak, which again has done really well. We see a lot more to do here. So we have a very, very robust menu innovation platform that we're working on.

Speaker Change: with a lot of things that are going through our stage gate process. So one thing we mentioned in the script is

Speaker Change: We see a big opportunity, call it outside the bowl, around things like sides, and sides, beverage, and dessert. One thing we're testing in our Southern California markets today is something we call ripple fries.

Speaker Change: They're seed oil free, air fried, they're absolutely delicious, and so that's a test we're working on now. As long as things continue to go well, expect that to roll out sometime next year.

Speaker Change: We also have a few other things that we are working on, things like a handheld, which we talked about in the last call, which again, no promise on the timing, but we think, you know, there's a real opportunity to have something that kind of plays in the wrap sandwich category.

Speaker Change: All to say, we've seen a lot of our customers resonate as we take this philosophy of how we make our food and apply it to other things.

Speaker Change: And we want to disrupt fast food, so we want to give you those things that you that you want, you're used to eating, things like fries, and do it in a sweet green way, in a way that, you know, we kind of think about as like a permissible indulgence. So I think the company has a lot of license to do it. I'm very proud of the culinary and operations team.

Speaker Change: and how they're driving this innovation. And I'm excited for, we're gonna come out in the next year or two.

Speaker Change: Perfect, that's amazing. I have a follow-up on the in-store productivity improvements that sound to be coming along very well. De-stemming kale, and it's also easy to notice the sliced versus shredded carrots. Previously, it was discussed like around 10 points of labor is being attributed to the food prep.

Speaker Change: As we think about the solutions over time, how much opportunity is there to reduce labor costs and how do we think about reinvesting these dollars along with IK productivity gains into the store, menu, price, among other avenues.

Speaker Change: Sure, so we've been on this journey around simplifying the prep in our restaurants while elevating quality for a while and we're going to continue to do so. So you mentioned some of the things that we've done, we're going to continue to push on things like de-stemmed kale, things like continuing to look at some upstream dressings where we can find more consistency, and also bringing in other tools and ways of making the prep easier in our restaurants. Part of why we do this is to create space for innovation.

Speaker Change: So as we want to add more to the menu, we have to make it easier to run our restaurants and some of those productivity gains

will be, you know, will be captured by the company.

Speaker Change: But all to say, we know that if we make it easier for our customers, for our team members to operate our restaurants.

Speaker Change: Thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to be in a really good place and that's, you know, in the last piece is something that, you know, I talked to our team a lot about is how do we get better as we get bigger?

Speaker Change: And how do we think about our food quality all from our supply chain through how we cook the food and how we hold it, how we portion it, and we're taking a very hard look at our core and making sure that we can deliver on our promise.

Speaker Change: So, again, expect an iterative improvement on how we, you know, on both the prep, the quality, and how we are able to drive some of those benefits to the bottom line.

Appreciate the response.

Speaker Change: All right, our next question comes from John Tower with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks for taking the questions.

Speaker Change: I hate to get myopically focused, but I'm curious, maybe you could speak to how trends perform throughout the quarter, how we're looking fourth quarter to date when it comes to same-store sales.

Speaker Change: And then on top of it, separate question, but I think last call you'd spoke to the idea of a new approach around marketing.

Speaker Change: You know, are you guys testing new mediums in which to communicate to the consumer? And, you know, do you have any thoughts in terms of, you know, what new channels can open up and where you think you could allocate some marketing dollars over time to drive, you know, more consistent traffic and build that brand awareness?

The

Hi, John.

Speaker Change: Let me take the first half of the question. What were the sales patterns that we saw in the third quarter? Let's say the quarter had a same-store sales growth of 6%.

Speaker Change: September was the strongest month into quarter and the momentum of September carried on into October where we're certainly confident within our revised upward guide of six to seven percent.

Speaker Change: Second part, I think, was on the marketing. Yeah. Hey, thank you, Jon. Thanks for the question. So, as it relates to marketing, we're continuing to evolve our marketing approach. One of the goals we've set out is...

Speaker Change: How can we continue to drive G&A leverage while allocating more and more dollars to marketing? We know that once we get people to try Sweetgreen and create that brand awareness, there is a lot of frequency. It also speaks to our densification strategy. As we densify markets, it creates a lot of leverage from a marketing perspective because a lot of our marketing is done at the local level. We shifted a lot of our marketing approach this year to be really a full-funnel approach.

Speaker Change: combination of out-of-home, digital, social, and influencers played a big part, as has community.

Speaker Change: One of the things that we were very focused on is how do we have more of a direct relationship with our customers. Loyalty is going to be a big piece of this puzzle, so first half of next year we'll be introducing our loyalty, our new loyalty program, and we think that will be a large lever.

