Denny's - Earnings Call - Q4 2020
February 16, 2021
Transcript
Speaker 0
Good day, and welcome to Denny's Corporation Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year twenty twenty Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Curt Nichols, Vice President, Investor Relations and Financial Planning and Analysis. Please go ahead, sir.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Cody, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Denny's fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty earnings conference call. With me today from management are John Miller, Denny's Chief Executive Mark Wolfinger, Denny's President and Robert Vorostik, Denny's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please refer to our website at investor.dennys.com to find our fourth quarter earnings press release along with any reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures mentioned on the call today. This call is being webcast, and an archive of the webcast will be available on our website later today.
John will begin today's call with a business update. Mark will then provide some comments about our franchisees and development. Then Robert will provide a recap of our fourth quarter financial results and current trends. After that, we will open it up for questions. Before we begin, let me remind you that in accordance with the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the company knows that certain matters to be discussed by members of management during this call may constitute forward looking statements.
Management urges caution in considering its current trends and any outlook on earnings provided during this call. Such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual performance of Denny's to be materially different from the performance indicated or implied by such statements. Such risks and factors are set forth in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended December 2539, and in any subsequent Forms eight ks and quarterly reports on Form 10 Q. With that, I will now turn the call over to John Miller, Denny's Chief Executive Officer.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Kurt, and good afternoon, everyone. I hope each of you have remained safe and healthy since we last shared an update on Denny's. Our fourth quarter was setting up to be the best sales performance since the pandemic began until a resurgence of COVID cases caused states and localities to reinstate stay at home orders and capacity restrictions in December. While losing access to outdoor dining in California, where 25% of our domestic system is located, was a pause in our recovery story, I'm so proud of how our teams kept up their focus on the future and ensuring that Denny's is well positioned for the recovery. As restrictions began to lift in January, domestic system wide same store sales thus far in February have improved to their highest point during the pandemic despite having a similar level of capacity restrictions as the September through November time frame.
This indicates that consumers are ready to dine with us again and the sentiment around vaccinations is starting to drive more consumers into our restaurants. The vaccination is expected to be available to a high percentage of population by midyear. We're looking forward to the second half of the year, and our exceptional team members and operators are ready to welcome guests back into more and more of our dining rooms. In this dynamically changing environment, we have been focused on four key guest centric themes: reassurance, value, comfort and convenience. I'll now touch briefly on each of these.
As guests continue to return to our restaurants, it is more important than ever that we remain focused on the health and safety of our team members and our guests. We are committed to reassuring our guests that Dinesh provides a safe dining experience by consistently executing our enhanced cleanliness and sanitation procedures at all customer touch points. We have also provided multiple options for a safe experience beyond our dining rooms, including outdoor seating, curbside pickup, drive up ordering and contactless delivery. Our second area of focus is value. Denny's is known for everyday value, and we believe value will remain important in this economic environment as guests seek to maximize the impact of their dollars on quality food options for the whole family.
We understand the value comes in different forms, and we consider our value approach to be a comprehensive balance between price, abundance, convenience and bundled value. Starting with price value, our well known 2,004 and 68 menu has strong affinity with our guests at 14% instant level. We continue to feature abundant value options like our popular SuperSlam, which sold nearly 11,000,000 plates in 2020. And with off premise being a large focus, we strive to provide convenience based value to our guests through free delivery when ordering through our website or mobile app, which has also induced new consumer trial. Additionally, we have seen our Denny's Rewards members increase by over 25% since the beginning of the pandemic, allowing us to have more targeted offerings delivering directly to our guests.
Lastly, we were able to feed nearly 385,000 families through our new bundled value lineup of shareable family meal packs, offering a delicious cost effective way to feed a family of four. Our third focus area is comfort. We strive to ensure that Denny's is a place where our guests feel welcome and valued. And whether dining with a large family or as a party of one, we believe our guests view the Denny's experience as a time to build connections in an environment that is both inviting and comfortable. After issuing multiple streamlined menus, we began using a full core menu in November, providing more comfort food options even though the menu is approximately 25% smaller than our pre pandemic core menu.
We will also be launching a comparably sized new core menu next week that continues to feature our culinary innovation with new creations within our bowls and melts categories. Our operations team has also reinforced their critical need for comfort by reminding our entire system of the rules we live by, including expectations welcome to dine at Denny's, everyone is treated like our favorite guests and everyone has shown kindness and respect. Our established heritage restaurant image has also received consistently positive guest feedback largely due to its welcoming and relaxed feel. Despite the pandemic, our system completed 22 remodels in 2020, including five in the fourth quarter. And our final area of consumer focus is convenience.
We believe our guests will continue to expect technology to bring enhanced value to their dining experience, whether in restaurant or through off premise options like our Denny's on demand platform. We have also implemented curbside pickup parking signs to deliver a better experience for our guests and team members while promoting guest controlled digital ordering from the parking lot. We recently launched our Apple Pay for our Denny's On Demand iOS mobile app, and we continue to promote outdoor dining solutions where permitted. We were fortunate to already have an established off premise business through our Denny's On Demand platform prior to the pandemic. Average weekly sales for all off premise transactions have doubled since the beginning of the pandemic, growing from approximately $4,000 per week per store a year ago to approximately $8,000 per week per store through the first two weeks in fiscal February.
We have been pleased with our ability to sustain this higher level of off premise sales as dine in transactions have evolved. We are also excited that our test and learn culture has yielded two new virtual concepts that we believe will provide additional market share opportunities. The first of these is called the Burger Den. This concept allows us to focus on one of our strengths, great burgers, with new varieties using ingredients already in our pantry. Test results have been favorable and suggest the transactions from these tests are highly incremental.
Over half of our domestic locations have signed up to participate in a three phase rollout. The first group launched earlier this month, while the remaining two groups are slated to launch by the end of the first quarter. The second virtual concept called the Meltdown features handcrafted melts with fresh ingredients. While this brand is able to utilize approximately 70% of items currently in our pantry. Our innovative culinary team has crafted new craveable products such as the Guinea Melt featuring brisket burn ins with sharp white cheddar, creamy barbecue sauce and pickles on grilled artisan bread or the Talking Turkey Melt made with turkey, bacon, tomatoes, provolone cheese and a creamy herbs bread.
