Cracker Barrel Old Country Store - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, welcome to the Cracker Barrel third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kaleb Johannes, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kaleb Johannes (VP of Investor Relations and Business Transformation)

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Cracker Barrel's third quarter fiscal 2023 conference call and webcast. This morning, we issued a press release announcing our third quarter results. In the press release and on the call, we'll refer to non-GAAP financial measures for the third quarter, ended April 28, 2023. The non-GAAP financial measures are adjusted to exclude impairment charges, store closure costs, and other non-cash amortization, the asset recognized from the gains from our sale and leaseback transaction and related tax implications. The company believes that excluding these items from its financial results provides investors with an enhanced understanding of the company's financial performance. This information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the net income or earnings per share information prepared in accordance with GAAP.

The last pages of the press release includes reconciliations from the non-GAAP information to the GAAP financials. On the call this morning, we have Cracker Barrel's President and Chief Executive Officer, Sandy Cochran, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Craig Pommells, and Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Jennifer Tate. Sandy and Craig will provide a review of the business, financials, and outlook. We will then open up the call for questions for Sandy, Craig, and Jennifer. 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. 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. 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, which, or furnish to the SEC. 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 Chief Executive Officer, Sandy Cochran. Sandy?

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we reported total sales growth of 5.4% and an adjusted operating income margin rate of 4.1%. The quarter started out largely as we had anticipated, continuing our momentum from Q2 through February and most of March. We then experienced a meaningful traffic decline, particularly in April, which negatively impacted our sales and profits, both of which came in a bit below our expectations. This softer trend has continued fourth quarter to date, both for restaurant and retail sales. In our view, this reflects weaker consumer sentiment and economic pressures. Although we are cautiously optimistic that as the summer travel season unfolds, we will see some improvement to trends in June and July.

Our experience in April and May largely mirrors what we've seen across the full-service casual dining industry. Despite the unanticipated headwinds, our sales and traffic growth outpaced the Black Box Casual Dining Index for the fourth consecutive quarter. Our teams remain focused on operational excellence, staffing and retention, and the guest experience. Our everyday value and menu innovation is resonating with guests. We're making great progress on other key initiatives, including catering, our loyalty program, and our cost savings efforts. Although we expect continued pressures and choppiness in the short term, we feel good about our positioning over the medium and longer term. I'd now like to speak to some highlights from the third quarter. Our menu promotion and advertising campaign showcased our everyday value and variety.

Our TV messaging reminded guests that we have 20 Meals for Under $12, including several hearty signature entrees, and we highlighted newer items such as our cheesy bacon, Homestyle Chicken, and French Toast. We also introduced our $5 Take Home Meals, which have been popular and are an additional example of how we're leaning into everyday value. For off-premise, we saw high demand for our Easter Heat n' Serve bundled offerings and strong growth in our catering business, which increased over 35% compared to the prior year and remains on track to exceed $100 million this fiscal year. From an operations perspective, we're pleased with the improvements we're seeing in our turnover and retention results. Our new labor system is now in place at over 460 stores, and the rollout will be substantially completed in the coming weeks.

We're pleased with the functionality that the system provides and our enhanced ability to optimize labor allocation, and we will continue to fine-tune our labor model based on our learnings. Turning to Maple Street, we opened three locations during the quarter and have been pleased with the early performance of each unit, with each location seeing some of the strongest opening week sales in recent years. The team continues to work diligently to optimize the business model and prepare to successfully scale the brand. I'll now turn the call over to Craig for a more detailed look at the quarter from a financial perspective and to discuss our Q4 outlook, after which I'll comment on some of our areas of focus for the remainder of the year.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Thank you, Sandy. Good morning, everyone. For the third quarter, we reported total revenue of $832.7 million, an increase of 5.4% over the prior quarter. As Sandy noted, the quarter started out in line with our expectations, but towards the end of March, there was a noticeable drop in traffic, which intensified and persisted through April and it negatively impacted our results. Restaurant revenue increased 7.8% to $681.3 million, and retail revenue decreased 4.2% to $151.4 million versus the prior year quarter. Comparable store total sales, including both restaurant and retail, grew by 5%. Our retail sales were impacted by the restaurant traffic deceleration, as well as shifts in consumer discretionary spending.

Additionally, we believe some of our more price-conscious guests may be reducing their retail purchases as a way to manage their overall spend when dining with us. Comparable store restaurant sales grew by 7.4% over the prior year, driven by approximately 8.8% total pricing, approximately one quarter of which is a carry forward from fiscal 2022, and three quarters of which is new from fiscal 2023. We continue to closely monitor the impact our pricing is having on traffic and check, and to believe our pricing strategy is effectively balancing margin protection and maintaining our strong value. We believe that the softer restaurant traffic trend and reductions in retail purchases are primarily driven by macroeconomic factors as opposed to our restaurant pricing increases. Our average check also included a favorable menu mix of approximately 1.8%.

