Red Robin Gourmet Burgers - Earnings Call - Q4 2020

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Incorporated Fourth Quarter twenty twenty Earnings Call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. During today's conference call, management will be making forward looking statements about the company's business outlook and expectations. These forward looking statements and all other statements that are not historical facts reflect management's beliefs and predictions as of today and therefore are subject to risks and uncertainties as described in the Safe Harbor discussion found in the company's SEC filings. During today's conference call, management will also discuss non GAAP financial measures.

These non GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles but are intended to illustrate an alternative measure of the company's operating performance that may be useful. Reconciliation of the non GAAP financial measures to the most direct comparable GAAP measures can be found in the earnings release. The company has posted its fiscal fourth quarter twenty twenty earnings release and supplemental financial information related to the results on its website at www.redrobin.com in the Investor Relations section. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Red Robin's CEO, Paul Murphy.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. With me is Lynn Schweinfurt, our Chief Financial Officer, who will review our quarterly results after my prepared remarks. I would like to begin by providing a high level summary of where Red Robin is today and how our accomplishments in 2020 give us strong confidence in the future of our brand. 2020 was an unprecedented year. And while the pandemic brought forth complex challenges, it enabled us to intensely focus on improving our operating and financial model.

The material improvements we made to our business will enable us to resume our transformation strategy in an even stronger position and deliver our brand promise, recapture the soul of Red Robin, effectively tell our story and accelerate profitable growth. Part of our transformation strategy to deliver our brand promise included improving our guest service model. The pandemic created an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of our total guest experience or TGX hospitality model as dining rooms reopened. TGX combines technology and improved service coverage to deliver an elevated and more attentive guest experience, enabling our servers to stay in their section the majority of the time, improving our speed of service, including decreased ticket and window wait times and improving cleanliness scores. We also restructured our management labor model to provide increased flexibility and better supervisory coverage during peak times.

This new model is beneficial for both our guests and our team members as it supports our TGX hospitality model while also creating a structured and clear career path for team members. The flexibility of moving two salary manager positions to one to three hourly shift supervisors also allows us to convert historically fixed labor costs and generate annual savings of approximately $14,000,000 Both the TGX service model and our new management labor model are contributing to our highest ever guest satisfaction scores. The pandemic also allowed us to focus on improving our enterprise business model with meaningful operational efficiencies and permanent cost reductions. We simplified our menu, which reduced over one third of our offerings and enhanced operations, resulting in over $2,000,000 of annual savings in terms of back of the house labor and reduced waste. We made significant improvements to off premise execution, including process and technology enhancements and implementing a triple check accuracy program, ensuring every order goes through three checks before being handed to the guest.

Our improvements resulted in a 40% increase in order accuracy and a 50% increase in overall off premise guest satisfaction scores, even as off premise sales more than doubled compared to the prior year. We also reset our corporate infrastructure and made it more flexible through a 10% plus reduction in general and administrative expenses or approximately $10,000,000 in permanent annual savings prior to future growth drivers and other inflationary costs. Finally, we optimized our portfolio as we near completion of our lease negotiations. Through February, we had completed negotiations for more than 85% of company owned restaurants with 3% to 4% in occupancy savings expected over remaining lease terms as compared to 2019. Our improved cost structure should create over 100 basis points of incremental enterprise margin improvement as the company returns to pre COVID sales volumes.

Red Robin offers a differentiated proposition. We know who our guest is and what they expect of us. At Red Robin, we not only serve gourmet burgers and mainstream favorites like shareable pizza, wings, milkshakes, and beer better than anyone else, but our playful, fun atmosphere is an ideal setting for families and friends to connect with one another around the table. The Red Robin guest is representative of a robust, diverse, and multigenerational demographic. And our focused attention is on Gen X, millennials and centennials, which together represent approximately two thirds of sales.