Test results have been similarly encouraging for the meltdown, and over half of our domestic locations are expected to launch starting in the second quarter. These brands provide opportunities at dinner and late night to leverage underutilized labor and kitchen space. In fact, over 70% of transactions from the burger bins occur during the dinner and late night dayparts. In closing, I sincerely want to thank our leadership team and franchise partners for their continued engagement, steadfast resolve and unwavering commitment to this brand. I am very much looking forward to this new year and working collectively with our teams to reassure our guests, provide compelling value options and deliver the comfort and convenience our guests seek, whether it be our dining rooms, on our patios or in the comfort of their homes.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark Wolfinger, Finish President, to discuss more about our franchise and development.
Speaker 3
Thank you, John. I want to echo your comments about our innovative and dedicated teams, and I also look forward to what this brand can accomplish in 2021 and beyond. Currently, 98% of our domestic system is restaurants operating with open dining rooms. This is an increase of almost 25% from the December. However, we still only have approximately onethree of our domestic franchise restaurants operating twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
While we cannot control state and local restrictions and the related impact on our sales trends, we have been working diligently with our franchisees to analyze the incremental sales and profitability potential from expanding their operating hours. Turning to development. We are very encouraged that even in the midst of a global pandemic, our franchisees opened 20 restaurants during the year, including four restaurants during the fourth quarter. This included eight international openings in four different countries, which brought our total number of restaurants to sixteen fifty. Additionally, our system completed 22 remodels during the year despite remodels being deferred until 2022.
These openings and remodels underscore the confidence and future opportunities our franchisees see within the brand. However, the pandemic has also prompted higher closures than our historical run rate. During the fourth quarter, 17 franchised restaurants closed along with one company restaurant, bringing the year to date system total to 73 closures. Six of these closures during the year were due to lease expirations. The remaining 67 closures were related to franchise restaurants with average unit volumes of approximately $1,000,000 prior to COVID-nineteen, a level which is well below the 2019 franchise average unit volume of $1,700,000 We believe the pandemic accelerated these closings that we had otherwise anticipated over the next few years.
However, this acceleration should ultimately enhance the overall health of the franchise system, allowing multiunit franchisees to focus on their more viable restaurants. As a reminder, the average restaurant requires approximately 70%, that's seven-zero percent of its 2019 sales to cover both fixed and variable cost items. Although December was challenging for restaurants impacted by additional restrictions, we are pleased to say that on average, our restaurants continue to see sequential improvement in profitability with each successive quarter. This momentum coupled with the initial round of PPP funding was very helpful with almost all of our domestic franchise restaurants receiving stimulus support. We are currently supporting our franchisees in their efforts to secure another round of PPP funding, and we believe they will be successful again.
While we anticipate additional closures, we believe we have weathered the worst of the pandemic and are on an upward trajectory toward historical recovery. We look forward to returning to net restaurant growth in the future and are confident that we will do so backed by our existing domestic and international development commitments, including over 75 commitments from our recently completed refranchising strategy. At the same time, we believe our overbuilt industry will suffer an unfortunate and meaningful rationalization of seats through the pandemic, largely at the expense of small independent full service operators. While we don't celebrate this prediction, we believe brands that survive will have an opportunity to gain market share. We have a proven record of converting existing spaces into Denny's locations.
In fact, over 60% of our openings since 2011 have been conversions. These less capital intensive opportunities provide enhanced ROIs for franchisees and our experienced development team is already assessing the landscape for future Denny's locations. I will now turn the call over to Robert Vorostik, Denny's Chief Financial Officer, to discuss the quarterly performance. Robert?
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. I will share a brief review of our fourth quarter results and current trends. As a reminder, our fourth quarter results include an additional operating week as 2020 was a fifty three week year for us. Domestic system wide same store sales declined 33% during the fourth quarter after momentum in October and November was overshadowed by the reinstatement of stay at home orders and additional capacity restrictions in December. In fact, for the first time since the pandemic began, outdoor dining was prohibited in California, where approximately 25% of our domestic restaurants are located.
Consequently, California restaurants weighed on the total domestic system wide same store sales results by approximately seven percentage points in December and five percentage points during the fourth quarter. Same store sales at domestic restaurants operating with open dining rooms declined approximately 25% for the fourth quarter compared to a decline of approximately 48% at those domestic restaurants operating with closed dining rooms. Before discussing current trends, I want to mention that we will continue our standard practice of comparing 2021 domestic system wide same store sales to 2020. Additionally, we will provide a comparison of twenty twenty one domestic system wide same store sales to 2019. We believe comparing to 2019 will provide a more consistent and informative representation of our recovery.
With that being said, we have been encouraged by the sequential improvement in January and February as restrictions have started to ease. Domestic system wide same store sales for the first two fiscal weeks of February declined 25%, which is a significant improvement from December. In addition to the weight of government imposed restrictions on our business, we have also discussed the impact of stores operating with limited hours during the pandemic. Domestic restaurants, which were opened twenty four hours in the fourth quarter, had a same store sales decline of approximately 23% compared to a decline of approximately 39% at domestic restaurants operating with limited hours. While we estimate that our overall same store sales results in Q4 were impacted by approximately eight to 10 percentage points from restaurants operating with limited hours, we were encouraged that the sales through the first two fiscal weeks of February declined only 6% for the approximately three seventy five restaurants operating twenty four hours with open dining rooms.
Franchise and license revenue decreased 27.4% to $47,200,000 primarily due to the impact of COVID-nineteen on sales at franchise restaurants as well as fewer equivalent units, partially offset by an additional operating week. Franchise operating margin was $21,400,000 or 45.2% of franchise and license revenue compared to $31,800,000 or 48.9% in the prior year quarter. This margin decrease was primarily driven by the impact of the COVID-nineteen pandemic on sales and fewer equivalent units, partially offset by an additional operating week. Company restaurant sales of $32,900,000 were down 32.6% due to the impact of the pandemic on sales and fewer equivalent units, partially offset by an additional operating week. Company restaurant operating margin was $1,400,000 or 4.3% compared to $8,700,000 or 17.7% in the prior year quarter.
This was due to the sales decline and related deleveraging impact of COVID-nineteen as well as the reduction in equivalent units, partially offset by approximately $1,000,000 of favorable reserve adjustment and tax credits related to the CARES Act and an additional operating week. Total general and administrative expenses were $20,500,000 compared to $15,400,000 in the prior year quarter. This change was due to an increase in share based compensation expense, partially offset by a $3,100,000 decrease in corporate administrative expenses from cost savings initiatives and previous reductions in personnel due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic, including approximately $900,000 in tax credits related to the CARES Act. These results collectively contributed to adjusted EBITDA of $8,000,000 with approximately $2,000,000 attributable to the fifty third week. Interest expense was approximately $4,600,000 compared to $3,600,000 in the prior year quarter, with the increase primarily due to higher interest related to our recent debt amendments and the amortization of desegmented interest rate swap losses from accumulated other comprehensive loss net.