We've been pleased with the strong mix favorability we've seen in recent quarters, which is a direct result of our culinary strategy to provide guests with upgrade and add-on options such as our shareable Barrel Bites, premium sides, and most recently, our $5 Take-Homes, as well as our beverage program. Off-premise sales were approximately 19.1% of restaurant sales. We were pleased with our off-premise performance as we drove strong growth in our catering business, and sales of our Easter bundled offerings were in line with expectations. Comparable store retail sales decreased 4.6% compared to the third quarter of the prior year. We saw declines across most of our categories, with our largest decreases in toys and decor, which are among our most discretionary categories. Although sales were softer than we anticipated, we continue to feel good about our inventory levels.

Moving on to our third quarter expenses. Total cost of goods sold in the quarter was 31.5% of total revenue versus 31.6% in the prior year quarter. Restaurant cost of goods sold in the third quarter was 27.3% of restaurant sales versus 27.8% in the prior year quarter. This 50 basis point decrease was primarily driven by menu pricing of 8.8%, partially offset by commodity inflation of 4.3%. The primary drivers of Q3 commodity inflation were produce, dairy, and eggs. Third quarter retail cost of goods sold was 50.2% of retail sales versus 46.9% in the prior year quarter, which, as a reminder, was an atypically low COGS rate.

This 330 basis point increase was driven by more normalized promotional activity and higher inventory shrink. Increased shrink has been a growing problem for the broader retail industry, and although our teams are working diligently to mitigate this issue, we expect it to remain somewhat elevated for the near term. Our inventories at quarter end were $185 million, compared to $192 million in the prior year. With regard to labor costs, our third quarter labor and related expenses were 35.8% of revenue versus 35.9% in the prior year. This 10 basis point decrease was primarily driven by sales leverage, partially offset by hourly restaurant wage inflation of approximately 5.5%. Adjusted other operating expenses were 23.3% of revenue versus 23.1% in the prior quarter.

This 20 basis point increase was primarily driven by higher advertising and maintenance expenses. Our general and administrative expenses in the third quarter were 5.4% of revenue versus 5.4% in the prior-year quarter. This 40 basis point increase primarily resulted from investments to support our growth initiatives and more normalized incentive compensation. Additionally, our GAAP results include impairment charges of $11.7 million, as well as $2.2 million in costs associated with store closures. All of this culminated in GAAP operating income of $16.8 million, adjusted for impairment charges, store closure expenses, and the non-cash amortization of the asset recognized from the gains on the sale and leaseback transactions. Operating income for the quarter was $33.9 million, or 4.1% of revenue.

Net interest expense for the quarter was $4.5 million, compared to net interest expense of $2.2 million in the prior quarter. The increase is a result of higher interest rates and a higher level of borrowing. Our GAAP effective tax rate for the quarter was -14%, reflecting a true-up based on our year-to-date GAAP earnings before taxes, which includes the impact of the impairment charges and store closure costs. On an adjusted basis, our effective tax rate was 7.8%. 3rd quarter GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.63, and adjusted earnings per diluted share were $1.21. In the 3rd quarter, adjusted EBITDA was $60.3 million, or 7.2% of total revenue. Turning to capital allocation and our balance sheet.

We remain committed to a balanced approach to capital allocation. Our first priority remains investing in the growth of Cracker Barrel and Maple Street. Beyond that, we plan to return capital to our shareholders while maintaining appropriate flexibility and a strong balance sheet. In the third quarter, we invested $38 million in capital expenditures, and we returned $29 million to shareholders in dividends. Lastly, we ended the quarter with $445 million in total debt. With respect to our fiscal 2023 outlook, I would like to provide some additional color on the guidance in this morning's release and an update on recent trends. Quarter to date, our top-line trend has generally been in line with April. Looking ahead, the environment remains uncertain. June and July are two of our highest volume months and are heavily influenced by summer travel patterns.

Our base case scenario is that these months experience a modest travel trend improvement compared to April and May, largely due to increased travel and easier comparisons from the prior year. Assuming this improvement in our traffic trend, we currently expect total revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 1%-3%, which includes pricing of approximately 8.5%. We anticipate the opening of one new Cracker Barrel location and five to seven new Maple Street locations during the quarter. Several Maple Streets are slated to open towards the end of the fiscal year, and our updated expectation reflects the possibility that a couple may slip into early fiscal 2024 due to permitting or equipment delays. In Q4, we anticipate commodity inflation will be approximately flat, and hourly wage inflation will be approximately 5%.