Speaker Change: And that experiential and community marketing has worked very well for us. So we're going to continue to double down there. We're seeing, you know, customers and communities really resonate when they, when they can, you know, feel sweet in real life. And so I think you see a lot of those effects in our emerging markets with the big coms, as well as with our NRO performance.

Speaker Change: You know, if you look at our class of NROs this year, they've been phenomenally strong. The average AUV for that class...

Speaker Change: is more than the the existing fleet. So we're really excited about that and we think that we can continue to build on that, especially as you look at some of the new markets we've opened. So that marketing approach we feel very good about and we're going to continue to build on.

The

Thanks for taking the questions.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Andrew Charles with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Great. I wanted to ask about the retrofits. You know, I'm curious, you're very early with this, with Penn Plaza this summer and now, too, in the hopper. Curious, though, how this informs your decision for retrofits for 2025, recognizing the big opening pipeline for Infinite Kitchens next year.

Hi, Andrew.

Bye.

Speaker Change: Let me tell you, you're right, Penn was our first retrofit, it opened in mid-July, so it was not open for the whole third quarter. We're very, very happy with the results we're seeing at Penn, both from a labor savings perspective and from a customer acceptance and a team member satisfaction level.

Speaker Change: When we think about retrofits with the IK, I would say the two things we look at are the AUVs of the stores.

Speaker Change: and particularly how that store sales take place in a concentrated period of time. So if it's really a tight lunchtime, it lends us more towards an IK for the faster throughput.

Speaker Change: And the other factor we look at is really, I would say, the challenging labor markets. You know, the IK runs with a lot fewer people, and we believe if we can get IKs into more challenged labor markets, it will have greater benefits for us long term.

Speaker Change: Okay, Mitch, it's a good segway and a follow-up, but you called out the 700 base points of labor savings at the 10 positive retrofit, which is in line with what you said in the past, and I'm curious if there's room for that number to move higher as you retrofit more potential business districts, just given the higher staffing levels as well as the higher wages in these stores versus the system average.

Speaker Change: Yeah, we think there probably is more room over time. I think the other thing, Andrew, that I point out

Speaker Change: Just a little bit like when we open up an NRO, a new store, we generally will, if you will, overstaff that store for the beginning and have a labor ramp period.

Speaker Change: And I suspect it will be faster, but we believe we'll have the similar dynamics in an IK store as we kind of get better and go through a training period and learn how to operate it more efficiently. So I think over the long run, you'll probably see that.

Great. Thanks for the insight, Mitch.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Dennis Geiger with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Great, thank you guys. Appreciate the color on on IK. I just wanted to ask if any additional thoughts to share around AUVs at those stores based on another quarter of results, a few more open, as you kind of think about what you've told us on check.

Speaker Change: on frequency, on some of the throughput benefits. Any latest update to share on what that might mean on AUVs relative to non-IK stores, even if high level? Thank you.

Speaker Change: Hi Dennis. Let me just say we expect that the volume in an IK store will grow over time after we put an IK in. We think that's going to happen for a combination of reasons including the faster throughput and higher customer satisfaction in an IK store. We are seeing some of that at Naperville. I should point out Naperville is the only IK store that's now been open for a year.

Speaker Change: Penn, as we said, was not even open for the full quarter, but we are seeing, certainly in the month of October, is Penn did grow at the faster end of the range for New York City, so we're pretty happy with what we're seeing.

Great Mitch, appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Brian Harbor with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: and I'm going to do a little bit more about the science of the universe. So the science of the universe is actually the science of the universe. And that

Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks. Good afternoon, guys. Just the, you know, the labor optimization you talked about, is that...

Is that kind of the main driver of the year-over-year?

Speaker Change: favorability and labor like how much of that do you think you can get next year and what are kind of the next next steps for that?

Speaker Change: Hi, Brian. Yeah, I think the labor optimization, you know, is a result of changes we've made in scheduling and head coach deployment on the line. Looking forward, you know, John talked about, I think, in his script, some of the AI scheduling tools that we are bringing into the business. We think that we still have considerable room in labor over the next several years to optimize it, both from a scheduling perspective and a deployment perspective in the store.

Speaker Change: Thanks. Mitch, could you comment on what the food and labor inflation rates were in the third quarter and if you have...

Speaker Change: a view on kind of what those will be looking forward.