Our core guest is generally younger than that of the casual dining category and more active in the digital space, allowing us to further leverage digital marketing strategies that are more effective and less expensive. This transition has resonated with our guests as we drove a record number of guests to our website. Our social media efforts delivered as well with increased engagement and a new high in total followers. Further, we achieved our best ever loyalty email engagement with our over 9,000,000 royalty members through enhancements to our loyalty segmentation and targeted messaging. Now as we look ahead, our intention is to build on these achievements and create long term value for all shareholders as we prepare for what we believe will be a strong casual dining recovery and a bright future for Red Robin in particular.

As of February 28, we have reopened dining rooms and 126 restaurants since the end of our fourth fiscal quarter and now have 87% of our currently open company owned dining rooms reopened. We are very encouraged by our recent sales trajectory. Comparable restaurant revenues for our restaurants with open indoor dining rooms were down approximately nine percent last week with system indoor seating capacity of approximately 45% at restaurants with open indoor dining rooms. The combination of the recovery of our core Western Market restaurants, which represented almost 40% of our 2019 sales, pent up demand for full service dining, higher average guest check with increasing on premise dining and industry restaurant closures will continue to create significant growth opportunities for the brand throughout 2021. Additionally, our outdoor seating capacity expansions of approximately 16 to 24 incremental seats at restaurants where jurisdictions and weather allow represent approximately 10% in incremental seating capacity on average.

As we adapt to a post COVID operating environment within the full service dining space, we are preparing our team members with a prescriptive ready, set, reopen training playbook, addressing short, medium and long term actions required to continue building satisfaction with our guests and guiding best practices for resuming the operation of our indoor dining rooms at 100% capacity while retaining higher off premise and outdoor dining sales. We believe pent up demand, coupled with our record high guest satisfaction scores reflective of a vastly improved Red Robin experience positions us well to welcome our guests back to our restaurants with increased frequency. Turning to Donatos. With Donatos' performance during the pandemic, our conviction has strengthened that it represents a substantial catalyst for growth. We believe Donatos will generate annual company pizza sales of more than $60,000,000 and profitability of more than $25,000,000 by 2023 when we have completed our rollout to approximately 400 company owned locations.

In 2021, we are planning to add Donatos to approximately 120 restaurants, bringing the total number of company restaurants that offer Donatos to approximately 200 by the end of the year. Donatos provide significant growth opportunities beyond the addition of new restaurants, including an opportunity for growth in catering as we expand this category post pandemic. Our off premise model has been a tremendous growth driver for Red Robin, and we expect to retain a higher portion of off premise sales than our approximately 14% pre pandemic mix, while also improving margin within the channel. In restaurants that are operating over 50% capacity, we have sustained off premise sales of more than twice pre pandemic levels. In 2021, we are introducing new third party delivery partners and continuing to improve our technology platforms through website enhancements and a new Red Robin mobile app.

These initiatives use cost effective channels to engage on a direct and personalized level with our guests, streamline ordering and improve operational execution, drive higher order conversion and increase guest frequency and royalty participation, ultimately enabling us to increase sales. To sum it up, we achieved a great deal amid the pandemic, including strengthening operations, improving guest satisfaction, fortifying our business model and strengthening our balance sheet. These accomplishments coupled with the aforementioned growth drivers and favorable guest demographics bode well for Red Robin as our industry moves closer to an eventual recovery. As vaccinations are being rolled out nationwide, we are preparing our teams for a post pandemic operating environment, including staffing and training and are confident we have the foundation in place to create and grow long term value for our shareholders when we can truly capitalize on pent up demand for a Red Robin occasion. I will now turn the call over to Lynn to review the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Paul. I share Paul's confidence that our brand is strategically positioned for consistent, meaningful growth as we move beyond this pandemic. Let me begin my opening comments with a summary of fourth quarter performance, liquidity and 2021 accomplishments. We experienced a 29% decline in fourth quarter system wide comparable restaurant revenue, primarily driven by restrictions on dining room capacities in some of our key states, including California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. Additionally, restaurants which are offered Donatos in the fourth quarter outperformed non Donatos restaurants with similar indoor dining restrictions by over 500 basis points, partially offsetting the decline in net comparable restaurant revenue.