In addition to the above assumptions for revenue growth, commodity and wage inflation, and cost savings, our operating income margin expectation contemplates the following: First, investment in additional labor hours to ensure we are delivering exceptional service and hospitality during the high traffic summer months. Second, within G&A, we have investments to support our strategic initiatives, such as our loyalty program and other digital initiatives, as well as an increase in incentive compensation relative to prior year. Third, we have increased our cost savings estimate and now expect to deliver approximately $13 million in cost savings during the fiscal year, with additional gains in fiscal 2024. Taking all of this into account and assuming industry traffic and summer travel patterns play out as we expect, we now expect adjusted operating income margin in the range of 4.5%-5.5% in Q4.

We expect a Q4 GAAP effective tax rate of approximately 0% and an adjusted effective tax rate of approximately 4%. Finally, we anticipate capital expenditures of $30 million-$35 million during the quarter. I'll now turn the call back over to Sandy, so she may share additional details around our business plans and outlook.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Although we're currently operating under more uncertainty, we remain confident that we have the right strategy in place to navigate these short-term challenges and win market share. In the current environment, our primary focus is driving sales growth. We will simultaneously continue enhancing our business model. I'd now like to discuss our strategic priorities. First, we're focused on the guest experience. Our teams are highly focused on strong execution and delivering an exceptional guest experience. We've placed a priority on ensuring stores are properly staffed for the high-volume summer months. We continue to believe that hospitality is a key differentiator for us. We will continue to make investments to support this. We're also focused on the training and development of our store employees and believe enhancing these areas will drive further improvements to retention as well as guest satisfaction.

Second, we're continuing to emphasize and protect our strong value proposition. Everyday value has always been and will continue to be a key pillar of our strategy. We're continuing to leverage this core equity through our 20 under $12 advertising campaign. We believe our investments to preserve the value sections of our menu and our attractive price points have been and will continue to appeal to our guests and will maintain our value strength, even in a more promotional, competitive landscape. The sustained strength and growth of our off-premise channels, in particular catering, for both everyday and holiday occasions, demonstrates our value proposition extends beyond dine-in. We are especially excited about the catering business and continue to enhance the menu and service model. Third, we're looking to accelerate frequency among our growth segments.

To achieve this, we remain focused on menu innovation and introducing offerings that feature bolder and more complex flavor profiles, which especially appeal to this group. For example, we recently introduced our Steak n' Egg Hashbrown Casserole and Biscuit Benny, our version of Eggs Benedict, and we've been encouraged by the response. Our loyalty program is a key initiative, and it's another way that we're extending our care and hospitality to our guests as part of our larger digital transformation initiative. While we believe the loyalty program will appeal to all guests, we think it will especially resonate with our growth segments. We've made significant progress in the development of the program, and to support the successful implementation of this large-scale, complex initiative, we're planning for a beta launch in July. I'm excited about the program, which incorporates all of our channels, including retail and features, fun gaming elements.

We believe the loyalty program will drive higher frequency, increase brand loyalty and customer lifetime value, and provide robust, actionable guest data. Finally, we're continuing to improve our business model. Our cost savings program has delivered significant savings this year, and we expect to also deliver meaningful savings to fiscal 2024. We're pleased with our investments in technology, including our food and labor systems, and we will continue to leverage these systems and optimize our processes to drive further efficiencies. Although our top focus is protecting the top line and delivering an exceptional guest experience across all channels, our operators are tightly managing the business to control costs in this more challenged environment.

In closing, I believe our focus on the guest experience, value, accelerating frequency with our growth segments, and enhancing our business model has us well positioned to navigate the short-term challenges we're currently facing and sets us up for capturing market share and driving long-term value creation. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for your questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Katherine Griffin of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Katherine Griffin (Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thank you. Craig, I wanted to just get a point of clarification on your comments regarding May trends. I believe you said they're sort of consistent with April, but I just wanna understand, does that mean that, you know, traffic is sort of running in the, you know, the negative low single digits, if we contemplate the positive mix that you noted, or is it that, you know, you're seeing that decelerating, you know, traffic trend kind of pick up in April? Yeah, just wanted to kind of parse those comments.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Good morning, Katherine. For May, I think what we're comfortable saying is as we went through the quarter, we had a meaningful reduction in our traffic for us and candidly, across the entire industry as we progressed through the quarter. May is consistent with April, no change, no significant change one way or another. Not a deceleration, not an acceleration, just a consistent trend. I mean, I think clearly the backdrop is, you know, it is more challenging, it's more, you know, more dynamic. I think the good news is we're not seeing things get worse, and we're not seeing things get materially better. Now, having said that, I'll kind of just go ahead and give a little bit more texture on this.

As our expectation is that as we continue into the summer, then our expectation is that we will see a modest improvement in our trends. Again, April and May were consistent, and we would expect to see a modest improvement as we get into the summer as a part of the summer travel season. That's what's included in our base case, assumptions.

