Q1 2025 Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc Earnings Call
Good morning and welcome to Cracker Barrel's first quarter fiscal 2025 conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode.
Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero on your telephone keypad.
After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2.
Please note, this event is being recorded.
Speaker Change: I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Hanan, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Adam Hanan: Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Cracker Barrel's first quarter fiscal 2025 conference call and webcast. This morning we issued a press release announcing our first quarter results.
Adam Hanan: In this press release and on this call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter into November 1, 2024.
Adam Hanan: Please refer to the footnotes in our press release for further details about these metrics.
Adam Hanan: The company believes these measures provide investors with an enhanced understanding of the company's financial performance.
Adam Hanan: This information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for net income or earnings per share information prepared in accordance with GAAP. The last pages of the press release include reconciliations from the non-GAAP information to the GAAP financials.
Speaker Change: On the call with me this morning are Cracker Barrel's President and CEO, Julie Masino, and Senior Vice President and CFO, Craig Pommells. Julie and Craig will provide a review of the business, financials, and outlook. We will then open up the call for questions.
Speaker Change: On this call, statements may be made by management of their beliefs and expectations regarding the company's future operating results or expected future events.
Speaker Change: These are known as forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties that in many cases are beyond management's control and may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.
Speaker Change: We caution our listeners and readers in considering forward-looking statements and information. Many of the factors that could affect results are summarized in the cautionary description of risks and uncertainties found at the end of the press release, and are described in detail in our reports that we file with or furnish to the SEC.
Speaker Change: Finally, the information shared on this call is valid as of today's date and the company undertakes no obligation to update it except as may be required under applicable law. I'll now turn the call over to Cracker Barrel's president and CEO, Julie Masino. Julie?
Julie Masino: Good morning and thank you for joining us. We were very pleased with our Q1 results, which underscore the fact that our entire organization is aligned and executing against our three imperatives.
Julie Masino: driving market share, delivering food and experiences, guest love, and growing profitability.
Let's review some highlights from the quarter.
Julie Masino: We delivered positive comparable store sales for the second consecutive quarter, driven by improved traffic and strong average check growth. And, we're proud that comparable store sales performance also outperformed the black box casual dining industry by 290 basis points.
Julie Masino: Digging deeper, we continue to see improved traffic trends in the important dinner day part. In fact, we've delivered sequential improvements in dinner traffic over the past four quarters.
Julie Masino: New menu items such as the hash brown casserole, shepherd's pie, and pot roast are resonating with guests.
Our Optimized Pricing Initiative is delivering strong flow-through.
Julie Masino: We're driving improved value perception scores and improved key operational metrics.
Notably, hourly turnover improved by 17 percentage points.
Cracker Barrel Rewards is delivering incremental sales and traffic.
Julie Masino: And finally, our four pilot remodel stores are collectively experiencing a sales and traffic lift, and we are encouraged by the early results in our first remodel market in Indianapolis.
Julie Masino: This progress is evidence of strong operational execution by our team.
Julie Masino: I want to remind you all that this is really the first quarter of executing the new plan after months of evaluation and planning.
Julie Masino: Given that fact, we are excited about the quarters and years ahead, and I want to assure you that we are intensely focused on profitable growth and long-term value creation.
Julie Masino: Our transformation plan consists of five pillars, as many of you know. One, refining the brand. Two, enhancing the menu. Three, evolving the store and guest experience. Four, winning in digital and off-premise. And five, elevating the employee experience.
Julie Masino: We're making progress on all of them, but today my remarks will largely focus on Pillar 2, Enhancing the Menu, and Pillar 3, Evolving the Store and Guest Experience.
Julie Masino: Pillar 2 is enhancing the menu, which is all about making it more craveable for guests and easier to execute for our teams.
Julie Masino: This pillar also includes optimizing our pricing while maintaining our strong value proposition.
Julie Masino: Our Q1 menu promotion featured a new hash brown casserole shepherd's pie, which was wildly popular, as well as our new fried apple french toast bake.
Julie Masino: Our November menu promotion featured our seasonal guest favorite, country fried turkey.
and a new Cinnamon Swirl French Toast Breakfast.
Julie Masino: And we are excited about the additional innovation that's in our pipeline.
Julie Masino: We remain focused on strengthening our value proposition through our Barbell Pricing Strategy and continue to highlight exceptional value offerings such as our Sunrise Pancake Special for $7.99 and our Early Dinner Deal starting at $8.99.
Julie Masino: In Q1, we augmented our daily dish menu by adding several new daily specials such as our sweet and tangy Southern BBQ ribs, creamy and savory chicken and rice, and our delicious slow braised pot roast.
Julie Masino: The pot roast has been particularly successful and as a result we listened to our guests and have now made it available every day.
Julie Masino: And on the premium end of our barbell, our New York Strip offerings continue to resonate.
Julie Masino: We've been pleased with the performance of our new menu items. In fact, in some cases, such as the Shepherd's Pie and Pot Roast, they've been so popular with guests, we've had to source additional product to meet the high demand.
Julie Masino: This menu innovation has contributed to the improvement in our traffic trend, particularly at the dinner day part.