We are maintaining strong off premise sales comprising 43.9% of total food and beverage sales. Approximately 80% of our off premise orders were driven through digital channels. In both regions that have had dining rooms reopened for prolonged periods and regions that have been subject to multiple indoor dining room closures, we are seeing off premise mix sustain at over two times pre pandemic levels. We believe guests have adapted to off premise occasions more than before and that off premise mix will stabilize at a higher level as we return to post pandemic sales level. We ended the quarter with liquidity of approximately $128,000,000 including approximately $16,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents and available borrowing capacity under our revolving line of credit.

Given the prolonged impact of the pandemic beyond what was previously anticipated last spring during the first quarter of twenty twenty one, we entered into a second amendment to our credit agreement. The second amendment provides increased near term flexibility as we continue to delever our balance sheet and strategically position the brand for 2021 and beyond. As of the end of the second fiscal period ended 02/21/2021, our liquidity was 122,000,000, including the impact of a onetime cash payment of $8,500,000 paid during the 2021 related to a legal settlement. Excluding the impact of this onetime legal settlement payment, we had positive cash flow in the first eight weeks of fiscal twenty twenty one of approximately $2,500,000. As we confirmed last quarter, we received $49,400,000 in cash tax refunds inclusive of interest payments during q four as a result of the CARES Act net operating loss carryback provision, which we used to pay down our revolving line of credit and deleverage our balance sheet.

Additionally, we are taking advantage of the tax benefits and deferrals as allowed by the CARES Act. More specifically, we are deferring approximately $18,000,000 in payroll taxes to be paid back in early fiscal twenty twenty two and 2023. And we currently expect to generate additional cash tax refunds of approximately $16,000,000 in 2021 from net operating loss carrybacks. During the fourth quarter, we continued to diligently engage with our landlords to restructure our leases, as Paul mentioned previously. We appreciate the long term strategic partnerships we have had with our landlords, and we are close to concluding our ongoing discussions related to our remaining leases.

Due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic, the company undertook several measures to preserve liquidity and reduce costs throughout 2020, including meaningful permanent reductions. We currently expect these permanent cost structure reductions will deliver over 100 basis points of enterprise margin improvement as restaurants return to pre COVID sales volume. Additionally, we are confident in the future of Red Robin as we continue to execute on our transformation strategy and initiatives Paul previously outlined, Prioritizing our strategic initiatives that deliver strong financial returns while maintaining our diligence on cost management and liquidity has positioned our brand for recovery and long term growth, especially as our Western markets continue to loosen indoor dining room restrictions. We intend to continue to effectively manage our bottom line and dedicate our free cash flow over the next several quarters to delevering our balance sheet while maintaining flexibility to pursue strategic growth initiatives. Now turning to some of the specifics related to the fiscal fourth quarter.

Q4 twenty twenty comparable restaurant revenues decreased 29% driven by a 28.8% decline in guest traffic and a 0.2% decrease in average check. Mix decreased by 2.9% driven by lower sales of beverages and finest burgers due to higher off premise sales and an additional 0.3% decrease from higher discounts, partially offset by an increase in overall pricing of 3%. Fourth quarter total company revenues decreased 33.6% to $201,100,000 down $101,900,000 from a year ago, driven by operating our restaurants at a reduced capacity in response to the COVID-nineteen pandemic and closed restaurants. Dine in sales were down 53.5%, partially offset by off premise sales growth. Our continued focus on our off premise service model allowed us to capture meaningful growth in the channel, which rose 131.8% in the fourth quarter, representing 43.9% of total food and beverage sales for the quarter.