Katherine Griffin (Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Thank you. I just had a question on CapEx. There's a bit of a step up in the third quarter, so I wanted to know what the drivers of that were, and then, just given the lowered outlook for restaurant development, sort of why maintain the full year CapEx guidance?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Actually, I think this is a good story here. We've for, you know, many months now, many quarters, there has been a backlog in getting equipment for repairs. Now, finally, we're on the backside of that issue, and we're basically getting caught up on some deferred equipment replacement.

Katherine Griffin (Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Jeffrey Farmer of Gordon Haskett Research Advisors. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. A couple questions. I'm just curious what the implied same-store sales and traffic growth expectation is that comes with that 1%-3% fourth quarter revenue growth guidance. If you can just sort of give us a little bit of a guidepost there, that would be helpful.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Good morning. Good morning, Jeff, it's Craig. On the restaurant side, our expectation in that 1%-3% is that restaurant comp sales will be in the kind of low to mid-single-digit % range for comp sales. Retail, we would expect to be a higher single-digit % negative sales comp.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. As it relates to Cracker Barrel specifically, and what you're seeing at the concept level, is there a customer demographic or daypart that is seeing greater headwinds in terms of some of the pressures that you alluded to sort of strengthening or getting a little bit more challenging, as you got into May? Again, demo or daypart that's being hit more, being hit with greater challenges.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Yeah. Jen, why don't you take that one?

Jennifer Tate (Senior VP and CMO)

Hey, Jeff, it's Jen. Yeah, I think the situation that we're seeing this quarter is a pretty different one from what was happening a year ago. You know, last third quarter, it was really our older guests that were pulling back with concerns about issues like the Ukraine war and the big spike in gas prices, which were really leading them to cut back on spending. This year, it's a different story. We've actually seen a nice rebound in visitation from those older guests. In fact, now what we're experiencing is some reduced visit frequency from the younger cohorts, which coincides with, you know, a sharp downturn in consumer sentiment among those younger cohorts. It's a bit of a different story with this third quarter.

You know, obviously, it's bumpy when you're looking at one quarter at a time. We, of course, like to look at things on a little bit of a longer horizon since most of our initiatives are longer term strategic initiatives with those younger groups. If we pull back and look at this more, you know, on like a two-year stack, we still have seen some positive momentum with those younger groups. Third quarter certainly was a, you know, a trickier one with the younger cohorts.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, just last one's bookkeeping. You guys shared the pricing in the Q3. Traffic and mix in the quarter, I apologize if I missed it. Did you guys share traffic and mix in the quarter, the Q3 quarter?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

We did not in the prepared remarks, but I'll go ahead and share those now. Traffic for the quarter was negative 3.2%, and in addition to the price, we also had positive menu mix of 1.8%.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

All right. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Dennis Geiger of UBS. Please go ahead.

Dennis Geiger (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Could you talk more, a little more about your expectations for the brand's resiliency, maybe over the coming quarters or over the coming year, against the more difficult backdrop that you mentioned? You know, I know you called out the compelling value offers, any other kind of latest thoughts on sort of brand resiliency here, levers that you can pull against this backdrop that you mentioned, would be helpful. Thank you.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Yeah. Good morning, Dennis, it's Sandy. I really will kind of focus on the prepared remarks in my last part, which is that, you know, we continue to believe that the brand is highly differentiated. It appeals across a broad spectrum of age, demographics, income, and our focus, first and foremost, is on ensuring that we're delivering the guest experience. We believe our hospitality is one of our key differentiators, and in this environment, it's particularly important if you're a guest that's managing their frequency, you wanna be sure you're going to brands that you can trust to deliver. Deliver both the experience and the value. That really leads to my second priority, which is leaning in and emphasizing and protecting our everyday value. We've been known for that. We're not as focused on promotions and deals, but ensuring that we can...

A guest can come in any daypart and find on the menu a good value, which is why we're focused on highlighting with our 20 under $12 initiative or promotion right now. It's not a promotion, it's every day. I think I'll let Jen speak to the $5 Take Home, which we think is another great way to deliver value to our guests, and we've been encouraged by the reaction to that. Third, though, we're also really focused on innovating to appeal to the growth channels, and I will let Jen speak to that as a way to drive growth in the next few months.

Jennifer Tate (Senior VP and CMO)

Yeah, I think, Sandy, starting with value, that's absolutely a critical part of the puzzle for us. In addition to the fact that we've been messaging to consumers that we do have, you know, 20 entrees on our menu that are all under $12, and that's across all day parts. We're also featuring new news in that category, which we think will appeal to our growth segment. More flavorful, you know, more complex flavors that we've tested with those growth segments, so we feel good about that. $5 Take Home Meals has been a nice addition that helps us grow check, but also we see is improving our value scores on checks that have that on it.