The benefit from income taxes was $100,000 yielding effective income tax rate of 2.7%. Adjusted net loss per share was $05 compared to adjusted net income per share of $0.23 in the prior year quarter. Adjusted free cash flow after cash interest, cash taxes and cash capital expenditures was $2,100,000 compared to $12,100,000 in the prior year quarter, primarily due to a reduction in adjusted EBITDA and higher cash interest, partially offset by lower capital expenditures and cash taxes. Cash capital expenditures, which included maintenance capital, were $1,500,000 compared to $3,200,000 in the prior year quarter, primarily due to the prior year real estate acquisitions related to our 2019 refranchising and development strategy. We ended the quarter with approximately $225,000,000 of total debt outstanding, including $210,000,000 under our credit facility.
This is the lowest reported balance since entering our credit facility in 2017. After considering cash on hand, the remaining capacity under our credit facility and current liquidity covenants, we had approximately $82,000,000 of total available liquidity at the end of twenty twenty. The pandemic has affirmed for us the value of a conservative leverage philosophy. Prior to the pandemic, we would have targeted longer term leverage somewhere between 3x and 4x adjusted EBITDA. We are currently more comfortable with a range of between 2x and 3x.
Turning to our business outlook. Given the dynamic and evolving impact of the COVID-nineteen pandemic on the company's operations and ongoing uncertainty around the timing and the extent of an anticipated recovery, the company cannot reasonably provide a business outlook for the fiscal year ending 12/29/2021 at this time. As a reminder, on 12/15/2020, we entered into the third amendment to our existing credit facility, which reduced the revolver commitment to $375,000,000 with an additional step down to $350,000,000 on the first day of the third quarter of twenty twenty one. Financial covenants are waived through the first quarter of twenty twenty one, followed by the introduction of more favorable covenant levels in the second and third quarters of twenty twenty one. Under the amendment, we are prohibited from paying dividends, making stock repurchases and other general investments until we deliver our twenty twenty one third quarter results.
Therefore, we intend to deploy cash towards paying down our revolver as we continue to enhance our overall liquidity position. Additionally, capital expenditures will be restricted through the third quarter of twenty twenty one. Finally, I want to mention how proud I am of how our field leadership and home office teams have remained focused on serving our guests while also managing business costs to support Benny's recovery through the challenges of the COVID-nineteen pandemic. In doing so, we have and will continue to leverage the strength of our asset light business model and fortified balance sheet to ensure the success of our dedicated franchisees and this brand. That wraps up our prepared remarks.
I will now turn the call over to the operator to begin the Q and A portion of our call.
Speaker 0
Thank We'll take our first question from Nick Setyan with Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.
Speaker 5
I think I heard a remark that in February, units that have both dining room open and are open twenty four hours, those units were down 6%. Did I hear you that correctly?
Speaker 4
Nick. This is Robert. Yes, you did hear that. That was for the first couple of fiscal weeks of February. So we continue to make progress on our same store sales results and are really encouraged by the fact that when we're twenty four hours with the ability to serve guests in the restaurant, we are really making some headway.
So yes, they were those restaurants were down six percent. You did hear correctly.
Speaker 5
And is there any way to maybe break down like the weekend comp versus the weekday comp? Is it possible that maybe the weekdays are already flat, maybe even positive, it's mostly the weekend, the capacity constraints that are leading to the down 6%?
Speaker 4
So we're kind of looking at the data we have available to us right now, Nick. That may be one that we have to take offline with with Kayla and Kurt. Frankly, I I I don't know if we we have any insight to what you're saying. But, again, down six in the twenty four seven sign ins are are really positive. Really, the and we broke this out in our results.
It's in the investor deck on Slide 13. If you look at that, we broke out the ones that have twenty four hour operations. I think the key is really pushing forward on that nine twenty six that are more limited right now, as opposed to the weekend versus weekday. I think there's a large benefit to getting those restaurants opened. And we have been working with our Denny's Franchise Association board, and they are fully supportive of the movement towards twenty four seven operations.
And we have developed in the process of developing those flowcharts that kind of that if then kind of logic that says, if you're in a state that has this level of capacity, then we want you to move to twenty four hours over this time frame. So that's really one of the key focuses as we move forward here.
Speaker 5
Understood. I mean, that's pretty amazing, and that's where they are, those stores. Regarding the virtual brands, obviously, the dinner and the non breakfast dayparts have been something that you've been trying to tackle for a long time. And it does seem like this could potentially be a pretty wonderful solution to the capacity availability during those dayparts. Any early indication in terms of what the average weekly sales contribution could be from those brands?
Speaker 2
Nick, this is John. We've not given any indication yet and are not ready to guide. I would just say that the transactions were incremental and therefore sort of reached the threshold that it made sense to expand the test and then beyond the test to a rollout on a sign up basis. So as we said in January and then again affirming on today's call that we'll that about 1,000 restaurants have signed up for the Burger Den and a similar number for to roll out over the next two or three quarters for I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was about half the system.
I'll have to check the script. A significant number have signed up with the enthusiasm to get it going. Where it grows, when you have the system behind it and more time and support, that will be a different matter. There's probably seen enough on a modest test to continue to roll it.
Speaker 6
I know there's a of Yes. Things
Speaker 5
ahead. I'm Just a follow-up on that. I mean, what kind of support over time for those brands do you envision? Guess maybe the answer is that it's too early to know exactly where that evolves. Sure.
I
Speaker 2
think if you look at what's happened with the handful of brands that have done that have been talking about this more regularly, they have social media channels and different channels that support this more deliberately rather than just through search through DoorDash or Uber Eats. So I think there's a difference between a launch platform where you discover them and something a little more deliberate in support when you have enough scale.
Speaker 5
Understood. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4
Thanks, Nick.
Speaker 0
Thank you. We'll move on to our next question from Michael Thomas with Oppenheimer.
Speaker 7
Hey, thanks. Hope everyone is doing well. Just seems like you guys have a lot of sales catalysts in front of you from opening up at late night to the virtual brands and the menu changes you've talked about. So can you maybe rank order bucket how you think the impact of these will be felt going forward? I mean just from the outside, seems easier to sort of flip the switch on the virtual brands versus trying to convince 70 ish percent of your franchisees to open at late nights.