This compares to pre pandemic off premise sales mix of approximately 14% in the fourth quarter of twenty nineteen. Restaurant level operating profit as a percentage of restaurant revenue was 6.2%, primarily due to sales deleverage, higher hourly wages and benefit costs, and costs driven by higher off premise sales, partially offset by pricing, favorable commodity costs, and lower janitorial and maintenance costs. General and administrative costs were $16,400,000, a decrease versus the prior year of $2,900,000, primarily driven by lower team member salaries and wages, lower travel and entertainment expenses, and lower professional service fees due to cost reduction initiatives, partially offset by increased team member benefit costs. Selling expenses were $7,900,000, a decrease versus the prior year of $8,600,000 primarily driven by lower local and national broadcast media. We recognized a tax benefit of $3,200,000 in the fourth quarter, and our effective tax rate for the year was 2.6%, a benefit.

The change in the effective tax benefit is due primarily to a decrease in income, partially offset by recognition of 8,700,000 of additional valuation allowance during the quarter. During the quarter, we recognized other charges of $15,600,000 primarily triggered by the COVID nineteen pandemic. These charges included $6,900,000 related to restaurant closures, dollars 6,200,000.0 related to restaurant asset impairment, dollars 1,900,000.0 related related to litigation contingencies, and $600,000 for COVID-nineteen related costs, including purchasing personal protective equipment for our restaurant team members and guests and providing emergency sick pay to our restaurant team members. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $6,400,000 as compared to adjusted EBITDA of $26,700,000 in Q4 twenty nineteen. Q4 adjusted loss per diluted share was $1.79 as compared to adjusted loss per diluted share of $0.36 in Q4 twenty nineteen.

Now turning to the balance sheet. At quarter end, our outstanding debt balance was $170,600,000 and letters of credit outstanding were $8,700,000 Next, guidance for 2021, as published in our earnings release this afternoon, is as follows. We expect that the recovery of our Western markets, which represent a meaningful portion of our portfolio, pent up demand for full service dining, higher average guest check with increasing on premise dining, and industry restaurant closures will drive significant comparable restaurant revenue growth in 2021. We also currently expect that the combination of enterprise pricing, outdoor seating capacity expansions, restoration of full operating hours, and Donatos will generate incremental growth of mid to high single digit comparable restaurant revenue beyond the benefits associated with the recovery. And we expect capital expenditures of $45,000,000 to $55,000,000 including continued investment in maintaining our restaurants and infrastructure with maintenance and systems capital, Donato's expansion to approximately 120 locations, digital guest and operational technology solutions and off premise execution enhancements.

Before I conclude, I'd like to take a moment to thank our entire Red Robin team for the results they are generating, including preparing our teams to capture future occasions through high quality execution and to drive strategic growth. We are confident in our ability to deliver long term value for all of our stakeholders, guests, shareholders, team members, franchise partners, landlords and suppliers. With that, I will turn the call back over to Paul.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Lynn. Let me conclude with a few key takeaways before we open the line for questions. 2020 was a challenging year on all fronts, for our team members, for the communities and guests that we serve and for our business. Not only did Red Robin persevere, we used the lens of the pandemic to look at ourselves with introspection and develop our strategy for the future. We recaptured our soul by identifying and connecting with our core guests while remaining committed to our focus on operational execution.

We told our story by playing to our strengths in digital marketing, driving best ever loyalty engagement and significantly improved website traffic. We accelerated profitable growth by improving our enterprise business model with meaningful operational efficiencies and permanent cost reductions, which served to improve our position both in the short run as well as our readiness for recovery. And we delivered the brand promise by improving our service model, resulting in record high guest satisfaction scores and continuing to provide our guests with a unique and truly differentiated casual dining experience. Having positioned ourselves to be ready for recovery and with our future growth drivers in place, we have confidence in the future of Red Robin. And of course, all of our great work and optimism for the future would not be possible without the incredible efforts and accomplishments of our Red Robin team members.