I think the other thing that we're very excited about is that we are about a month away, you know, sometime in July, we're gonna be beta testing our new loyalty rewards program, which in all of the research we have done, is a very appealing proposition across all of our segments. You know, sustaining segments, growth segments, everybody is really interested in this new rewards program that will be very differentiated for us because it encompasses all of our channels, including retail, which is a real differentiator for us. Our guests are gonna be able to earn points, whether they're in the restaurant or shopping in our retail, and of course, be able to redeem points, you know, across both sides of our business, which I think makes it very unique in the restaurant space.

We're very excited about the launch of loyalty and how that will progress our whole digital roadmap forward. A lot of things coming in the future that we think will, you know, maintain that momentum.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

I'll just add, thank you, Jen, to that list, although I didn't have this in my list, in the prepared remarks. To Jen's point, I do think retail, although it's challenged right now, it is a key differentiator, and it does allow our guests to find, you know, fun, unique, nostalgic items that are of great value. I think that will continue to be the case, over the next, both, not just the next quarter, but the next year, few years.

Dennis Geiger (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

That's great color. Thanks, for that, guys. Just, one more, if I may. Craig, you spoke to capital allocation priorities. I just wanna ask, in thinking about the attractive dividend and thinking about some of the near-term macro pressure that you've spoken about, is there any thoughts to add with respect to the dividend and maybe balance sheet usage, you know, if it comes to it? Just thinking about different scenarios looking ahead.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

From a capital allocation perspective, yeah, I think our board is incredibly thoughtful, and, you know, our priorities are invested in Cracker Barrel and Maple Street, and then our return in cash to shareholders. Our dividend is our primary way that we're currently doing and that we have been doing that. Our current cash flows, you know, support our dividend, our leverage ratio supports our dividend. I don't, you know, certainly don't see anything in the future that would change that at this point.

Dennis Geiger (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Helpful, guys. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Andrew Wolf of C.L. King. Please go ahead.

Andrew Wolf (Senior Equity Analyst and Senior VP)

Thanks. Good morning.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Good morning.

Andrew Wolf (Senior Equity Analyst and Senior VP)

Ask a follow-up on the traffic in April and May. Do you think any of that might have been related to, you know, the spring being kind of you know, relatively cool and wet, particularly in the southern part, well, all over the country? You know, in the southward, sometimes in April and May, it's already hot, and people are out on those highways and so on. Do you think that had any impact, or do you think weather in any other way had any impact? I know some folks don't like to blame the weather, the weather is what it is, so that's why I'm asking.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Well, I guess I'll start. You're right, we don't like to use weather as an excuse to not to have delivered the results that we were expecting. There are certainly some. You could have some discussion about whether, in fact, it was a cool spring, and we've heard that from a number of companies, and how it impacted the business and whether that made people more reluctant to maybe do a trip that they were gonna do. Certainly, our merchants would say that they felt it impacted the timing of our purchases of our summer clothing. If it was still cold out, you probably weren't as interested in sundresses and sandals as we later saw.

We don't believe there was a material weather impact for the quarter, but we think it could have had, on the margin, some impact on the timing with our consumers.

Andrew Wolf (Senior Equity Analyst and Senior VP)

Okay. also in the retail stores, I mean, your inventories look pretty clean, right? It doesn't look like there's a lot of, even with the weather, a lot of markdown risk. you know, I'm just sort of imputing that from the inventories being down year-over-year, generally, the restaurant inventory is being pretty stable. It seems to be the retail store inventories have swing a lot, and if they're down, I would think it, to me, it indicates either you got pretty clean inventories, you don't have a lot of markdown risk, or, you know, you're already kind of changing the mix to lower price items. Could you just tell us a little about what's going on there?

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Sure. Well, our retail teams, they've done a magnificent job over the past few quarters in delivering really very impressive retail sales. In Q3, we did see the guests pull back. We saw it broadly across the store base. We saw it broadly across categories, particularly in the more discretionary ones. It kind of was reflected in conversion and UPT. The good news is that our merchants were preparing for this possibility in terms of managing our inventories. I think they have done a good job of working in this environment to keep the inventories clean. They've been working with the field to be sure we were moving through the most vulnerable categories.

They've been working with our vendors on margins, and I think they have, to the point you make, done a good job of managing that risk.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Andrew, I'll build on that a little bit, just to say that, as we shared before, we expect the retail business, part of the business to return to a more normal promotional cadence. If you think about fiscal 2022, we had a lower level of promotional activity, and we shared before that in fiscal 2023, we expected to return closer to a, for lack of a better term, pre-COVID level of promotional activity. That continues to be the expectation.

