Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc. Price & Performance (RRGB)

While our improvement has been substantial, we have not yet reached the potential of our iconic brand and expect to drive further traffic improvements in 2025. Before we dig deeper into our plans for 2025, let's take a look back at the progress we have made last year. Starting with the operations, we continued our progress to deliver an upgraded experience to our guests. Dine in guest satisfaction scores in 2024 increased approximately eight percentage points compared to 2023 and beat the casual dining average. Satisfaction scores as measured by SMG posted their highest absolute levels since Red Robin launched with SMG 2017. Scores measured by Technomic are also at the highest since 2017. This guest feedback reflects gains across all aspects of the dining experience from the taste of food to the friendliness and attentiveness of our team, to the pace of the experience. The benefit of these efforts shine through in many ways. Including that our operators set approximately 1,400 sales record since the launch of the North Star plan. In May, we launched a revamped Red Robin royalty program and spurred membership growth of approximately 1,500,000 members in 2024, to end the year with approximately 14,900,000 members.

The new program allows guests to earn rewards much faster and encourages more frequent visitation to capitalize on their earned rewards which expire after ninety days. We continue to be pleased with the response from our guests and believe our revamped loyalty program was a key driver of our improved traffic throughout the year led by a record number of new members delivering 25% of all loyalty member visits from the relaunch of the program through the end of the year. And the return of previous lapsed guests accounting for 20% of the visits. Moving to value, During the second half of the year, we rolled out our appointment promotions with three key objectives. First, drive incremental traffic to days of the week that are less busy. Second, provide the ability upsell additional items to drive average check while introducing new items. And finally, drive dine in traffic allowing guests to fully experience our hospitality and food quality upgrades. I'm proud to say that our efforts were successful as we were able to provide additional value to our guests and drive incremental visits without discounting the core equities of our brand. Finally, in 2024, we successfully launched our Managing Partner Compensation Program.

Empowering our operators to function as a partner owner of the restaurants that they oversee. Now that every operator in our system is under this compensation program, We have aligned the entire organization around a unified goal of driving growth in both traffic and profit dollars and we're expecting to see continued benefits from the program. As we move through 2025. Looking to the fourth quarter, we delivered a 3.4% increase in comparable restaurant revenue excluding the impact of a change in deferred loyalty revenue. As the momentum that we saw to start the fourth quarter accelerated through the end of the year. Importantly, we also gained traction in our management of the middle of the P and L to translate the top line growth into a 19% increase in adjusted EBITDA to 12,700,000.0 during the quarter. Overall, we're proud of the progress we've made in our comeback plan and I'd like to extend my heartfelt thank you to all of the more than 20,000 team members across the country. Your dedication to improving every day and every shift is what drives our success and is the key to the revitalization of our beloved brand. While we're pleased with the progress we've made under the North Star plan, we have two key priorities in 2025 to continue our comeback.

First, further improve our traffic trends. Second, gain efficiency in our operations to deliver growth in restaurant and Starting with our top line drivers, 2025 is off to a good start with comparable restaurant revenue momentum we had exiting the fourth quarter continuing through the first eight weeks of the first quarter partially due to lapping the comp weakness we saw last year. Looking ahead at the remainder of 2025, we will lean into several drivers to improve our traffic trends and dive deeper into our new capabilities to keep Red Robin top of mind with our guests. Let's start with loyalty. In addition to the guest facing portions of the new program I spoke to earlier, we've also integrated new guest data capabilities to not only facilitate more personalized communication but also allow us to reward our best guests. While our marketing team has made use of our new capabilities from day one, we believe we're only scratching the surface. Our new program facilitates deeper guest segmentation and personalization And we're leveraging member exclusives gamification compelling content campaigns to reap the full rewards of our program. Driving new member growth and continue our momentum, increasing guest frequency.

Since the launch of loyalty two point zero last year, loyalty transactions which are more profitable on average, have increased 13% representing both an increase in guest frequency and the addition of new loyalty members. We continue to be excited by the potential of Loyalty two point zero as a key driver for traffic growth. Turning to the menu, we expect ongoing new menu items and innovation throughout the year. Starting with the launch of our Hot Honey platform in March. The platform will include a Hot Honey Crispy Chicken Sandwich wings and pizza offering. We are excited to launch these great menu items and I would note the hot honey pizza is the most successful LTO our partners at Donatos have ever launched. We'll share more as the year progresses, but we expect to introduce additional items over the course of the year, including great salad options, Classic Red Robin burgers our guests have loved over the years We may introduce a new flavor profile or two from around the globe to deliver our guests the amazing flavor flavors that they can only get at Red Robin. We expect to continue to prioritize everyday value as a means [indiscernible] visits with our current guests and drive new guest trial of our quality and experience upgrades.