We cannot thank them enough for what they have done on behalf of our company and the communities we serve. Let us now open the call for questions.

Speaker 3

We will now begin the question and answer session. Tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key. To withdraw your question, please press then 2. Our first question today will come from Alex Flagel with Jefferies.

Speaker 4

Hey, Paul, Lynn. Hope you guys are are doing well.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Alex.

Speaker 1

How are you? Ahead.

Speaker 5

Just wanted to get your thoughts around the opportunity for market share gains in the Western markets. As you mentioned, higher levels of competitive closures in many of these markets, I guess, all over the country. But it would suggest an opportunity for an even stronger comp rebound and potentially sales volumes getting above pre COVID levels as the recovery takes shape. So sort of interested if you could provide additional color on what you're seeing in these markets relative to others and what that might mean for Red Robin down the road.

Speaker 1

Well, Alex, I'd say what we're seeing, I think you're correct. The West Coast is obviously some of the real strength for Red Robin, the highest volume and frankly has been shut down from restrictions the longest of any parts of the country. I'm very encouraged by what I'm seeing by the sales level that we've had on the West Coast as just even in California with outdoor seating reopening. We are performing well against Black Box, especially on the West Coast from a transaction standpoint. And that's what tells me that we're going to be able to take market share as we get the dining rooms reopened there.

So I believe that to your hypothesis that the data that we're seeing today tells us that there's going to be market share gain and growth for Red Robin. When I look not just California, but also Washington and Oregon as we move forward. So extremely pleased with what I'm seeing and bullish on what I think the outcome is going to be for our brand.

Speaker 5

Got it. And then on the just on marketing activities, if you had any comments on the results of the national marketing efforts in 4Q with TV and if that was sort of in line with expectations. And then separately on the loyalty program, changes coming on, Zach, if you could comment on the timing and what the potential changes might be?

Speaker 1

Well, obviously, we did do some broadcast media in the fourth quarter. But we also had a substantial amount of restaurants where we didn't quite expect the number of dining room closures that we had. We did do a pivot in Q1. It is our first basically all digital marketing outreach and messaging. And we've been very pleased.

A lot of the work that we did in 2020, especially on the loyalty or loyalty side is our top three guest segments. We not only segmented the messaging, but

Speaker 4

and that's

Speaker 1

what we have been doing in Q1. And we believe that the work that we're doing from a technology side will enable us to frankly get even better at that as we move through 2021. So I'm actually pleased with how the digital only outreach for marketing Q1 is working, which I think bodes well for Red Robin because it just gives us more opportunity to expand our outreach as the cost of digital is certainly lower than broadcast TV.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Our next question will come from Brian Vaccaro with Raymond James.

Speaker 4

I wanted to ask my question is on the recent sales improvement you've seen. I know it's just one week, but obviously, a pretty significant increase back to 50,000 AWS. And seems like it was a pretty good week broadly for the category. But just curious if it was broad based, perhaps it was a particular region or segment of the business that accelerated more. Just some color on that week, if you could, what's been driving that improvement?

Speaker 1

Well, I think, obviously, some dining rooms are reopening. We were down for the week 13% in restaurants that had some capacity in their dining room. We were down 9% for this last week. And but it was very broad based. I think the one thing I'd point out is that for that week in California, we have 53 restaurants and only three restaurants had any indoor dining.

And Oregon did recently open up, but it only is allowing 50 individuals in the restaurant and that's inclusive of the team members. So capacity is probably more in the 10% to 15% range. So we are extremely pleased with the 9% and the 13% results because we see still a lot more to come with California reopening and then both Washington, Oregon being able to expand beyond the 10% to 15% or 25% level. So we think that it's really the beginning of the recovery. Can't really speak to the pace, but certainly the news out of Texas and some other states yesterday was good in the sense that being able to move more restaurants into the 75% to 100% capacity.