Julie Masino: In fact, our Q1 dinner traffic improved over 600 basis points compared to the prior year quarter and 200 basis points compared to Q4.
Julie Masino: Dinner will be a key driver for our overall success, and although early, we're making progress.
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Julie Masino: Another way we're enhancing our menu is through our back-of-house optimization initiative to drive efficiencies that improve profitability while making jobs easier and more enjoyable.
Julie Masino: This is a multi-year initiative that will be completed in several phases.
Julie Masino: The first phase is focused on process improvement, and one way we are doing this is through a just-in-time approach for certain items to more efficiently use labor, reduce waste, and importantly, improve product quality.
Julie Masino: We are encouraged by the results of the test in approximately 20 stores in Q1 and are expanding it to a full region in the coming weeks.
Julie Masino: In Q3, we plan to launch the first phase to the system.
Julie Masino: We're also enhancing our menu through our price optimization initiative. As we've discussed, a refined pricing methodology is based on criteria, including consumer willingness to pay, competitor pricing, and store operating costs.
Julie Masino: We've been pleased with the results as we continue to see strong flow-through while simultaneously driving improved value scores.
This is a production of the U.S. Department of State.
Julie Masino: Turning to Pillar 3, evolving the guest experience encompasses several things. First, operational execution. Second, store design and atmosphere. And third, retail.
Julie Masino: With regard to operational execution, we continue to see progress across key operating metrics such as guest satisfaction, hourly turnover, average server and grill cook skill level, speed metrics, and off-premise missing itemry.
Julie Masino: I want to give a shout out to our teams for their tireless work and strong execution during Thanksgiving week. Your efforts created a great holiday experience for millions of guests and helped deliver an important week for the business.
Julie Masino: Store design and atmosphere are critical to the guest experience and to position us to win in the near and long term. And our remodel program is an important way we are addressing these.
Julie Masino: To reiterate an important point I've made previously, Fiscal Year 25 is a test and learn year for remodels.
Julie Masino: We are working to understand which remodel packages resonate the most with guests and drive the strongest return.
Julie Masino: These learnings will inform our plans and spend in the subsequent years.
Julie Masino: We continue to see a collective lift in sales and traffic in the four pilot stores that were updated in fiscal year 24.
Julie Masino: So far in fiscal year 25, we've remodeled another 19 stores and completed 12 refreshes.
Julie Masino: This includes the 12 stores we updated as part of our first market test in Indianapolis, the majority of which are refreshes.
Julie Masino: We're also incorporating other new elements including new menu items and a new employee dress code.
Julie Masino: We are encouraged by the early results and later this week we will be turning on local marketing to further raise awareness.
Julie Masino: For the full year, we continue to expect 25 to 30 remodels, with approximately half of these being the low version.
We also continue to expect 25-30 refreshes in 2025.
Julie Masino: In retail, we're leaning into our seasonal theme. Our Harvest Collection performed well and we're encouraged by the performance of our Christmas themes and are looking forward to perennial favorite collections that are about to hit the floor.
Julie Masino: As we've discussed, our retail business, as well as the broader retail industry, has faced headwinds.
Julie Masino: However, it remains a huge differentiator for our brand, and we believe there is meaningful opportunity to unlock profitable growth.
Julie Masino: To achieve this, we've been conducting extensive research and are in the process of revamping our retail strategy.
Julie Masino: We're in the early stages and look forward to sharing more in the future.
Julie Masino: In closing, our fiscal year is off to a very good start.
Julie Masino: Our initiatives are gaining traction and we're focused on sustaining this momentum.
Julie Masino: Before turning it over to Craig, I want to thank our shareholders for their constructive engagement over the past few months and for their support for our strategic transformation plan.
Julie Masino: We are grateful for the trust they have placed in our directors and management and we remain accountable and are confident we are on the right path to return Cracker Barrel to growth and meaningful value creation for all shareholders.
Thank you, Julie, and good morning, everyone.
Speaker Change: As Julie noted, we are gaining momentum and, while still early, are on track for delivering our three-year Strategic Transformation Plan.
Speaker Change: In Q1, there are a few moving pieces that I will touch on, but overall, we are pleased with our underlying operational performance.
and results were in line with our expectations.
Speaker Change: We reported total revenue of $845.1 million, which was up 2.6% from the prior quarter.
Restaurant revenues increased 3.4% to $683.3 million.
and retail revenues decreased 0.8% to $161.8 million.
Pricing was approximately 4.7 percent.
Speaker Change: Our quarterly pricing consisted of approximately 2.8% carry forward pricing from fiscal 2024 and 1.9% new pricing from fiscal 2025.
Speaker Change: Additionally, our Q1 sales results also benefited from a timing shift related to gift card breakage of approximately $6 million.
Speaker Change: This time and favorability, which also benefits EBITDA by the same amount, will mostly be offset in Q2.
Off-premise sales were approximately 18.4% of restaurant sales.
Speaker Change: Comparable store retail sales decreased 1.6% compared to the first quarter of the prior year.
Our decor and toys categories saw the largest declines.
Speaker Change: partially offset by increases in our kitchen food and bed and bath categories.
Speaker Change: Although retail sales were soft, we were pleased with how the team effectively managed inventory levels which were below prior year.
