Ark Restaurants - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 FY25 revenue declined 6.0% YoY to $39.725M; adjusted EBITDA was $(0.691)M vs $(0.321)M YoY; GAAP net loss widened to $(9.258)M or $(2.57) per share, driven by a $3.44M goodwill impairment and a $4.799M deferred tax asset valuation allowance, partially offset by stable underlying comps (+0.4% SSS ex-closed units).
• Management cited ~$650k of Bryant Park–related legal/consulting fees that depressed Q2 EBITDA; excluding these, EBITDA would have improved vs last year; Las Vegas efficiency and Florida strength were called out as operational positives.
• Cash was $11.124M and debt $4.280M at quarter-end; ARKR is finalizing a new $15–$20M facility with its current lender while terming out $4.3M over three years (existing facility matured June 1).
• Key risk and stock overhang: Bryant Park Grill & Café and The Porch leases—~15% of 1H FY25 revenue—remain under litigation; ARKR is operating as a holdover tenant and expects to remain for 12–18 months pending resolution/appeal.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• “We’re considerably more efficient than we’ve ever been [in Las Vegas]… while volumes are steady, the cash flows weekly are improving dramatically,” positioning EBITDA to have improved ex ~$650k Bryant Park fees.
• Florida revenue trends improved; company-wide same-store sales rose 0.4% YoY ex-closed units in Q2; Florida SSS +3.9% YoY; Alabama steady.
• Balance sheet remains liquid with $11.1M cash vs $4.3M debt, and management expects to secure a $15–$20M revolver, providing operating flexibility during legal uncertainty.

What Went Wrong

• Q2 GAAP results included a $3.44M goodwill impairment (triggered by stock price decline and Bryant Park uncertainty) and a $4.799M full valuation allowance on DTAs, driving a 569% effective tax rate and the $(2.57) EPS loss.
• Same-store softness in New York (–8.1%), Washington, D.C. (–4.2%), Atlantic City (–11.3%) and Alabama (–3.2%) offset Las Vegas/Florida strength; New York event business was weaker YoY.
• Elevated Bryant Park litigation spend (~$650k in Q2) weighed on profitability; lease renewal risk remains material given the sites’ ~15% share of 1H revenue.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings and welcome to the Ark Restaurants Second Quarter 2025 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Christopher Love, Secretary. Thank you, and you may begin.

Christopher Love (Secretary)

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our conference call for the second quarter ended March 29, 2025. My name is Christopher Love, and I am the Secretary of Ark Restaurants. With me on the call today is Michael Weinstein, our Chairman and CEO, and Anthony Sirica, our CFO. For those of you who have not yet obtained a copy of our press release, it was issued over the news wires yesterday and is available on our website. To review the full text of that press release, along with the associated financial tables, please go to our home page at www.arkrestaurants.com. Before we begin, however, I'd like to read the Safe Harbor Statement.

I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion this morning will include forward-looking statements and that these statements are not guarantees of future performance and, therefore, undue reliance should not be placed on them. We refer everyone to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the risks that may have a direct bearing on our operating results, performance, and financial condition. I'll now turn the call over to Michael.

Michael Weinstein (Chairman and CEO)

Hi, everybody. I'm going to turn it over to Anthony to try to explain a little bit better the financial data that we've put forth in the press release, but he'll uncomplicate it for you.

Anthony Sirica (CFO)

Yeah, sure. There's a couple of things in here that require explanation. At the end of the quarter, our cash balance was $11.1 million. That was up, actually, approximately $900,000 from year-end. Our debt was down to $4.3 million as a result of principal payments made during the quarter. As we discussed on previous calls, our credit agreement expires on June 1, 2025. We are working with the bank, and we're in the process of finalizing a new facility with our current lender, which will provide somewhere between $15 million-$20 million of total capacity. The current $4.3 million will be termed out over a three-year period. As you saw in the press release, there are two significant non-cash items in the current quarter, the first of which is a goodwill impairment.

As you're aware, we look at our goodwill on an annual basis, but we're also required to see if there are any triggering events in an interim period. Based on the decline in our stock price at the end of the quarter, we went through the analysis, and we had to write off the balance of our goodwill in the amount of $3.4 million. Unfortunately, that is a point-in-time test, and if the stock goes up, you can't put it back on the books. It's a non-cash item, but it's unfortunate as far as the timing. We also have the uncertainty surrounding the Bryant Park leases, which we'll discuss, obviously, at length, which factored into the analysis. In booking that write-off, it then caused us to be in a cumulative loss position for purposes of analyzing our deferred tax assets.