So I actually think things are just going to get better from those numbers.

Speaker 4

Yes. Yes. That makes sense. And I saw, I think, California, I saw the Texas news, but saw the California and San Francisco news as well. I think they're allowing you to re allowing restaurants to reopen dine in at 25%, if I read correctly.

But I I guess what what's what's the typical bogey you need to hit? Does it make sense for you to open restaurants if you're if they allow 25%? Or do you need to see higher than that?

Speaker 1

No, Brian. It especially in California with what we've been able to accomplish with the extended outdoor seating, opening it up whether it was at 10%, 15% or even 25% out of the gate is accretive to us, both top line and bottom line.

Speaker 2

And what's really encouraging, Brian, as our indoor dining rooms are opening, our off premise sales are staying at a very sustained high level.

Speaker 4

Yes. Yes. And I guess to that point, is it possible to isolate, say, the the units that are at 75% or or greater capacity, however many that might be, currently? Is it possible to kinda isolate and give us a sense of where sales volumes are for those restaurants specifically and what that dine in versus off premise mix looks like? Maybe you just spoke to it maintaining the up of the two acts.

But can you speak to average weekly sales and and the ones that are further along in in raising the effective capacity for dine in?

Speaker 1

Well, Brian, this is Paul again. At restaurants that have less than 50% capacity, we're seeing the off premise sales about 55% of the total. In restaurants that have 50% to 74% capacity, we're seeing the off premise sales mix of approximately 38%. And then the restaurants that are 75% or greater, we're seeing them level at 31% in terms of off premise sales. And comparing that to the pre pandemic number of 14%, certainly that's more than double.

And we're very pleased with what we believe that bodes for the future. I think as you can guess, as capacity rises or AUVs rise, but I did not break it out into those segments. So I more broke it out to be able to tell what are we seeing from, where is off premise going, is dining rooms reopen. Because we I believe long term, that is really where we're going to be able to see strong incremental growth, both the top and bottom line as the dining rooms come back online.

Speaker 2

And I think what we try to do, Brian, in our press release today is provide some additional data points in terms of which restaurants had open indoor dining rooms and then the full system. And then we additionally incorporated the sales volumes for our Western markets, which are just starting to reopen.

Speaker 4

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yes. No. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Assess some of the capacity implications.

Speaker 4

Yes. Absolutely. That's that's very helpful. Sorry if I missed it, but the did you disclose the off premise sales mix in the quarter to date period? Or can you disclose the quarter to date?

For Q1? I'll

Speaker 1

be honest with you, Brian. I'm not sure if we have disclosed that. We're looking at the material quickly, if you're okay with that.

Speaker 4

Okay. Yes. No worries. Maybe I'll move on. I'd touch on the margins and specifically how you're thinking about the advertising spend.

And, obviously, you could adjust as the environment normalizes, and it's a very dynamic environment. But based on what you know today, what is what's a reasonable stab at your 2021 selling costs? And then thinking longer term, do you see an opportunity to optimize your ad spend in a post COVID environment?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, Brian, I'll answer your question this this way. I mean, we are anticipating savings over twenty nineteen levels, which we shared in the past. And we are continuing to evolve our thinking around how we're spending our marketing dollars and the returns we're getting related to those investments. So we're not prepared today to provide specific guidance on selling expenses.

Speaker 1

I will tell you, Brian, that I've been very pleased with the results. We have made a bit of a pivot from what you historically have seen with the Red Robin brand and the reliance on broadcast TV, getting much more into the digital space, doing the customer segmentation and targeting against those segments. Out And of the gate, this is the first quarter that we have solely been doing that. And I'm today very pleased with what I'm seeing and the response that we're getting out of our campaign. So I think you will see more of that as we move into the future.

I think as you know, that tends to be a bit of a less expensive channel than the broadcast media.

Speaker 4

Yes. Yes, definitely. All right. I'll pass it along. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Brian.