This includes maintaining our successful Monster Mondays, dollars dollars 10 Cheeseburger Tuesday as an example has continued to prove successful in driving double digit traffic growth and incremental visitation on a typically quieter day of the week. As we move through the year, we also expect to message our industry best bottomless menu and our broad range of price point options. We expect to leverage efficient digital, earned and social media celebrating our Gourmet Burger Authority to reach new guests with our compelling innovation and quality improvements. Finally, continue to generate encouraging results with local restaurant marketing programs and the catering and other off premise channels of our business. I'd like to touch on our marketing team leadership and a change that we announced few weeks ago. We believe we have a great opportunity to further with compelling marketing programs experience they now receive at Red Robin Red fully capitalize on the power of digital social and owned channels. The search for a leader best suited to help us achieve these goals is currently underway. We are very fortunate to have two great leaders already in place to drive our marketing efforts during this interim period. Kathleen Bush, Vice President of Marketing and Brand Development, and Dave Dodson, Vice President of Marketing and Internal Communications.

Both have worked with me in the past and along with our talented marketing team, I have great confidence we will make quick progress and are in a position to deliver on our 2025 sales plan. Turning to profitability. Over the past two years, we've invested to improve the quality of our food, and our hospitality. From introducing flat top grills and upgrading over 85% of our menu to deliver a true gourmet burger experience to adding team members to delivering great hospitality. We're proud to see these investments reflected in sustained improvement in overall satisfaction scores showcasing that our guests are recognizing the upgraded overall experience. Throughout 2024, we put our resources behind arming our restaurant teams with information and the tools needed to drive everyday efficiency. We launched new dashboards and scorecards to inform our teams We reconstructed and relaunched actual versus theoretical food cost measurement. And reporting in the second quarter and we rebooted the HotSchedules labor management tool the third quarter, While these tools now are in the hands of operators, the data used to drive these programs along with our team's efficiency in using them improves by the day and we expect we will continue to benefit in 2025.

As we go forward, our focus will be to maintain our improved hospitality and guest experience, while creating efficiencies throughout our P and L to drive growth in restaurant level and corporate profitability. This is showcased in our margin guidance with gains of at least 120 basis points. In 2025. In 2025, we expect to become much more efficient with our labor costs. And this is the primary driver of our expected increase in restaurant level operating profit. We were pleased to recapture our base level of expected labor efficiency in the fourth quarter on the back of the hot schedules [indiscernible] Maintaining this fourth quarter level of efficiency would result in approximately $6,000,000 or approximately 50 basis points of savings through the first three quarters of twenty twenty five. During the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we are also streamlining our opening and closing procedures to further reduce our cost structure. As we have other efficiency measures in test, that we are very optimistic will deliver additional benefits. Beyond labor, our supply chain team has done a great job over the past two years identifying and capturing savings that achieve our hurdle of parity or better for the guest experience.

Past examples of this included switching from a 10 pound case of hamburgers to a 20 pound cases to deliver the exact same hamburger patty our guests, while saving on our per case distribution fees. We expect to continue to harvest opportunities to consolidate suppliers and streamline distribution to continue to generate savings. In 2025. Increasing the profitability of our restaurants requires dedication to both delivering a great guest experience to grow guest traffic and the diligence to manage the cost side of the business. We are committed to both and I am confident we are on the right track [indiscernible] our targets in 2025. Finally, I'd like to provide an update on our restaurant portfolio. As we shared last quarter, while more than 300 of our company owned restaurants continue to perform very well, We have approximately 70 restaurants that generate a restaurant level operating loss of approximately $6,000,000 in 2024. A drag of approximately two ten basis points on total company restaurant level operating profit. Inclusive of capital expenditures and G and A burden, we estimate the total cash burn associated with these restaurants at approximately $9,500,000 in 2024. In the fourth quarter, we impaired the majority of these assets.