Moving on to our first quarter expenses.
Speaker Change: Total cost of goods sold in the quarter was 30.6% of total revenue versus 31% in the prior quarter.
Speaker Change: Restaurant cost of goods sold in the first quarter was 26.1% of restaurant sales versus 26.2% in the prior quarter.
Speaker Change: This 10 basis point decrease was primarily driven by menu pricing.
Commodity inflation was approximately 1.9%.
Speaker Change: driven principally by higher dairy, beef, and pork prices, partially offset by lower poultry, oil, and produce prices.
Speaker Change: First quarter retail cost of goods sold was 49.7% of retail sales versus 50.4% in the prior quarter.
Speaker Change: This 70 basis point decrease was primarily driven by higher vendor allowances and higher initial margin.
Speaker Change: Our inventories at Quarter End were $201.9 million compared to $207.3 million in the prior year.
Speaker Change: With regard to labor costs, our first quarter labor and related expenses were 36.4% of revenue.
Speaker Change: Compared to the prior quarter, labor and related expenses decreased 60 basis points.
Speaker Change: primarily driven by menu pricing and improved productivity, partially offset by a wage inflation of approximately 3%.
Speaker Change: and an approximately $2 million increase in our workers' compensation expense reserves following an update of the actuarial assumptions used to calculate these reserves.
Speaker Change: Other operating expenses were 25% of revenue. Compared to the prior quarter, other operating expenses increased 30 basis points.
Speaker Change: primarily driven by higher depreciation and approximately two million dollar increase in general liability expenses following an update of the actuarial assumptions used to calculate these reserves.
Speaker Change: and approximately one million dollars in expenses related to our district manager conference which we held in person for the first time since the pandemic.
Speaker Change: Additionally, I want to note that total store operating expenses also include an approximately $1 million unfavorable impact related to the hurricanes.
Speaker Change: Adjusted general and administrative expenses in the first quarter were 6.3% of revenues. Compared to the prior quarter, adjusted G&A increased 90 basis points.
primarily due to investments related to our strategic transformation.
Speaker Change: more normalized incentive compensation and approximately 3.3 million dollars in legal settlement expenses.
Speaker Change: As a reminder, our adjusted G&A expenses exclude professional fees related to our Strategic Transformation Initiatives and expenses related to our proxy content.
and Kaleb Johannes.
Speaker Change: Before moving on, and given the moving pieces, I want to provide a quick recap of the atypical items I called out.
Speaker Change: all of which are included in both our GAP and adjusted results.
Speaker Change: On the expense side, there were four of these items that I mentioned. First, we increased our workers' compensation and general liability reserves by approximately $2 million each.
for a total of $4 million.
Speaker Change: These increases flowed from changes to actuarial calculations associated with these reserves.
Speaker Change: Second, we recognized a charge to GNA of $3.3 million in connection with an advantageous settlement of a series of wage and hour arbitrations that occurred in early November.
Speaker Change: Third, we saw a $1 million expense impact from the hurricanes.
Speaker Change: And finally, we incurred approximately $1 million in expenses related to our District Managers Conference.
Speaker Change: These negatives were partially offset by six million dollars in favorability resulting from a timing shift of gift card breakage.
Although this breakage, favorability will be largely offset in Q2.
Speaker Change: I hope that provides some clarity around what we believe was a successful operational quarter.
Speaker Change: Moving on to net interest expense for the quarter, which was 5.8 million dollars, compared to net interest expense of 4.9 million dollars in the prior quarter. This increase was primarily the result of higher debt levels.
Speaker Change: Our GAAP income taxes were a $3.6 million credit flowing from GAAP earnings before taxes.
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Adjusted taxes were a two million dollar credit.
Speaker Change: First quarter gap earnings per diluted share were 22 cents and adjusted earnings per diluted share were 45 cents.
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Speaker Change: In the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA was $45.8 million, or 5.4% of total revenue, compared to $43.9 million, or 5.3% of total revenue in the prior year quarter.
Now, turning to our balance sheet.
Speaker Change: We continue to have a strong balance sheet that provides flexibility and allows us to invest in the business to drive profitable growth and long-term value creation.
We ended the quarter with $527 million in total debt.
Speaker Change: Lastly, as announced in today's press release, the Board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share, payable on February 12, 2025, to shareholders of record on January 17, 2025.
Speaker Change: Before providing our outlook, I want to comment on Q2. First, we were pleased with our Thanksgiving week results.
which were in line with our expectations.
Speaker Change: This is an important week given the high volume, and I am so proud of how our teams executed to deliver against our plans.
Speaker Change: Second, as noted earlier, we expect a headwind in Q2 related to the timing shift of gift card breakage, as the $6 million EBITDA favorability we experienced in Q1
will largely be offset by unfavorability in Q2.
Now, turning to our Fiscal 2025 Outlook.
Speaker Change: I want to remind everyone that we view Fiscal 25 as an investment year.
as many of our initiatives are in the early stages.
Speaker Change: And we anticipate our financial results will significantly improve by the second half of FY26 and further accelerate into FY27.
Speaker Change: For FY25, we reaffirmed our outlook and continue to expect the following.