Speaker Change: It ran approximately 2%, and we see it, as others have reported, pretty tame actually at this point in time.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Katherine Griffin with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Katherine Griffin: Hi, thank you. Thanks for the question. First, I wanted to ask about another question just on labor. I want to understand how you're thinking about sort of reinvesting in the four walls, that 700 basis points of margin savings. I'm curious, like, in the context of the decision to invest in another kind of AI labor tool, because it would seem to me that, you know, as IK becomes a larger part of the fleet, that maybe there are different, you know, labor needs. That could be different. That may not, you know, justify the need for incremental investment into labor optimization. So that's the first one. And then I have a follow up.

Hi, Catherine.

Speaker Change: You're right, the IK stores use less labor, but they still have a labor element running through the stores, and labor, you know, at this point in time, is still the highest cost component in the industry. So having an AI tool to help us optimize labor still has a lot of efficiencies for the business with an IK store or without an IK store.

Speaker Change: We haven't really commented on where we see the margin savings from the IK being deployed. Many people have asked. I think it's fair to say near term it will drop to the margin of the company.

Speaker Change: Okay, thank you. And if I could just build on that, you know, we're very excited about this new workforce management tool that we're rolling out. It's not just meant to help us save on labor, although it will help us there. I think a lot of it is around the experience that it can help us improve for both our customers and our team members.

Speaker Change: So what it allows us to do is, you know, it allows us to schedule.

Speaker Change: and match our labor better to the sales curves of our restaurants. And we have that both in the IK restaurants as well as in our classic restaurants. It also has a lot of other cool features like shift swapping, and it's just much more modern. So our team members are loving it. It's also, again, helping us

Speaker Change: staff to peak in a much better way hopefully driving throughput and capturing demand appropriately.

Speaker Change: Great, thank you so much for that clarification. And then I just wanted to ask earlier what you talked about with kind of expanding the menu and looking for other opportunities for Attach. How do you think about the tradeoff between adding these new things to the menu and operational complexity?

Speaker Change: Thank you for the question. It's of top concern, and that's why I spoke to the optimizations and simplifications that we have to do in order to make room for some of these things.

Speaker Change: And that also speaks to the stage gating process we have.

Speaker Change: So, a lot of the work is how do we simplify the work we have, how do we make sure anything new we have is going to be worth it and really drives.

Speaker Change: that broader consumer and drive that acquisition in frequency. And then really thinking about how those new items fit within our operating model. So it's a lot of testing to get it right, and we have this philosophy of art and science. So we need new ideas that are just delicious, craveable, really culturally relevant, but then we need to operationalize them in a way that fits with our model. And I think given the way we've set up our restaurants in a very modular way, and the brand that we build gives us a lot of license to kind of explore some of these things.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Logan Rick with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Logan Rick: Hey guys, yeah, thanks for taking the questions. I had a couple just on...

Logan Rick: the same store sales trend in the quarter. So you guys sort of alluded to double digit comps in some of the newer markets. I was wondering if you can share what comps were in the more mature markets in the Northeast and Eastern Seaboard.

Logan Rick: And then, second question is just on the traffic and mix. Within the 2% this quarter, can you share how much of that was mixed driven by stake?

All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks, everyone.

Hi, Logan.

Speaker Change: Let me say, you know, the same store sales, as we said earlier, built throughout the quarter.

Speaker Change: We're very, very happy with the emerging markets that are comping in double digits pretty consistently. It's fair to say, you know, that we really don't like to break everything up by market. And in total, the company averaged around a 6% comp for the quarter.

Speaker Change: All right, I think we'll go to the next question. The next question comes from Sharon Zaxia with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Sharon Zaxia: Hey, good afternoon. I, for one, cannot wait to try pickle ketchup, so if you want to bring that to Chicago, that'll be a happy day for me.

Sharon Zaxia: I wanted to ask about the retrofits. I know you've done two of them now. Is there any, I mean, I know it's a small sample size, but is there any thought process?

Sharon Zaxia: kind of how the average cost for that is likely to run or what the downtime might be on average as you look forward.

Sharon Zaxia: Hi Sharon, just a slight modification. We've done one so far, quarter to date, year to date, and that's the Penn Plaza. We have two retros currently being worked on, Willis Tower and Wall Street.

Sharon Zaxia: You know, the amount of time that the retros take is really going to be pretty much score dependent, but I think right now what we are kind of using as our standard is around six to seven weeks.

Okay.

Sharon Zaxia: And in terms of stake, the question on the mix was a good one, but I was curious as well on the impact on COGS.

Sharon Zaxia: because I think you were pricing to protect penny profit and not percentage. So when we look at the COGS, with this being the first full quarter, could you kind of help us think about how much that impacted the COGS line?

Speaker Change: I would just say, you know, the steak has higher cogs than the other elements in the menu and it had, in total, a kind of slight upward pressure, if you will, on the cogs in the business, but nothing overly significant.