Andrew Wolf (Senior Equity Analyst and Senior VP)

Okay. If I could just ask one last question about pricing at the restaurants. What's baked into the Q4 comp guidance for price? Could you give us, you know, a flavor for the price cadence into... Just price into next fiscal year? For example, if you didn't take any more price, you know, when would price become neutral?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Yeah, we have 8.5% in the current guidance for Q4. The approach that we've been used. A couple of things on price. We've been incredibly thoughtful about this. We continue an approach we've used for a long time with holdout groups, and we continue to monitor sentiment and value scores and competitor prices and so on. We feel good about the impact that our prices have on traffic. The approach that we've used is we've been taking more frequent but smaller price increases. What that means is, as we get into fiscal 2024, some of the price will carry over, certainly into the first half.

We're not prepared to share exactly how much at this time, but I think it's a fair assumption that we'll have a fair bit of carry forward, certainly into the first half of fiscal 2024. As we go into fiscal 2024, the inflation environment is expected to be, you know, much more normal, I would expect. Certainly still early. As a result of that, you know, we would expect our pricing strategy to adjust accordingly, and we'll talk more about that on the next call.

Andrew Wolf (Senior Equity Analyst and Senior VP)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Jake Bartlett of Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Jake Bartlett (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you so much for taking the question. You know, my first was just on, you know, your performance versus the industry. You mentioned that you outperformed again for the fourth quarter, you know, versus Black Box, and I wanna maybe make sure I understand which part of Black Box you're comparing yourself to. I'm wondering whether, you know, the cadence within, you know, April and May, whether that outperformance continued? If it didn't, you know, I'm wondering, you know, what you think might be some of the drivers of that? I think some of us are curious whether there's pushback on the menu price, but maybe it's, you know, your markets in particular, the competition with grocery.

Any other kind. You know, if it is in fact that your market share gains have reversed, you know, any color on what you think might be driving that?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Hi, Jake. Good morning. You know, I think there's a lot of detail behind that. I think we're comfortable with saying that for, you know, four quarters in a row, we've been, you know, ahead of Black Box full service, and we have provided the additional texture that, you know, May is in line with April.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

Black Box Casual.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Black Box Casual, sorry. You know, we've talked about, you know, our price dinner, kind of how we've gone through that and kind of measured twice and cut once, so to speak. I think there's a lot, you know, there's a lot there. Certainly appreciate the desire to have, to get more, but I think it's a little still early in the quarter, and we look forward to sharing more about that on the next call.

Jake Bartlett (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. You know, and I'm not even asking about kind of, you know, current trends or really, I'm just, you know, maybe even in April, you know, it seems, you know, without knowing those exact numbers, that your outperformance might have gone to underperformance. So, you know, what I'm really trying to figure out, it feels like the message from competitors, you know, in the first quarter earnings season has been that, you know, there wasn't really material shifts in in, you know, trade down or trade up, and, you know, consumer was holding in. What I'm hearing from your results seems very different than that.

I'm kind of trying to gauge whether there's something specific about your marketplaces, your customers, that might be making you more, you know, exposed to some of these macro pressures that are out there, where we haven't seen it on a large scale, you know, at competitors so far.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Yeah, I mean, Yeah, it's a good question, and I think the areas where we might be different from the competitors would be, for example, in the, you know, the summer travel season, as an example. That would be an area where, you know, we could perform differently, either to the good or to the bad. Again, outside of that, I guess I would just reiterate that we're, you know, we're pleased with the market share gains, and, you know, we obviously, we report those in a slightly different cadence from others, and I don't know that it would be super helpful to get into each individual month beyond that.

Jake Bartlett (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Then a question on COGS. Craig, this is another quarter where, you know, the math, you know, for your restaurants, you know, COGS, there's another, you know, there's a continued kind of bad guy in there. If you look at, you know, 8.8% of menu price and 4.3% of commodity inflation, there's another portion that's, I think, impacted by mix. I would think you'd maybe be getting a year-over-year benefit from freight and things like that, which I think are in that line. The question is, you know, that kind of bad guy has now been, you know, this is the fifth quarter, so it's lapping, you know, a drag, you know, in the third quarter of last year.

You know, in the fourth quarter, if you could help us out, we kind of know flat COGS of, or flat commodity inflation, 8.5% pricing. What should restaurant-level COGS be? If you can maybe be more specific there. Is there another bad guy coming, or, you know, or is the math much more, you know, simple in the fourth quarter?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

I think the mix component that's impacting Q3 COGS and prior quarters as well, really relates to the work that we've been doing to give guests more options to make their experience, you know, a more holistic experience, including things like our Barrel Bites, which are, you know, shareables and, you know, flavored drinks and so on. The example there might be, well, this is a real example: You have iced tea, which has a, you know, a very low COGS %, and someone trades out of unflavored iced tea to flavored iced tea, and you have a mid-teens level COGS %, but it's still higher. That drives that Product Mix that you're seeing.