Based on that analysis, we then had to impair—I'm sorry, put a full valuation allowance on our deferred tax assets of $4.8 million. That will continue to be looked at every quarter as things improve. It's possible that that valuation allowance could be released in future quarters or years, but right now, we had to put a full valuation allowance on that. That caused the massive tax rate that you see there in the P&Ls. With respect to the rest of the balance sheet, there really weren't any significant changes other than the goodwill write-off and the write-off of the valuation allowance on deferred taxes. With that, I'll turn it over to Michael.

Michael Weinstein (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you. I want to save the discussion for Bryant Park and Meadowlands for the latter part of my discussion. Primarily, what you should know is the EBITDA this quarter, the March quarter, was negatively affected by some $650,000 of consultancy fees and legal fees in conjunction with our fight to retain the Bryant Park lease. If that had not been the case, the EBITDA would have shown an improvement over the comparable quarter last year. First, I'd like to go through the various venues. Alabama continues to be just very steady. We're doing well there. The New York restaurants, Robert is doing well. The Florida restaurants seem to have picked up from comparable periods last year in terms of revenue on a whole. The Washington, D.C. restaurant, we have new management. I see some improvement there. The big improvement is coming from Las Vegas.

We're considerably more efficient than we've ever been there. While volumes are steady, the cash flows weekly are improving dramatically. We did a cash flow analysis for the bank in conjunction with our new credit facility. We did that not on a fiscal or calendar year, but they wanted it as of April 1 of this year, through March 30th of next year, because that coincided with the question of whether we would keep our Bryant Park facility or not. We did that, I guess, in February and March. I would tell you that we're probably running $2 million ahead of that projection in terms of our operating cash flow. Things are improving. We're still looking at deals. We hope that we'll be able to close on a couple of things we're looking at in the next few months.

The important thing here is the Bryant Park situation. As you know, our lease has expired on April 30. We are a holdover tenant. We have filed a claim in New York Supreme Court, which is a lower court in New York, making allegations that basically the request for proposal process was corrupted, that the basis of the claim is that they've chosen a tenant, at least the Bryant Park Corporation has chosen a tenant, which has not yet been approved by the Parks Department in New York City Library, whose approval is needed.

They chose a tenant whose initial bid in the RFP proposal reply was $1.2 million when we were already paying $3.1 million, that their percentage rent deal was literally four percentage points lower than ours, that they intend to close the restaurant for over a year, that they're asking for free rent of 18 months, and that they're asking for a tenant improvement allowance from the park. All of this just speaks of a process that no other landlord would allow to replace a tenant paying substantially more, who's been in business for 30 years and running one of the largest grocery restaurants in the United States. There is no reason for this to have occurred other than a conflict of interest on the part of the Bryant Park Corporation executives. We have a case filed in the Supreme Court.

It will take probably a year or a year and a half to make its way through. In the meantime, we expect the landlord to start an eviction proceeding, which will probably be subsumed by the Supreme Court until our case is fully heard. We think we're definitely there for the next year, year and a half. We hope at some point there'll be a political settlement to the situation. Right now, we're operating, and we're not going anywhere. In response to questions about Meadowlands, we've always said that the Meadowlands possibility of getting a casino license is dependent upon New Jersey moving in response to downstate New York City casino licenses. Those have not been issued yet. From what we read and from what we hear, that'll happen sometime before the end of this year. They'll allocate the three licenses. One will go to Yonkers, for sure.

One will go to Aqueduct, for sure. Where the third one goes is still up for grabs. Once that happens, we think New York State will recognize that they'll be sending New York State residents from the northern part of the state, which has very well-to-do demographics, to New York City to gamble, and they're not going to want that to happen. The Meadowlands is in the best position of any location to satisfy the demands for casino gaming in northern New Jersey. Those are the two big issues with us. The rest of the business seems to be doing fine, and I would say to you that we think it's going to continue to improve. We're out there hunting for deals, so that's the plan. I'll take questions at this point.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the Star keys. Again, another reminder, if you have a question you'd like to ask, you can simply press Star one on your telephone keypad. There are no questions at this time. Therefore, I would like to turn the floor back to CEO Michael Weinstein for closing remarks.

Michael Weinstein (Chairman and CEO)

Okay. Thank you, everybody. Speak to you next quarter.

Anthony Sirica (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference, and you may disconnect your line at this time. Thank you for your participation.