Okay, thank you.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Brian Mullen with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Thank you. Just a question on Infinite Kitchen. For the units you deploy in 2025, how do you want us thinking about the cost of Sweetgreen from

Speaker Change: The contract manufacturer, and then as you look, you know, beyond 2026 and beyond, would that be, or in 26, would that be a year in which your purchasing scale would start to drive that cost down, or would it perhaps take longer? Just any thoughts on that.

Speaker Change: Thanks for the question. So, yes, you know, we've guided to about $450,000 to $550,000 in incremental costs for Infinite Kitchens. We are expecting to start to see some savings as we scale manufacturing. We're kind of in Phase 2 of manufacturing. We're just entering Phase 2 of manufacturing. We think over time, with both scale and maturity, that there's some opportunities to continue to bring that down. We are heavily focused, you know, one of the key priorities for Chris and the development team is to work on the overall, all build-out costs, including the Infinite Kitchen. As that becomes the core prototype, we see some pretty big opportunities to bring down the overall cost. And that's really what we care most about is, you know, what is going to be the total build cost of new units, including IK. And it's a.

major focus area for us right now.

Speaker Change: Thank you. And then back to the Penn Plaza retrofit, I just wanted to clarify some of the prior comments.

Speaker Change: Have you seen an uplift to the average weekly sales or the run rate AUVs at that store so far? I'm just trying to understand if the deployment has helped grow the revenue and the throughput of the location, or if the financial benefits thus far have been more isolated to the margin side so far. Thank you.

Speaker Change: No, we have seen the store grow, and we've seen the store grow more rapidly over the months.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Brian Bittner with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supply needs!

Thanks, hey guys.

Speaker Change: Just in general, just based on all your data and your insights. What do you believe is behind the stronger sales trends in September and October that you talked about first the prior couple of months? Do you think it's broader macro dynamic, or is there something sweet green specific going on in the business and I have a follow-up?

Hey Brian.

Speaker Change: You know, it's always hard to really know exactly what moves the things for sales, you know in a very narrow period of time

Speaker Change: But I think what we saw is it accelerated as we got further away from the summer, and particularly in some of the East Coast markets.

Speaker Change: And the only thing I'll add to that is, you know, this year we intentionally moved away from some of our seasonal menu in order to make room for some of the new menu items we've been bringing. We have now returned to a lot of that with our Harvest Bowl campaign, bringing these Brussels sprouts, which I referred to. That has been a really good driver for us, and we do plan on...

Speaker Change: beginning to bring back a lot more seasonal items as we look forward. So, really getting that menu marketing playbook locked.

Speaker Change: Great, and just a bigger picture question, as you go on this journey to re-accelerate unit growth into next year and beyond,

Speaker Change: And you talked about at least half being infinite kitchens. How do you want us thinking about the new unit economics relative to maybe your original targets that you talked about at the IPO? I mean, is there...

Speaker Change: Is there going to be some pressure upwards potentially on those targets just given the mix of IK units or do you want us kind of keeping expectations where they were?

The New Year's Eve,

Thank you. Bye.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: I think the way I would say to model an IK...

Speaker Change: is that the build-out costs will clearly be higher than a classic sweet grain.

Speaker Change: for roughly that, you know, half million dollar number John just spoke about. And I think in the modeling, you clearly have approximately a 700 basis point improvement in the margin of the store.

Speaker Change: I think it's hard to model in the second-order benefits. We are seeing them and we're very confident of them, but I think it's more challenging to put a number on them at this point.

Thank you.

[inaudible]

Speaker Change: Our final question for today comes from Christine Cho with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Christine Cho: Thank you for taking the question. So, first up, clarification. So, it seems like a unit additions in the quarter was a tad lighter versus your usual quarterly cadence in prior years.

Christine Cho: Can you talk about whether there was any specific reasons driving that? I think you did mention the IQ delivery timing, but wanted to double check on that. And the real question, I think, is it's great to see another 100 basis points of margin expansion restaurant level this quarter.

Christine Cho: and you mentioned it's a seventh consecutive quarter of improvement, but very early, but could you kind of discuss some of the puts and takes as we think about the year ahead? Thank you so much.

Hi, Christine.

Speaker Change: That's, you know, in a significant way that they were in line with our expectations.

Speaker Change: In terms of projections on the margin, you know, looking out in 2025, we really, at this stage, are not prepared to give guidance at 2025, but we will certainly be doing that in our next, probably in our next earnings call.

Speaker Change: All right, thank you all for joining. That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.

The New Year's Eve,

[inaudible]