Total revenue of $3.4 to $3.5 billion.
Pricing of approximately 5%.
Speaker Change: The opening of two new Cracker Barrel stores and three to four new Maple Street units.
commodity inflation of two to three percent.
and hourly restaurant wage inflation of 3 to 4 percent.
Speaker Change: As a reminder, we expect our adjusted G&A expenses will be elevated in FY25.
both in dollars and as their percent of sales.
primarily due to investments related to our strategic transformation initiatives.
as well as a more normalized incentive compensation.
Speaker Change: However, we expect that G&A as a percent of sales will begin to normalize as our financial performance improves in the second half of FY 26 and into FY 27.
Speaker Change: Taking all of the above into account, we continue to anticipate full-year adjusted EBITDA of approximately $200 million to $215 million.
Speaker Change: I want to remind everyone that this excludes consulting fees related to our strategic transformation, which we expect will be approximately $5 million to $10 million, as well as approximately $8 million in expenses related to our proxy contest.
Regarding Interest Expense
based on current market conditions.
Speaker Change: We expect that we will refinance our $300 million convertible debt later this fiscal year.
Speaker Change: Given the current rate environment, we expect that the coupon rate on our new debt instrument will be meaningfully higher than our existing coupon rates of 0.625%, and as a result, we expect our interest expense will increase following this transaction.
Speaker Change: We expect a full-year GAAP effective tax rate of negative 7% to negative 11% and an adjusted effective tax rate of 0% to negative 4%.
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We anticipate capital expenditures of $160 million to $180 million.
Speaker Change: In closing, our fiscal year is off to a good start.
and our transformation plan remains on track.
Speaker Change: Our teams are executing at a high level and we're focused on sustaining this momentum to deliver on our commitments.
Speaker Change: With that, I'll now turn the call over to the operator for questions.
Speaker Change: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.
Speaker Change: If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time we will pause for a moment to assemble our roster.
Speaker Change: Our first question today will come from Dennis Geiger of UBS. Please go ahead.
Dennis Geiger: Great, thanks guys and I appreciate all the color as well as the detail of some of the color on Thanksgiving
Speaker Change: Craig, wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that two-Q-to-date period maybe and kind of what you're seeing, if you're seeing overall kind of a continuation of that momentum. I know Thanksgiving's a big part of that, but just if any additional color on the most recent quarter-to-date period.
Speaker Change: Hi, Dennis. Thank you. Um, yeah, Thanksgiving, as you know, is a very important week for us. We have our big heat conserve business that we do during the Thanksgiving week. Overall, we're pleased with the way that, um, Q2 has gone so far.
Speaker Change: As a little bit of a reminder, if you think back to last year and our Q2 call then, we actually set a number of records for Thanksgiving week last year, but as we reflected on that and did the diagnostics, a couple things came out of that.
Speaker Change: Number one, the guest experience wasn't exactly where we wanted it to be.
Speaker Change: Number two, the employee experience wasn't where we wanted it to be either. And the flow through, the profitability of all of that wasn't where we wanted it to be. So on the one hand, we're doing a tremendous amount of work.
to drive the top-line record.
But we didn't think that was a solution.
Speaker Change: The team did a lot of work there and made some significant changes.
Speaker Change: that we have implemented this year, and we're really happy with how that's played out. In fact, this year, we had a bit more of an emphasis on the dine-in occasion, and we're really happy with that. So all in all, a lot of moving pieces there, but we're happy with how it all came together.
Speaker Change: That's great. Thank you. One more, if I may. As it relates to the strength you saw in the first quarter, it sounds like progress against a bunch of the strategic plans, including dinner. I want to touch on the loyalty piece, and if there's anything more to share there. It sounds like you like what you're seeing from an incremental sales and traffic perspective. Any more breakdown as far as frequency or kind of other benefits that you're seeing thus far from the program? Thank you.
Good morning, Dennis. Thanks for the question.
Speaker Change: We shared a lot about the loyalty program on the last call, so I'll just remind that we're at over 6 million members. We are real pleased with the progress of the program.
Speaker Change: These guests are coming more often, they're spending more with us, and they have a higher check than non-members.
Speaker Change: What I will say is we continue to test and learn with this group and really think about how we use them to...
Speaker Change: power the business going forward. And that's really exciting for us and for them because they really love Cracker Barrel. One of the big things that we learned in Q1 is their propensity to spend in retail. And we did some testing around that with some offers with salt and pepper shakers and discounts on retail and different things like that to really drive their occasion in their basket.
Speaker Change: all of which were incremental and exciting and we were able to flow them all through. So more to come there, Dennis. Continues to be a bright spot in our journey, that pillar four about winning with digital and loyalty and all of those experiences continues to be a focus for us. So thanks for asking the question.
Thank you, Julie. Appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Speaker Change: Our next question today will come from Brian Mullen of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Just a question on your efficiency efforts in the back of the housework. You know, as you continue with your test and then deploy from the system-wide Q3, can you give some examples or some specifics around, you know, what areas of the P&L you think will start to see some benefits as you get this deployed?
Speaker Change: Hi Brian, it's Craig. I'll start then Julie can jump in. You know, the initial stages are primarily going to be about our own labor.