And it is currently our base case expectation that we will close the majority of these restaurants over the next five years at their lease expiration. As such, we expect to close 10 to 15 restaurants in total in 2025. We believe the expected closure of a majority of these restaurants will allow the strength of our remaining portfolio to become clear over time. And free cash that we expect to reinvest in the business [indiscernible] to prepay debt. We are also exploring other avenues to accelerate this process as we expect to further updates on our progress in future quarters. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Todd to walk you through the financial performance before I provide my closing thoughts. Thank you, GJ, and good afternoon, everyone. In the fourth quarter, total revenues were $285,200,000 versus $309,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. The decline is due primarily to the fourth quarter of fiscal twenty twenty four including twelve operating weeks compared to thirteen operating weeks in the same period last year. This was partially offset by a comparable restaurant revenue increase of 3.4% excluding the impact of a change in deferred loyalty revenue led by an increase in guest check average, outweighing a decline in guest traffic.

As GJ noted, I would also highlight that our guest traffic trends sequentially improved in each quarter of twenty twenty four. Which we believe is a testament to the successful implementation of the NorthStar Plan the traction of Loyalty two point zero and the traffic driving success of the appointment dining promotions. Restaurant level operating profit as a percentage of restaurant revenue was 11.5% a decrease of 70 basis points compared to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. The decline was primarily due to lower guest counts, and discount levels that increased approximately 120 basis points as compared to last year. General and administrative costs were $18,400,000 as compared to $22,700,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three Selling expenses were $5,700,000 a decrease for the versus the prior year of $6,400,000 The decrease results primarily from a reduction in media in the quarter intentionally reallocated to support funding the traffic driving promotional discounts. Adjusted EBITDA was $12,700,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, an increase of $2,000,000 versus the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three.

Adjusted EBITDA increased due to the reduced selling and G and A expenses, and overcame the headwind of our fiscal calendar reverting to twelve weeks this year as compared to thirteen weeks last year. We ended the fourth quarter with $30,700,000 of cash and cash equivalents dollars 8,800,000.0 of restricted cash, and $20,000,000 available borrowing capacity under our revolving line of Red. At quarter end, the outstanding principal balance under the credit agreement was $189,500,000 As we mentioned on our last call, we executed a third amendment to the credit agreement during the fourth quarter which increases our compliance leverage ratios in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty five and first quarter of twenty twenty six. And continues the revolver expansion from $25,000,000 to $40,000,000 through the first quarter of twenty twenty six that was previously scheduled to expire in the third quarter of fiscal twenty twenty five. Turning to 2025, our three financial priorities for the year are first, deliver our 2025 financial guidance commitments. Second, drive continued gains in traffic and aggressively capture operating cost efficiency particularly in labor. Third, position ourselves to be able to refinance our debt. As a reminder, our term loan matures in March of twenty twenty seven.

We expect to use a portion of our free cash flow in 2025 to repay debt, and we are pursuing other options like monetizing remains owned to further support debt reduction and facilitate a refinance of the debt that remains. This is a key focus for us in 2025 and I expect to provide periodic updates. Turning to our outlook. We will now provide the following guidance for 2025. First, total revenue of between $1,225,000,000 and $1,250,000,000 This incorporates our expectations for modestly positive same store sales outweighed by an approximately 2% revenue headwind from the restaurant closures G. J. Mentioned earlier. Second, restaurant level operating profit of 12% to 13% which represents an increase of 120 to two twenty basis points as compared to 2024. Third, adjusted EBITDA excluding non cash stock based compensation of $60,000,000 to $65,000,000 Please note that starting in 2025, our reported adjusted EBITDA and our adjusted EBITDA guidance will add back non cash stock based compensation expenses as we believe this change will provide investors with a better understanding of our financial performance from period to period. The add back of non cash stock based compensation is the only change between the old and new definition of adjusted EBITDA.

For transparency and the ability to compare old versus new, we estimate non cash stock based compensation expense will total between $9,000,000 and $10,000,000 in 2025. We have also included a reconciliation of quarterly 2024 results to this new definition in the earnings release issued earlier today.