Just can you maybe talk about how you think those sort of play out?
Speaker 2
Sure. Think, Peter, we're a brand that's been around for sixty eight years. We've built tremendous equity in late night. We've been talking in the last year and a half since we've had post sort of scale of our heritage remodel program to continue work on four day parts as an all day diner and are just now wondering into sort of the middle innings on building dinner and late night brand equities beyond just breakfast all day equities. So so the the desire for the brand, for our whole brand, our franchisees to get to continue with our dinner and late night efforts, you know, is is a, you know, a a desire because of the pandemic and what it's done to limiting hours.
So a lot of the a lot of the so I'd say our priority in order would be expanding the hours. Remember, the it's part of our brand tradition, we don't want to lose. It's a long historically built up equity we don't want to lose. And we have play parts based on family needs and flexibility required for their livelihood. Getting those folks back to work, getting those sales back in our system is a priority for us.
Remember, even on the virtual brands, when other are open late night with those virtual brands to be able to provide service, that's proven to be a benefit for us, a unique benefit for us in particular as well. And then I'd say, you know, the point that a lot of those limitations are based on jurisdictional restriction, not necessarily franchisees' desire to open. So restaffing is a component of it, but a bigger component, I think, is just the permission to do So those will come in time. And then I think right behind that would be because the high profitability of dine in sales is to build all four dayparts dine in, but we don't want have the high teens, low-twenty margin of third party delivery to go or in the high incrementality of it, the average and down the age of our brand. Just in the last from April till now, we've got about 40% of these To Go transactions up through age 45.
And it'd be the inverse of that for dine in where about 40% would be up through age 45 and then doomers and seniors would represent. So so these are beneficial for trial for our brand. And so, you know, holding on to that share while also building dine in would be the next priority. And then, of course, virtual, we think, can be a key component to fill in those day parts for our brand.
Speaker 7
Awesome. Just a quick follow-up on that and another question. Is there any sort of incentive program to get franchisees to open for late night? I think, like you guys were running during the fourth quarter? And then the real question is, you talked about for a little while now the pulled forward unit closures from future years.
So does that mean that maybe as we get through 'twenty one into '2 and beyond that there may be some below average closure years? Or how does that sort of play out here? Michael,
Speaker 4
it's Robert. I'll take the first piece of that with regard to the twenty fourseven. You are correct. We did have an incentive in the fourth quarter. And we did improve the number of units that were open and operating in the fourth quarter by about 10% with that incentive.
Currently, as we have moved into Q1, we have not reimplemented that incentive. In fact, our chosen path from this point now has been working directly with our Families Franchise Association leadership to get their support. And we will be and have already begun working our DMA meetings, designated marketing area meetings with various franchisees to move in that direction. As restaurant dining rooms continue to open up, there is more and more appetite to get to 20 fourseven. So we will work through that.
And I do believe that we will be successful with regard to that as we move forward, particularly, again, restrictions, curfews, dining rooms could get back open, we have a high sense that we will get back to that. And it really is with what John really an extension of what John just said. It's our heritage and we will get back to that.
Speaker 3
Michael, it's Mark. So I'll take the second part of your question here. And I think it's a real good one. It really speaks to, I think, the other side of the pandemic. And just a couple of fact set points here.
One is our closing number mentioned in my comments, 67,000,000 of those were franchise restaurants with AUVs or average unit volumes of $1,000,000 or less versus $1.7 average unit volume. So again, those are 2019 type comparables because obviously 2020 has the impact of the pandemic. So sixty seven of the 73 closures were basically low volume stores. And just as a reminder to everybody on the phone, if you go back and look at the last five to ten years, we've been averaging about half that number in closures, call it mid-thirty range. So basically, our closure number had doubled in the current year, obviously, because of the pandemic.
We do believe that this obviously was a pull forward of closures in the future because of the low volume aspects of that. And again, when I look at the other side of this, which is the opening equation, as we I think all three of us mentioned in our comments today, we believe there's a Thrive opportunity on this other side of this pandemic. I mentioned the fact that we continue to see a great deal of seats leaving the marketplace in full serve. A large portion of full serve dining in The U. S.
Is independent players. And again, we don't relish or celebrate that situation. That clearly creates an opportunity on the opening side, especially in the domestic business. So again, we're going to drive the opening number as we go forward. And the closure number, again, as I mentioned, we believe that probably was a pull forward, especially when you look at 67,000,000 to 73,000,000 with those low volume numbers of $1,000,000 or less in average unit volume.
Speaker 0
We'll take our next question from Jake Bartlett with Tru Securities.
Speaker 8
My first was about off premise mix and the off premise average weekly sales that you mentioned. I think sometimes we look to Florida to see what the future might look like with much less restrictions, people getting back to sort of normal a little bit in terms of the behavior. But I'm curious in stores in Florida or maybe others that have less restrictions, how have the off premise sales held up? And know that 8,000 is kind of an average. So if you can kind of break it down to stores that are kind of have less restrictions and has that does that remain elevated still in those types of markets?
Speaker 2
This is John. You may want to take that one offline too. I have sort of the brand wide data and I can sort of tell you February to February how it's moved and we dine in was 88 percent February, year to 66% now. Pickup's gone from seven to 18%, third party from 4% to 14% and so forth. And I can give you that information on the year.
I don't have at my fingertips the markets that have been like at 75% capacity. So that might be a question we have to address in future release. That's a great question.
Speaker 4
Jake, this is Robert. Just a quick add on to that. We really haven't broken that out specifically the way you looked at it. But one of the things that I think to pay attention to is with our comp, and we quoted within my script how California impacted the entire quarter. I think it was five points on the entire quarter.
So that would mean other states such as the Texases and Florida where there are less restrictions are performing much better. And even within that, we have still maintained this nearly doubling of the off prem sales. So while we haven't specifically said what Florida's off prem is and with their less restrictions, it's safe to say that without a higher level of what where they were in prior years, we wouldn't be able to maintain that doubling. So I I hope you get kind of get that the loose correlation there.
Speaker 2
That that that makes sense. You you know,
Speaker 8
what I'm really trying to get is your level of confidence that the off premise sales will remain elevated even as diners come back into the store.