Speaker Change: You know, we expect that we will see improvements in labor productivity coming out of the kitchen. But we also expect, from a job satisfaction perspective, we expect it to be a better experience for employees because it will be easier.
Speaker Change: So, primarily labor, maybe a little bit of waste, and then an improved employee experience.
Speaker Change: It's a part of a multi-year journey, so we lay it out in a three-year plan, $50 to $60 million.
Speaker Change: in kind of structural cost savings, and this is kind of the very, very early stages of that, so much more to come over the three years.
Speaker Change: Okay, thank you. And then just a question on the retail business. I guess one, just talk about your outlook for the upcoming holiday season, anything you could offer on the consumer in a realistic way to think about.
Speaker Change: you know, the top line there would be helpful just given how important, you know, the 2Q is from a seasonal perspective. And separate from that, you know, the gross margins looked really good in the first quarter. I'm just wondering how we should be thinking about the retail gross margins, you know, from a full year perspective.
Speaker Change: Sure, I'll start and then Craig can jump in. Look, we're real pleased with how the team is managing the retail business. As you know, the industry is facing a lot of headwinds.
Speaker Change: It's a tough business out there. It's super discretionary when people are feeling pinched in their wallet. This is really a place that they do cut back. But for us at Cracker Barrel, it's such a key differentiator. It makes our experience so wonderful. You could just start and finish your Cracker Barrel journey in the retail shop.
Speaker Change: So again, real pleased with how the team's managed inventory levels. You probably heard from Craig's prepared remarks. Inventory levels are down, margins are up. We feel good about where we are right now. We did a new promotion in storage. You may have seen it. It kicked off on Black Friday. We're calling it Seasons of Savings.
Speaker Change: runs for 10 days, so into next week, where we're highlighting great gifts at key price points. Now, we always have our great gifts assortment this time of year.
But this is even a plus up on that.
Speaker Change: We're really getting behind it with some social marketing and things like that. So you're probably seeing a little bit more of it
Speaker Change: Early early stats as it's resonating with guests. We're excited about it It gives the associates something to talk about as well in store. So we're feeling good about the holidays now Remember, there's fewer shopping days as a result of leap year and the late Thanksgiving But given our inventory position and margin position, we feel like we are poised to really take advantage of that
Speaker Change: Plus we get that extra weekend before Christmas. So we're, we're, we think we're poised well to capture the last minute shoppers. We know all you men wait until the last minute. So we're here for you at Cracker Barrel.
Speaker Change: That's right, Julie, we do always go last, don't I, Shabaniyash?
Speaker Change: As it relates to retail margins, you know, we were a bit ahead in Q1, you know, however, the environment from a brick-and-mortar retail perspective does remain challenged, so we expect across the full year that retail margins will be a bit unfavorable, just a little bit unfavorable across the full year.
Thank you both. Okay.
Speaker Change: And our next question today will come from Jake Bartlett of Truist Securities. Please go ahead.
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Speaker Change: Great thank you so much for taking the questions. You know my first is I wanted to dig into some of these these more you know these atypical items and make sure I understand what's going on. For the gift card breakage I was just looking quickly last two you know first quarters it was a positive so this seems to be something that
Speaker Change: is a positive in the first quarters in general. And maybe just kind of confirm that. The $6 million, does that contribute... I mean, my math would be that slightly less than 1% on same-source sales for the restaurant side. I just want to make sure that gift card breakage gets reflected in same-source sales.
Speaker Change: and then I had some follow-up questions on the other side.
Speaker Change: gift card breakage benefit is something that we hold at the corporate level. So as you think about kind of what's really happening to the run rate for the stores, that's not a factor. It's certainly a factor in the overall total company sales and it's a factor.
Speaker Change: in EBITDA for the quarter. And as we noted, that is largely a time and impact as most of that is going to be offset in Q2.
Speaker Change: Got it. Okay. That makes a lot of sense and that's helpful. You know, on the other side, I think there's about $9 million in, you know, atypical costs that you mentioned. It doesn't look like any of those costs are kind of...
Speaker Change: are being added back to adjusted results. So those are flowing completely through to your adjusted results. So I guess the net impact is a drag on EBITDA. While you have this $6 million benefit from the gift card breakage, there's $9 million of a headwind. Is that the right way to think about it, or am I getting that right, that none of that $9 million was actually...
Speaker Change: The headwind is about 9.3 million, and all of those are included.
Speaker Change: as normal operating costs in our adjusted EBITDA and as all the costs are included in GAP numbers, so they're included in both.
Speaker Change: and there is a partial offset in the quarter of the $6 million. So it's a net negative or net drag to EBITDA of about $3 million, $3.3 million when you factor in all of those.
Speaker Change: got it and just just to kind of close the loop on these atypical items in in the second quarter the six million should reverse from the benefit side but anything reversing out on the cost side so there are any offsets to the to the what looks to be a six million dollar drag in the second quarter for EBITDA
Thank you.
We are not aware of anything at this time, no.
Speaker Change: So, at this point, the $6 million will be a drag to Q2, and we don't expect any other partial offsets, certainly nothing from any of the items that we mentioned earlier.