The reason I give the elaborate answer is because the mix component is going to depend on the attachment of those add-ons. To the degree that those add-ons continue to drive the positive mix that we've seen in check, which was 1.8% in this quarter, to the degree that we outperform there, we'll see a higher impact to restaurant COGS, and to the degree that there is some softness there, then we won't see that level of mix impact. It's really going to depend on the restaurant mix. We've been happy with that. That is a way for us to drive some top line, pro-- you know, deliver cash, increased cash profits, and it's completely up to the guests to kind of opt in or not.

It also helps us as it relates to some of our growth segments and the things that they find appealing. You know, I get the Product Mix impact that you're referring to, but I think it's strategic in the way that we're utilizing it.

Jake Bartlett (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Last question, you know, on stores, there's been a, you know, number of closures, so I think it's 6, you know, Cracker Barrel. I think there was 1 in May, so maybe we're expecting kind of, you know, no net openings in the fourth quarter for Cracker Barrel. Also, I think there's 3 closures of Maple Street in the third quarter. You opened 3, and there was net flat. If you can give us some color on the, you know, whether we should expect more, whether we should model in, you know, continued closures on either brand, that would be helpful.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Our approach to, you know, restaurant closures is largely that we're in a business of, you know, operating restaurants and closing restaurants. You know, across the portfolio of 600+ of anything, you're going to have high performers, medium performers, and low performers. With the low performers, you work to make them be better. In this case, as we came out of COVID, we had a handful of low performers that we have been working on and working on their recovery. At some point throughout the year, we came to the conclusion that we would not be able to operate those stores profitably and made the decision to exit some of those stores and some of those markets. That's what's led to this position.

We as you noted, we had one in Cracker Barrel in Q1, we had four in Q3, then we had one in early Q4. It's not a strategic shift, it's more a function of timing coming out of COVID and working to improve these stores, then coming to the conclusion that we are not going to be able to operate them profitably. As it relates to Maple Street, as we've continued to refine that business model, we had a handful of stores that were under a type of franchise agreement that was not a part of the near-term business model. It may be a part of the long-term business model, we would do it differently. We decided to purchase those stores, all of them, then some of them were particularly challenged, we decided to exit in that case.

It's a part of getting that business set up to ultimately scale. 2 of those 3 were a part of that, and then 1 of them was a bit of a one-off location that was a test location that didn't that we didn't see a path forward with. Not a strategic shift, more of a, for lack of a better term, we're just coming to a decision to kind of move forward on some restaurants that we've been working on for a period of time.

Jake Bartlett (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Todd Brooks of The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Todd Brooks (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. One is just a follow-up on kind of that concept of unit growth going forward. Can you talk about the difficult construction environment, but also the cost to build units and how that may play into how we should think about the unit growth rate, especially for Maple Street, as we go into 2024, when we were maybe looking to accelerate growth of the brand as far as cost to build and what type of retrenchment in construction costs you'd like to see to really accelerate brand growth going forward?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

I think you hit on all of the major points there, Todd.

Todd Brooks (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)

Yeah.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Our long-term view on unit growth really has not shifted. In the midterm, I think as, you know, we're all aware, construction costs have escalated, and construction costs have escalated when the economy is slowing down, and interest rates are higher. There is a bit of a disconnect in some ways between the cost to build, and what's happening in the macro environment. The long-term strategy is still the same. We are working to ensure that we're delivering an adequate return to our shareholders with each of the new units. That means that in this, in the near term, we're, you know, passing on more opportunities than we might have even a year ago.

We do anticipate that as the environment normalizes and the real estate world comes into, adjust for the current environment, that we'll be able to resume. In addition to that, we're also, as every business is, you're also always working to optimize your real estate model in the form of costs, and we're going through that. That's going to take some more work. You know, there have been a lot of shifts over the last few years in a whole host of ways. We're actually going through an update in our site, opportunity model, where we think we can have sites and how has that shifted? Our long-term view is the same, and we're really updating our approach to that, and we're also, monitoring for some cooling in the environment as well.

Todd Brooks (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)

That's great, Craig. Thanks. Second follow-up, just talking about the April pullback that was cited. You gave us mixed data for the full quarter. I was just curious, if you start to look at April and where the consumer may be settling out, can you share how either the mix changed or maybe attach rates, if you're seeing any check management on the part of the consumer? Jen, I know you do detailed testing around future pricing actions. Has there been a change in how the consumer is responding to the thought of future price increases from the current levels?

Jennifer Tate (Senior VP and CMO)

Yeah. In terms of mix, it's been pretty consistent. We didn't see much change, if any, in April. When we look at attachment on key things like...