Speaker 2
I would say elevated is a good word. This is John again. But I think, again, to predict precisely what happens and how people work, how they office, their use of third party and their desire to get out, all those things are predicted to be dynamic changes. So I'd say that we've come short. We'll maintain a good portion of this, but the percents are going to move around as restrictions continue to lift.
Speaker 8
Got it. Got it. And then I had a question about unit growth in 2021. I know you're not giving any specific guidance, but I think you talked recently about, I think it was 50 to 75 stores that are in that kind of million to below AUVs and that would more kind of potentials for closings. I think you called it a guardrail for closures.
Does that remain true? And has that changed with the latest round of PPP? So I'm just trying to understand whether you expect elevated closures to stay around for the next couple of quarters? Or has the PPP changed things?
Speaker 3
Jake, it's Mark. That's a great question, a very broad one. So I'll try to sort of take it apart a little bit and maybe John and Robert will jump in here as well if I missed something. So I think back again on the annual number, we had 73 closures, 67 of those were low volume, dollars 1,000,000 or less in AUV. We did mention in one of our previous calls, I think it was in the third quarter call, the fact that I think it was in Robert's script actually, Robert mentioned that before we had the question, we had identified somewhere between fifty and seventy five more lower volume stores.
And so obviously, some of those closed during the fourth quarter to take our total number up to 67 closures on the low volume side, 73 in total, 67 low volume. I think the other part of your question was around PPP and really the second round of PPP, which obviously we're in the early stages of the application process. Again, we're supporting our franchise system and are optimistic about the PPP funding. I think I would stick probably with that 50,000,000 to 75,000,000 range that Robert provided and knowing that we also closed some during the fourth quarter as well. Again, an average unit volume of $1,000,000 is not universal as far as the profitability of that location, depending upon where you are in the country.
So obviously, the higher operating environments like the West Coast, average unit volumes, obviously, the expectation out there is stronger, the cost of real estate, the cost of labor, etcetera. But in other parts of the country, a lower volume store below the chain average, and again our franchise system average is 1,700,000 those stores actually may be profitable in different parts of the country. So it's tough to provide a universal response. But again, I go back to Robert's comments in third quarter that was 50 to 75 more lower volume stores. That was a U.
S. Number, by the way. We obviously closed several more during the fourth quarter. That took our number to 67 closures, low volume side. And so that number, that 50 to 75 range sort of sticks with some kind of adjustment obviously to the fourth quarter closure.
So that's a long winded response, but certainly happy for a follow-up question, Jake,
Speaker 8
if you haven't. Great. No, that's very helpful. And then really the last question is on the virtual brands. You've mentioned that 50% are going with one concept, 50% are going with the other.
Is there overlap between those two? I'm just trying to figure out whether given the franchisees a choice of one or the other or if not, what went into the decisions? Is it more of a regional separation? Or how did you become a how is it that 50% of the franchisees are kind taking on each of
Speaker 2
those two brands? That's a great question. This is John again. So widespread interest, it falls along the typical lines. Have franchisees that are hungry for transactions.
The trial like to be at the front end of test and change. And they would be the type of franchisees that would do both brands. And we have others that just for complication reasons or staffing level questions, might want to just do one of the two and not both. And and so it it get a mixed bag across the whole system of of how this is being adopted. And then you have those that say, let's let everybody else go first and figure out all the challenges of training and inventory, and then they wanna sort of jump in after things have been perfected a little bit.
So that tends to be our style of of rolling things out that wouldn't be seen as a brand mandate. It's not straight line Demi's related. It's a benefit to help build transactions, incremental transactions for our system. So we've been pleased with the enthusiasm about it. The system asked the same kinds of questions of how things are going in the test stores.
And again, there's a fair level of interest in sign up in the early going.
Speaker 8
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Todd Brooks with CL King and Associates.
Speaker 6
Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Hope everybody is well.
Speaker 4
Hey, Todd. Just a
Speaker 6
follow-up Hey, everybody.
Speaker 4
Just a follow-up to that last question.
Speaker 6
How unusual is it? And I know you haven't shared results with the virtual brand test, but with new initiatives in the past, how unusual is this the strength of this response from the franchisees where you see half the base willing to move forward fairly quickly with both of the brands?
Speaker 2
Right. Well, is very unusual because it's a virtual brand. There'd be no part in our history. Well, frankly, there's not a real strong precedent in industry history to do ghost virtual or host kitchens. I'd say that's a fairly new phenomenon that's been born.
Some people see it as a race if they have scaled brands with distribution across lots of states to get something in there to grab the space or the page in DoorDash and others see it as a distraction. There are some types of things that if you go first and dig, you can grab a lot of share. But we don't think that the results couple of prominent announced brands will be with similar results for all virtual kitchens. We think that's there are some extraordinary standouts and the people use that as the benchmark. They might be disappointed that there's been some extraordinary launches.
But we do still think it has a place when you have capacity and family dining Sunday through Thursday after five and late night capacity and can build virtual brands with a small number of SKUs in the wheelhouse of your cook's capacity. So in our case, we're particularly good at the grill. We have large, oftentimes, double wide grills in our restaurant. Cooks don't have to run down to the fryer very often for these options other than to put some french fries or onion rings in the orders. It's an opportunity for us to sell shakes, and it's also an opportunity ultimately to build brand equity by, how things are revealed or discovered through time or to add some of the favorite items into the core menu at Denny.
So it has a positive benefit to scaled brands, and we think it's good to be in this game and participate. So there isn't really a benchmark. It's a great question. I would say when it comes to enthusiasm, it's very similar to the norm of who wants to be at the front end of anything complicated, buttermilk pancakes when it used to be sort of a box and add water versus something more complex, larger pancake, different spatula size, different grill capacity and how much room we took up. And all those things are quite complicated and different when we first rolled it out a few years ago.
And there are those early adopters who said, can't wait to get it. And others said, let me wait till the end. So I'd say it's a similar response to that, the kind of things that are just changing in organization. But again, this one's it's just an unprecedented day in industry history.
Speaker 6
That's helpful. Thanks, John. And then, John,
Speaker 1
you talked earlier about
Speaker 4
kind of
Speaker 6
a reopening flowchart in the twenty fourseven operating model. And I guess it may be helpful, I mean, people look at those nine twenty six units that are still in the limited model. Is there a way to parse that between operators that would be allowed to open or choosing not to do it now because of staffing reasons versus how much of that bucket just would be unable to open or it wouldn't make sense to open given current restrictions? Yes. I would say very little of
Speaker 2
this is due to a franchisee digging in their heels and say, I just don't want to do it right now. I think most of this has to do with legitimate restrictions and the process of sort of marching back toward opening and lifts so that the staffing and the logical progression of building up the talent and the capacity would follow suit. And so I think, therefore, this is going to happen in a fairly material way as the year and these restrictions unfold. We're waiting for the colors to change basically in each jurisdiction.