Speaker Change: Okay, so you kept your guidance but there's a three million dollar headwind that you hadn't expected in the first quarter. Exactly right. I think that's the right takeaway from all of that. Appreciate it.
Speaker Change: Great, great. And then just one question on the operations and...
Speaker Change: It's on your remodel program, and I guess I'm a little confused with some of the terminology. I just want to make sure I get it right. I'm looking at the last quarter's earnings call, and you talked about the three kind of high, medium, low options, and then you've developed a fourth option, which you're calling a refresh.
Speaker Change: Now it seems like you're referring to kind of refreshes separately from the four different tiers of remodel so I just want to make sure I understand
Speaker Change: The difference between a refresh, as you're calling it now, and the four tiers of remodels that you're testing.
Speaker Change: And I'm also wondering if there's anything more you can share about...
you know the relative performance of each. It sounded like
Speaker Change: One of my takeaways from the last call is that the refresh or the less intense remodel was actually having a really
Speaker Change: Good result, and that might end up, you know, driving maybe a lower cost of the program overall. You know, I guess my question is whether, is that bearing out, that you're finding that maybe some of the lighter investments is actually driving the most attractive returns?
Speaker Change: Let me talk about the number of stores, because I agree that it can get a little confusing.
Speaker Change: The high, medium, and low, or the traditional kind of remodels, there are about 25 to 30 of those in the plan for this fiscal year. That's in our current projection. The refresh are an incremental over and above 25 to 30. So both the high, medium, low as a group are 25 to 30, and the refresh are an incremental over and above 25.
Speaker Change: to 30. And then in terms of performance, I think the key takeaway here is 25 for us really is a test and learn year and we've structured a lot of this investment to
Speaker Change: really understand the economics and the highest level of efficacy of the spend around the program. And we...
You know, we really are not...
Speaker Change: buy us to an answer one way or another. The facts are going to drive the decision. Now, you know, no one wants to spend more if you don't have to spend more and so on.
Speaker Change: We're excited about the performance from the initial four, but that's only four. You know, we have 25 to 30 of high, medium, low, and incremental, 25 to 30 for the infills. When it's all said and done, it will likely be...
Speaker Change: a combination of those, and we're working through understanding the math to determine what the right combination is, and if it ends up being lower, then we'll lean lower. But if it ends up being higher, we'll lean higher. Really, the math is going to have to drive the return on the investment, you know, exceeding the appropriate hurdle rate set by the board is going to drive what the final answer is
All righty, thank you very much, I appreciate it.
Speaker Change: Our next question will come from Andrew Wolfe of CL King. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you. I actually have a follow-up on the
Speaker Change: six million as well in the breakage. If you take that out of sales and flow it through, you'd get to about a flat margin year over year.
Speaker Change: on restaurant level or were any of the 9.3 million costs, Craig, that you called out, were any of those, would any of those be in the restaurant level expenses or were they all in G&A?
with the exception of 3.3 million dollars.
Speaker Change: all of it was at the restaurant level. So effectively 3.3 was in GNA and 6 million was at restaurant level. So those two restaurant level pieces simply offset each other.
Speaker Change: Okay, okay, that's what I was getting at, great, all right. Julie, you, I want to get to the
and the restaurants.
Speaker Change: You know, on the menu, when you're talking about menu items, you talked about some new items and some LTOs.
Speaker Change: and then LTO that might become a new item. I just wanted to get a sense, you know, it sounds like there's a, you know, it's going quite well and there's good guest reception.
Speaker Change: Is that because the company is taking kind of more shots on goals, or is it there's something like improved in the innovation process So that you know you're putting better items on the menu that are you know resonating better
Speaker Change: That's a great question, Andrew. I would say it's probably a little bit of both in all honesty. So in this last year when we were building the plan, we spent a lot of time talking to our guests, talking to our team members.
Speaker Change: and really digging into what will help Cracker Barrel regain its leadership position and what people love about Cracker Barrel, right? People love our scratch made, homestyle cooking and so things like the hash brown casserole shepherd's pie
Speaker Change: are so in our sweet spot. It's something that only Cracker Barrel could make, right? It builds on our signature hash brown casserole. It introduces something that's comforting, that's really warming and luscious, like the shepherd's pie, and similarly with our pot roast as well. So we're...
Speaker Change: I'm sorry do you hear that feedback I want to make sure I'm clear just for them just for your last sentence
Speaker Change: Okay, so these items are uniquely Cracker Barrel and they're and our guests are loving them, right? So like I said in my prepared remarks, we hadn't planned for pot roast to be an everyday item But people loved it so much. I mean we literally ran out of it
Speaker Change: and they said, gosh, our team members said, you really need to put this on the menu every day. I could sell this every day if it were on the menu every day. So we really listened to our guests, listened to our team members, moved that item through. But I will tell you the pipeline, to the second part of your question, is more full.
Speaker Change: The team, the culinary team, got a new leader over there, they are working really hard to find those items that are signature, cracker barrel, things that only we can do that are really going to resonate with guests.
Speaker Change: As we invite more people into the brand, we're also opening that aperture, widening our appeal and making sure that the people who love us continue to love us, but that we're inviting more people in and letting them know that Cracker Barrel is here for them and a really great option for them for breakfast, lunch or dinner every day.