Todd Brooks (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)

On the restaurant side?

Jennifer Tate (Senior VP and CMO)

On the restaurant side, yeah, to be specific. When we look at beverages or Barrel Bites or premium sides or $5 take homes, you know, all the things that guests can opt into, we've really seen no material change in that. Certainly, with regards to pricing, you know, Craig talked about all of the internal and external ways that we look at that, because we tend to take, you know, small increases more frequently and just monitor very carefully versus our holdout group, and of course, look at all these different ways that we measure value. We still have not seen any type of significant pushback from the guests on our pricing, which, of course, each time we take an increase, we carefully monitor all of that for any kind of, you know, any kind of impact there.

The one area where I think, you know, pricing throughout the industry may have impacted would be frequency, right? With, especially with guests that are particularly impacted by, you know, economic insecurity, we believe they're cutting back not on checks, but rather on the number of visits, you know, that they opt to spend on our category. That seems to be where they're pulling back.

Todd Brooks (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)

Okay, one final one for me. I know you upped the cost savings guidance to $30 million from $25 prior. I guess, where did we find the incremental $5 million in cost saves? Where should we be flowing that through the income statement? You seem excited about further cost save opportunities into 2024. I didn't know if you could preview anything that you've latched on to there. Thanks.

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

Todd, we are literally looking at every single line item, as with every other company, we're constantly looking in the food area, and we've made quite a few changes where the cost goes down and our guest satisfaction or guest research shows an improvement in their perceptions. There are a lot of those, and that, you know, that continues on. There are other indirects. It's really a long list of things, you know, banking fees, supplies, different components of labor that are a little bit more indirect in nature. This is really an enterprise initiative where every single function, you know, we're looking at Internet costs, every single area, we're looking at the less utilities.

In every single area of the company, we're looking for ways to improve our efficiency, where it's not a takeaway from our guests, and in cases where we do make a change, it's an improvement from a guest perspective. The point is, it's just not one big little thing. One big thing. There are a lot of little things that add up to that $30 million, and it gives us confidence in the FY 2024 benefit that we'll continue to see from this initiative.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

That's great. Thank you all.

Operator (participant)

The next question is a follow-up from Jeff Farmer of Gordon Haskett. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. You did touch on it, how should we be thinking about G&A dollars in the Q4 and heading into fiscal 2024?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

I think the best way to think about G&A dollars is to look at the, you know, Q2 and Q3 G&A dollar amounts and forecast that forward. One of the challenges with G&A is the incentive comp is in there, and as things move up or down, that number, you end up with big true ups. It's much better to look at the more recent quarters than it is to look at a comparison to the prior year.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, I can work with that. In terms of thinking about just, again, on that topic, in terms of incremental investments, that might need to be made at the corporate or enterprise level as you get into 2024, would you think that there's something significant there as you, as you look out to the, to the next 12 months?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

We'll talk more about 2024 on the next quarter. I'll double down a bit on what we've said for this year, which is the investments in our digital capabilities to, you know, better appeal to our growth segments, in particular, the loyalty program. That's been a big investment. Sandy talked about labor as well, and in an environment where consumers are cutting back on frequency, and so the times that they do go out, it's really important that they get a wonderful experience, and that's what our business is all about. We're making some additional investments there.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Final question for me. You guys did share some commentary that made some of the recent Maple Street openings had shown some strength. Just looking at my model, which is not perfect in terms of operating weeks, I don't think you guys disclosed that for Maple Street. It does appear that Maple Street's average weekly sales volumes are down in roughly the mid-single-digit range over the last several quarters. Assuming that math is in the ballpark, and you are seeing declines in average weekly sales, what's driving that decline as you more aggressively pursue openings for Maple Street?

Craig Pommells (Senior VP and CFO)

There are a couple of things there. Once we exited those franchise type arrangements that we spoke about earlier, those stores had lower AUVs. When we brought those into the system, that brought the AUV down. That's one. Additionally, Maple Street has also, like Cracker Barrel, has certainly in the last couple of months, been impacted by traffic that's lower than expectations. I will say that, again, the new stores have opened very, very strongly. We are continued to be pleased with, for example, the weekend business has held up better there, and we're continuing to make some refinements there to grow the weekday business to a greater degree.

Jeffrey Farmer (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

All right, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Sandy Cochran for any closing remarks.

Sandy Cochran (President and CEO)

All right. Well, thank you for joining us today. Although we're facing heightened uncertainty and these headwinds, I'm confident that our strategic priorities on the guest experience, everyday value, on accelerating frequency with our growth segments, and on improving our business model, they'll help us successfully navigate these near-term challenges and that we are well-positioned to drive long-term value creation. We appreciate your interest and support.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.