Speaker 6
Which makes sense why there wouldn't be an incentive program as of now then if it is truly capacity constrained. And then final sorry, go ahead, Jon.
Speaker 4
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2
Well, I was just going to add one point that Robert made earlier about how in his script how the similar results and also in mind to early going in this year compared to October, November. Remember that in California, as things had lifted before, you had the summer to build up dining rooms on the parking lot. And then with the recent change, you're in the middle of winter. So even though even though the lifts have occurred very, very recently in California, it's still takeout only, but the ability to resurrect staff for dining rooms, I would say that that's still late and still coming. So we've had really strong similar results in spite of the fact that there aren't as many dining rooms on the parking lot reopened as of yet.
So it's a positive sign about how you look at it.
Speaker 6
Great. That's helpful. And then my final question is it goes back to what Jake was asking about with incremental off premise revenues. Trying to think about it a different way. If we look at components of off premise and if we talk to curb curbside and how customers have embraced that because I think that may you may get extra visitation because you're almost creating a drive thru like experience that drives frequency.
And then if we could talk about your views on outdoor as an incremental source of sustainable off premise revenues as dining rooms reopen. I'm just out of the 4,000 incremental, I think there's some type of these new initiatives that would be stickier than third party delivery for dine in transaction.
Speaker 2
I think that's pretty easy to look back in history. You'll see family dining, breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night and how that breaks out. Breakfast and lunch sort of makes up the bigger component versus dinner and late night. Dinner and late night is when people want to use a patio or maybe early in the morning in temperate places, California, Arizona in the spring and fall.
Speaker 4
But on the whole,
Speaker 2
dining on the patio, I'd say, is sort of not a major long term initiative for us. It's to get through the pandemic. Car hop curbside service, the main point is if I'm coming to pick up and I'm not using delivery today, don't make me get out of my car. So different parking lots will have different configurations. And so whether it's, curbside delivery, car hop, order from the parking lot, maybe I ordered on the way here through my app, god forbid, while driving, and sort of we'll park somebody and make sure we can text and get them food.
But the point of it is all of those different types of delivery systems vary by store, but we believe those are sort of permanent installations for contactless, safe, secure, sanitary and good packaging that holds food a long time for a better dining experience. All those things we think are permanent installations for full service and frankly for quick serve and fast casual.
Speaker 4
Thank you.
Speaker 0
Thank you. We'll hear next from James Rutherford with Stephens Inc.
Speaker 3
Hey, thanks for getting me in here. Just a few quick questions, kind of some of the questions have been asked already. I was curious on the temporary closures. At the December, 31 units were temporarily closed, and then that ticked up just a little bit in January and February. I'm curious what drove that given kind of from what I have seen it, it looked like maybe there were a few incrementally fewer restrictions in those months.
Just curious on that front. And then a couple of other follow ups, please.
Speaker 4
James, this is Robert. Yes, we have seen a few tick ups with regard to that. If you recall some of the latest data with California, they have just recently begun lifting those restrictions with regard to their dining. And candidly, they're not back in any material way to on prem dining. I believe we have maybe one unit that is open to on prem dining.
So I think it's just the aggregation of the effects predominantly in those states where there hasn't been that on prem dining. I don't think that, that is an indicator of the closures. I do think it's more along the lines of what Mark spoke to earlier, the lower volume units and how the fifteen seventy five units in that $1,000,000 or less adjusted for what happened in Q4, how they react going forward. So I don't think that's really an indicator of closures just moreover a prolonged impact of just really being tightened down with some pretty significant restrictions.
Speaker 3
Got it. That's helpful. And then I just had two numbers related questions. If I got my math right, the royalty rate in the quarter was around 3.8%. Was that some sort of incentives?
Because a little bit below into 4.1% Just kind of how to think about that going forward. And then G and A was $20,500,000 up a little bit sequentially year over year. I know there's a lot of key components to that. So just any help you can provide on G and A and in the royalty rate going forward?
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4
James, it's Robert again. With regard to that royalty rate, you are correct that was in that 3.8 range. One of the things that I think we note with regard there was the idea that with our third party delivery, the fees associated with the third party delivery, we do not charge royalty on those, although they do come in through the top line. So again, that is a concession that's not a permanent concession that we have made to our franchisees, but one that is in existence currently. And it really has helped support really the doubling of our off prem business over that time frame.
So that really is probably the largest piece to help you reconcile the royalty rate that we would have, typically that four plus. As you would see stated, as we move the march from four to 4.5, that impact is on those not charging royalty on those third party fees. Remind me, pardon me, on the G and A question?
Speaker 3
Yes. No problem. It was just the G and A was, I think, dollars 20,500,000.0 or so this quarter, so the touch up kind of year over year and sequentially. I'm just curious kind of what the run rate to go on the go forward G and A is, please?
Speaker 4
Yes. So that's an excellent question, James, and I'm happy to answer that. I think that in large part, what you're seeing in Q4 is just really some variability on the incentive compensation on how it was recorded over the year, particularly in that stock based compensation. If you go back and look at the early on quarters, we reversed off a bunch of stock based compensation. The Board then came back and modified a couple of those plans.
There's eight Ks out there that would point to those modifications that then required us to book some of that back up in the back half of the year, particularly into Q4. So when you look at it on an annual basis, it makes more sense than if you do on a quarterly basis. If you look at one of the lines that I called specifically, however, was in that what we're calling the corporate administrative expenses internally, we call that core G and A. That is down quarter over quarter and year over year pretty significantly. Kayla Money, who works on Kurt's team, actually included a really nice chart on Page 33 in the investor deck that really kind of breaks out the flow of G and A.
And when you look at it, that core G and A is down significantly. And really a couple of pieces on that slide, we call out how we progress through the savings that we indicated from our refranchising and development strategy of late twenty eighteen into 2019 and some of the more and the impacts of what we have done through COVID. So I think that really the volatility exists in some of those incentive compensation lines. But the reality is that core, the core G and A piece, the salaries, the T and E and the such is down and will continue to be down when you look at that chart.