Speaker Change: Okay, I was going to get to that second part that you kind of answered. So some of the innovation is to drive, you know, trial and some of it's to
maybe increase repeat business. Yeah.
Speaker Change: all of the above, right? And we've got innovation across the day part, you know, as I mentioned on the prepared remarks, we brought back our country fried turkey for Q2. And that's actually sold so well that we're out of that early again. So we're really driving some business in these LTOs. But then we introduced a new item,
Speaker Change: The Cinnamon Swirl French Toast, which has also been a great item. So it's a little bit of both, Andrew, honestly, as we really try to drive the business with people who love us, invite new people in, and really just return Cracker Barrel to strength.
Speaker Change: And just the last thing I mean on new item driving new traffic new customers and trial you know
Speaker Change: probably not intentionally but you didn't get too much in what's new with marketing in this period although you did you were asked about the loyalty but
Speaker Change: I think you have a new agency and so on. Would it be fair to say you might want to skew more towards increased usage by existing customers until your marketing is more ramped up? Or can you...
Speaker Change: Can the menu speak for itself and word of mouth and that kind of thing?
Speaker Change: No, we continue to evaluate our marketing mix. We have a brand new CMO who is, you know, about...
Speaker Change: two quarters in at this point in time. She's off to a great start and her team is rocking and rolling. They are continuing to look at ways to reach our guests. Remember, the first pillar of our transformation is about the brand and refining that and how we show up for our guests, how we communicate with them. If you follow us on socials and some of those places, you'll see us starting to show up in some different ways. So they continue to refine the mix.
Speaker Change: the messaging, because it's not just where you're saying it, but also what you're saying.
Speaker Change: and who you're saying it to. So we can get even more targeted than we are today. Loyalty helps us do that as well. So it's bringing all of those things together with the menu, with the experience in ways that people want to experience the brand. Remember, that's really that second imperative. When you step back and think about it, our imperatives are about driving relevancy, which is market share, driving that food and experience that guests love and driving profitability. And those first two really work together to say, how do we communicate with people the way they want to be communicated, give them the experience that they want. That's literally through the communication cycle as well as the in-store experience or the to-go experience or the catering experience.
Speaker Change: and really make sure that we're delivering on all pieces of that. So it's marketing, it's also the way that we show up in store and the way that we operate. They all have to come together to really drive that business.
Got it. Thanks and congratulations on the progress so far.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Our next question will come from Todd Brooks of the Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning to you all.
Speaker Change: Quick question, Julie, you mentioned in your comments that you saw strong average check growth in the quarter. Can you share the magnitude of check growth with us?
and Kaleb Johannes.
Speaker Change: Yeah, I actually am gonna let Craig take that one. He loves talking about check, Todd. Yeah, I'll start. I'll start, Todd. Overall, check was up 5.8% for the quarter. So 4.7 of that was from price, and then we had favorable mix of 1.1. And let me kind of unpack that a little bit.
Speaker Change: Keep in mind, you know, we've been taking the strategic pricing effort, so one concern there is how does that flow through? Well, the good news is the strategic pricing is flowing through really well. We're seeing that across a number of metrics, and we're getting this favorable mix.
Speaker Change: The favorable mix, in a lot of ways, is coming from this effort around dinner. It's one of the first things that Julie did when she started. She kind of diagnosed what's going on with the business, why is the traffic...
Speaker Change: have been down so much, and we actually performed relatively well, fairly well at breakfast, but we had lost a lot of sheer at dinner.
And so that was the first stream of work.
Speaker Change: We kicked off this really big test and then we have rolled out a number of those components. One of the benefits there is we're seeing favorable mix just as dinner as a whole improves because it's a higher check, higher margin occasion and a number of the items that we've added have been on kind of the higher end of the barbell.
Speaker Change: and so that's helped to drive so favorable check mix as well.
Speaker Change: That's great. That's really encouraging. And then, knowing that Sunrise is out there at $7.99 and Early Dine at $8.99, would you share with us what the value mix is? What percent of customers are accessing through those two platforms to drive their visit to Cracker Barrel?
Speaker Change: You know, it's interesting, we actually, we look at it, but we don't really look at it that way, because...
Speaker Change: So much of our menu is just a great value overall. I mean, keep in mind, the numbers have moved a little bit as the quarter has passed, but
Speaker Change: Towards our most recent check average is about $15 at Cracker Barrel.
Casual dining I believe is somewhere in the $27 range.
Speaker Change: So whereas a lot of folks have just really a much more dramatic barbell, so they talk about what their mix is on on discounts.
Speaker Change: So much of our menu is a great price every day. It just wouldn't be. It wouldn't be meaningful. What I can tell you is
Speaker Change: The early dine continues to grow. It stabilized a bit more recently, but it's grown a lot over the quarters. And the sunrise is available. It's a breakfast item, but it's available all day.
Speaker Change: So, you know, overall, we continue to be really happy. We're not getting any meaningful negatives from the work that we have done on the check.
Speaker Change: I would say, Todd, two things. That's really well said by Craig, but two other things to point out on value. Remember, we've done a lot of work with our guests and
Speaker Change: While price is important, right? Anybody will tell you price is important. What they've actually said to us is that the absolute price is not the most important thing to them. They actually care about abundance of our home-cooked food, right? So we're making sure that in everything that we put forward that that is a key component of what we do. That's one reason why I believe the pot roast and the hashbrown casserole shepherd's pie are resonating so much. I challenge you, I challenge everybody that's not...
Go try to eat that whole hashbrown casserole shepherd's pie.
ginormous
Speaker Change: And so, you know, people really see the value in that. I see so many people when I'm out in a restaurant leave with, you know, a to-go box.
Speaker Change: of Food for the Next Day or the Next Meal or Lunch or whatever.
Speaker Change: We value, for us, it is about the absolute price, but it's also about that abundance. The second thing I'd point out is, remember, we also deliver value through our loyalty program. And as we continue to sign up new people and really drive traffic through that program, that's another way that we deliver value. So we deliver value in so many ways here at Cracker Barrel. Craig's point about our absolute check is a really important one to keep in mind, but then add in abundance, add in loyalty, and we really, I think, are there for our guests in a lot of really very real ways.
Speaker Change: Those are all very germane points and I probably should ask the question this way. It might be the way that you guys really do look at this.
Speaker Change: You talked about value scores improving with your customers. Would you share with us how much value scores have improved year over year? That might be the holistic way to look at all these efforts together. Thanks.
Whoa.
Speaker Change: Let us take that as a follow-up, Todd, because we actually changed our
We have a full year of our new value metric.
Speaker Change: But I don't know that we're fully prepared to share the exact amount externally as yet. We look at our Google ratings as a way to evaluate.
Speaker Change: the overall get satisfaction inclusive of value. We also have a really
Speaker Change: great tool internally that we get a lot of participation in and we've seen value scores improve as well. However, we have not shared that
Speaker Change: externally as yet, so we want to make sure we do that in a more comprehensive way.
Okay, great. Thank you both.
Speaker Change: Our next question will come from Catherine Griffin of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Catherine Griffin: Hi, thank you. First, I wanted to ask about the quarter trends. In the first quarter, the outperformance versus the casual dining industry, did you see that consistent in each month of the quarter? And then were there any callouts as far as maybe where outperformance was strong by region? Or was it also, you know, consistent?
Speaker Change: Catherine, I'll start. From a regional perspective, you know, relatively steady. We were a bit stronger in, you know, kind of the Northeast, Midwest, and a bit softer in Texas, but other than that, relatively steady. You know, in terms of trends, you did see general improving trends.
Speaker Change: in the industry over the past, you know, quarter or so. Our performance
Speaker Change: got a little bit better from August, but September-October was relatively steady between the two, so nothing dramatic there. What we are seeing is a kind of a gradual...
Speaker Change: steady improving trend over you know over time particularly at dinner and you know we're very pleased with that.
Speaker Change: Okay, thank you. That's helpful. And then I wanted to ask, I guess, a follow-up to an earlier question just about the different, I guess, tiers of remodel and then refreshes. As you're, you know, a few months into the strategic turnaround, I'm curious if there are some initiatives that are resonating better than you had expected or maybe better than others. And has that changed at all the way that you're thinking about the timing of or how you're allocating the investments into the turnaround?
Thank you.
Thanks, Katherine.
Speaker Change: You know, this is our first, we shared this during some of the proxy meetings with our shareholders. This is really our first quarter reporting against the transformation plan. So it's an exciting time. It's also early. So while we've progressed a lot of initiatives across the five pillars and even across the enablers at the bottom, I would say it's still really early days. What we're real proud of is a couple of the initiatives have moved out of what we call sort of transform and into run. When we think about the changes that we made to the Thanksgiving strategy that Craig talked about earlier in our overall catering business, those are now sort of run the business. When we think about.
Pricing
Speaker Change: that is now sort of run the business. That's a way that we are actually just ongoing. It's not this transformation initiative anymore. So that's what we're real proud of when we think about kind of where we are in these early stages, that some of these things are now just how we do business instead of these new transformation agendas.
Speaker Change: Royal Teas Another One where we continue to just make that part of how we do business and how we're thinking about driving traffic and interacting with our guests and delivering value to them as I mentioned earlier. So it's still really early days.
Speaker Change: With your specific question about the remodels, you know, we're excited about where we are there, and I know everyone wants us to say, this is how many we're doing of the high, the medium, and the low.
Speaker Change: We just want to be really good stewards of capital and make sure that we are getting the algorithm right and really understanding not only how guests are reacting to the remodels in terms of their traffic, but also how our team members are working in them and are there things that we can do to improve their experience. So it's really a year for us to continue to learn and we're excited about that. So early days, Catherine, thanks for the question.
Good, good early result.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Julie Masino for any closing remarks.
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Julie Masino: Thank you all for joining us today. Before closing, I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy holiday season and express my sincere appreciation to our 70,000 plus team members for their hard work and dedication day in and day out, particularly in these last few weeks over the Thanksgiving holiday. Your efforts and hard work are paying off and have supported a good start to our fiscal year. We look forward to providing updates on our progress on our next call. Thank you and happy holidays.