Speaker 3
Very helpful. Thanks and congrats on the progress you all are seeing.
Speaker 4
Thanks, teams. Appreciate it.
Speaker 0
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Jon Power from Wells Fargo.
Speaker 3
Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Appreciate it. Most of them have been answered, but just kind of following up to some earlier ones on the domestic development commitments. Can you maybe tie a timeframe for those 75 that were affiliated with the refranchising commitments really in 2019.
Should we think about those opening over the next three years, over the next, I don't know, ten years? I'm just curious to kind of get an idea behind that. Yes, John, that's a great question. It's Mark. And I'll address your comments there.
On the development agreements, we said we've got north of 75 domestic development agreements. Again, you're absolutely right, that came out of the refranchising strategy in 2018 and 2019. Normally, the way those development agreements work is the first store on, let's say, multiunit development agreement, the first store probably opens eighteen months eighteen to twenty four months out after the transaction closes. So I'll get to some specific answers on your question. One of the things that we've done is we've extended timeframes for both remodel commitments and new store development commitments.
So that again, that was part of our working very closely with our franchise community to be very empathetic with everything that they're going through from a capital cost standpoint. On the development agreements themselves, they were extended by a year. To specifically answer your question, a significant portion of those new store development agreements really kick in, I would say, '22 and beyond, and actually a lot of them kick in 2023 and 2024 time frame. And I think probably in a follow-up call with Kurt and Caleb, probably give you a little bit more specifics, but that gives you the flavor of those agreements. Okay.
Thank you. And then thinking about the remodels themselves, obviously that's been delayed a little bit as you just hit on. But because of COVID and everything that's taken place, how has the plans on the actual remodels themselves, have they been tweaked a little bit to address perhaps even just a greater off premise mix, maybe easier ingress, egress for customers? Obviously, you've now rolled out curbside. But has the remodeled prototype changed and or the cost behind those changed because of what we've seen in the past, I guess, twelve months now?
Speaker 2
Yes. So that is a great question. As you can imagine, with the multiple versions of curbside, car hop service, drive thru test with actual windows, pickup windows or ordering windows, the equipment, headsets and all things required to test those. We've and then we enhanced to go stations at the pickup stations inside the restaurant for third party delivery companies ease and our servers ease. All those things have evolved over the last couple of years in how remodels have been done.
So each of those are sort of incorporated in along the way. So therefore, the latest prototype, if you're a new franchisee or a franchisee with one of these development agreements and said, What's the latest and greatest? We keep those plans fresh. We refresh those all the time. And there are local store options for a number of different approaches depending on the size of parking lot, ingress and egress.
In terms of additional costs, I'd say it's not a material change because it's been evolving Now if someone put in a fast food style drive thru, double lane and preview windows, that would be more expensive. But with an average seven or eight minute appetizer time and other than a well done steak, sort of eight or nine minute cook times in a full service restaurant, you're not going to try to put in a sixty second drive thru type operation. This would be more a pickup or a late night security thing and then you park off to the side late until we call you back up for your food being ready. So so the way it's applied in a full service application, you know, lends itself to our operation, our twenty four hour operation, with modest changes in cost and and modification.
So we do refresh those along the way. Let's see. I don't think I answered the full question there. I might have missed a piece. No, got most
Speaker 3
of it. It sounds like it's going to be a bit of a
Speaker 7
case by case basis in terms of
Speaker 3
what the franchisee wants to do with the individual location.
Speaker 2
And what their slot will allow them to do. So again, the remodel plans and the prototype plans evolve in real time as these initiatives unfold. Now as far as any texture change to the remodel, Heritage two point zero does address external and internal imagery and just refreshes the Heritage prototype. So that program, to Mark's point, has been delayed, but there is still enthusiasm for that version of the brand.
Speaker 3
Got it. And then just switching a little bit to the virtual brands. In terms of how this is going to be communicated to the consumer, will there be a brand affiliation to Denny's? So will it be the meltdown brought to you by Denny's? And the reason I ask that is thinking about if some of these options are very successful on virtual platforms, how quick can you bring it to your stores?
And will consumers then come to your stores if they know it's available there if there's no brand affiliation? I guess I'm curious to kind of think how you're handling all this.
Speaker 2
Yes. So some of these things like a grand slam, which appears as a melt and then also on our menu, they're identical now. The you just it's not overtly Denny's. But if you look at the fine print or it's not really fine print. If you look down at the bottom, if you're paying attention, it already claims brought to you by Denny's.
So the astute customer and once the trades sort of make their publications, I doubt there's anybody in that's ordering it's just wings that doesn't know it comes from Chili's by now. And I do believe this is becoming an expectation of the third party delivery companies that they expect you to reveal that so that they don't find themselves in hot water as well. So I think the transparency is a consumer expectation and we would be no different. We do expect to build some brand equities sort of on the back end of this as more of
Speaker 3
these things could find their way onto the core minion. Got it. And then just last one for me. And I know it's very early days, but the vaccine has been slowly rolling out. Are you seeing anything perhaps in some of the markets that have looser restrictions than, say, California,
Speaker 7
where you're seeing some of
Speaker 3
the older guests return to the stores certainly relative to what we've seen over the past several months? I guess it might
Speaker 7
be hard to see what they're
Speaker 3
doing online. But certainly, in store, are you seeing older folks come back?
Speaker 2
Think this is a little bit of a could never prove it. Each state or each jurisdiction, Austin has a personality, San Antonio has a personality, Miami Beach has got a different personality than Fort Lauderdale. Each township seems to behave in unison to some degree. This area is a little freer to go out. This area is a little more conservative and and afraid.
It doesn't it does have age associated with it where there's more conservative and less risk taking among seniors and boomers because of because of the natural risk associated to lungs and and and immune systems of of those of us that are older. But it does seem that that's, in very active states. You see that applied a little less conservatively. And then in places where the governor is especially concerned and the news about it is a little more conservative, then you see a little bit more conservative consumer behavior. So it's been interesting to watch how that gets applied a little differently.
I do believe that as the vaccines come out my mom's got a lung disease. She's 84 years old. We've been really protective around her. She's got the vaccine. She's ready to go right back to St.
Francis Hospital and start painting everybody's nails like she did every Monday the last twenty years there, and she's ready to go back, you know, and do all of her volunteering at church, she all of a sudden believes she's bulletproof. So I do believe that that attitude of that generation will prevail, and they're gonna to be out to eat before you know it.
Speaker 3
All right. Thank you and best of luck. I appreciate the time.
Speaker 0
Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Brett Levy with MKM Partners.
Speaker 7
Great, thanks. Appreciate you guys fitting me in. In the past, you've talked a little bit about qualitatively how your different dayparts have performed. If you care to share a little bit more color in terms of how the different daypart cohorts did, how you did weekdayweekend? And then I have a question on the franchise side.
Speaker 2
Sure. This is John. I will let Robert add some details I might not have. But if you look at the quarter and you look at the full year of 2020, it's not real different than 2019 or 2018. Our breakfast daypart is about 29.5%, call it, percent of sales for the quarter.
For the year, it's right at 29%. Lunch is 34.6% for the quarter. For the year, 35%. So they behave in a real similar way so far. Dinner is about 19.5% and late night about 16.5%.
So that makes up the daypart mix. And Robert, you might want to comment on the balance of that question.
Speaker 4
Yes, John. So when you look at it, Bret, and you look at the performance over the course of the year, and this is pretty consistent whether you're looking at the quarter of the year, we actually have had some pretty good performance on a relative basis into the dinner and late night dayparts. Daypart that's trailed pretty much in 2020 was that lunch daypart as people reactivated to the pandemic. But we were really kind of pleased, frankly, with how dinner and late night responded. In particular with late night, we were pleased as we captured more trials.
People that had that opportunity, other locations were closing early and had the opportunity to come see what we could do at late night, which involved many of those franchisees that we talked about getting back open twenty fourseven. The ones that did that really were somewhat rewarded for that. So I would say on balance, the dinner and late night dayparts were relatively outperformed the lunch daypart with breakfast kind of holding its own.
Speaker 7
And then just taking that a step further, you talked about the late night comp down 6% for those units able to go 20 fourseven. What did you see in terms of restaurant level margins for the different cohorts, whether it's the 75% plus capacity, the 25% capacity, those operating with the 20 fourseven? And then just one follow-up.
Speaker 4
Brett, it's Robert again. With regard to that, we really haven't broken that out. What I can tell you is if you think back to when we started talking about our refranchising strategy, taking you back two years now, we talked about getting to 18% to 19% restaurant level margins once we have right sized the portfolio getting down to this number of units. I can tell you that the complement that make up those margins now today are a little different, right? So we have doubled our off prem business.
And as such, we would have additional third party fees. We have additional packaging costs. So that will impact how we look at those 18% to 19% margins. But the reality is sales is the cure all here. So while we haven't given the specific number, as you get closer to flat sales to 2019, we'll be approaching those adjusted 18% to 19% levels that we get to.
That's really the driver here is getting the sales and leveraging those back up. Admittedly, they will be impacted by how much of that doubling of that off premise business that we keep.
Speaker 7
And then just one question. Conversations you've had with the franchise community, just a thought of how they might be thinking about it. They've obviously had they're getting assistance from PPP. They've gotten assistance from you. But now they're being asked to return to the normal 20 fourseven, introduce the virtual brands.
They'll have to layer on remodels in that and now there's also the looming specter of rising minimum wage. How are they feeling about all of this while still dealing with what could be just drinking from a fire hose in terms of sales recovery?
Speaker 2
Well, I think in general, if you're in the hospitality business, you have the rhythm of remodels, development, wage and commodity discussions on a regular basis. So I think that people are tempered for this, to say drinking from a hot fire hose when you're adding on virtual brands, third party delivery changes in technology, a new remodel scheme. We've been amazed at how scrappy our system has been sort of adopting these things in real time. I think what goes a long way is the level of communication we have with weekly steering calls with our Denny's Franchisee Association leaders of each of our Brand Advisory Councils and then monthly calls with our leadership team with the full Denny's Franchisee Association Board and then very active Brand Advisory Councils for marketing supply chain that are on weekly calls for just all things related to marketing, operations, rollouts, training schemes. And I think that commitment to really good communication helps temper what feels like a heightened level of activity and recovery going on in the system.
We've also delayed remodels and development dates, which I think gives people a form of relief and understanding. And then because different parts of the country have different experiences with PIP credits and wage inflation, We also have a lot of restaurants that have gone through, but the rest of the country is now considering. So I'd say our ability to talk about these things on a regular basis has helped temper that feeling of it being a fire hose. Hopefully, that helps. I don't know, Robert or Mark, if you want to add anything.
Speaker 4
John. This is Robert. Just to add on with regard to I think minimum wage was mentioned within that question from Brett. I would tell you that we I'll let John speak on Denny's philosophy towards minimum wage. But just practically from a number standpoint, I think the best representation of the financials related to minimum wage comes out of California.
If you think about as they've increased their minimum wage kind of in a tempered pace over that timeframe, if you look at that timeframe from us, California outperformed the system. And during over that time frame, they had six consecutive years of positive guest traffic, not just positive sales, but positive guest traffic as the minimum wage was going up. But it was a very tempered way, still going on, putting money into the pockets of our consumers to spend back with us. So we actually have seen benefit of minimum wage in a tempered way. I will correlate that to what happened in Arizona with the November where they had their minimum wage increased 25% overnight across the entire spectrum of our hourly labor pool, And that was much more difficult to deal with, to capture to cover a 25% minimum wage increase even on a dollar basis, let alone a rate basis, required us to take 5% to 6% to 7% pricing.
And that's just so noticed by our consumer and thus have a traffic consequence. As I mentioned in California, when you're more moderated in those increases, we can cover that with 2% to 3% pricing and thus not as impactful to the consumer. So we again, I'll pass it over to John to talk philosophically about minimum wage, but we have seen it within our system in a way that can be beneficial.
Speaker 2
And philosophically, all I'd say is that we're a brand that supports the notion that there's going to be a breadwinner in every family that ought to be able to make a living wage. At the same time, we believe that our industry, restaurants and retail are unique, but also supports the need to have a starting wage. And those sometimes politically deal at odds with each other. And rather than being a political lightning rod, we just are advocates for small business and good sound policy. And we always appreciate it when leadership in a state level, governor level or Congress, Senate will give us a listening ear to understand our industry, whether it be tips or wage or the pace of wage inflation.
So we want to be a sounding board for reason.
Speaker 0
And that does conclude today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to management for any additional or closing remarks.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Cody. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us on today's call. We look forward to our next earnings conference call in early May, and we will discuss our first quarter twenty twenty one results. Thank you all and have a great evening.
Speaker 0
Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.