Finally, capital expenditures of 25,000,000 to $30,000,000 In closing, I share GJ's optimism for what 2025 has in store for us. The heavy lifting of transforming Red Robin into an operations focused company is largely behind us, giving us a solid footing to build upon. As we continue our comeback journey. We are now working hard to optimize guest engagement, and combined with effective operating expense management we are well positioned to capture the long term growth opportunity for this iconic brand. With that, I'll turn the call back over to GJ. Thank you, Todd. Our commitment has always been to provide our guests with great hospitality, serving delicious food at a great price, and creating a fun friendly atmosphere with [indiscernible] We believe the North Star plan is helping us fulfill that promise. The last two years have been transformational at Red Robin. And I believe our team has done a tremendous job in executing our strategic plan and successfully transformed this brand into an operations focused company. As we look ahead to 2025 and beyond, the focus of our team will be on bringing back guests into our restaurants for moments of connection. Over craveable food than only Red Robin can provide.

With the strategy we have in place, we believe we are well positioned to deliver significant value to our guests and shareholders alike. With that, we are happy to turn the call for questions. Operator, please open the lines.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. The first question is from Alex Slagle from Jefferies.

Thanks. Congrats on the progress. Wanted to sort of ask about sort of the balance you're trying to to work with here, trying to to with the big focus on driving frequency with the promotions and loyalty at and how to improve margins, which clearly you're doing, there is a good bit of pricing behind that in this quarter. And I guess as you Red, it's sort of like threading a needle, and just sort of making sure you're not taking too much pricing I guess just wanted to get thoughts on that. I mean, maybe you don't need as much, maybe that'll come down as the year goes on and you have these incremental labor and supply chain efforts yielding some benefits.

But maybe you kind of talk about that balance Yes. Hey, Alex. Relative Red [indiscernible] really on the West Coast. Where we've done a lot of benchmarking and had some opportunity. Which carries over into '25. And on our pricing thoughts through 2025, is in 1% area And so definitely we're taking all that into consideration. In terms of threading the needle, one of the things As we continue down the path to get ourselves real traction around traffic growth, which we believe we are getting and starting to get [indiscernible] to balance the cost side, there's just a lot of work. You have to remember [indiscernible] during this whole comeback process and journey, we've had we've hired 800 managers We've had to train those folks. We've had to retrain every single person in the company on not only we're doing and the expectations from a hospitality perspective, but how do we cook product and all of that And so that carries so all that work has been done over the last couple of years. And so we believe we can get a ton of efficiency, particularly in the labor line. As we go through 2025. And we saw some of that in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four.

We believe there's a lot more to get and we're working hard to get it. None of which will affect the guest experience by any imagination. So So there's so much opportunity here in a journey of comebacks or turnarounds We're at the point now where we can definitely start to ramp up Red pressure that we put terms of the expectations on financial performance. [indiscernible] gets to what you were looking for.

No, that's certainly encouraging. And I guess as we look at like the sequential improvements you've seen in the menu mix and the discounts recently, the components of the comp do you think this will continue to improve in the 1Q and beyond? And if so, kind of curious, where that would come from. It would just seem like that would be more of a challenge just with the promotional efforts underway to drive traffic? Yes. Hey, Alex, Todd here. I'll talk about the discounts in particular of if you go back, it was really the third quarter of twenty twenty four that we really launched the appointment dining So I do expect in that comp detail, you'll probably see discounts increase year over year in Q1 and Q2, but then become much more normalized in Q3 and Q4. So that's the way we're thinking about it right now at least. On the mix side, I'd say, we've been pretty encouraged With all of the different headlines out there, we've talked about this in prior quarters that we tend to look at add ons, right, terms of the health of the consumer are people still adding appetizers? Are they still buying desserts?

Are they still buying beverages? And we see all of those measures at parity or better to what they were previously. So there's always a little bit of mix impact as we make changes to the menu. We've [indiscernible] our Tavern lineup, which is a more value lineup in recent quarters, but the add on items in particular have held up quite well. Which gives us a lot of confidence in the state of the consumer that's walking into our doors.

Great.

Thank you. The next question is from Jeremy Hamblin from Craig Hallum.

Please go ahead.

Thanks and congrats on the improved results. I want to start by just getting a little more color on quarter to date. Trends you noted some momentum as you entered into the year.

And wanted to just get a sense of where things stand maybe on a quarter to date basis. I know this is effectively a four month quarter for you. And I think [indiscernible] you maybe saw in January, but wanted to get a sense for what Yes. Hey, Jeremy, Todd here again. I'll start in JJ can certainly add on. But I think I would build on G. J. Comments in the script, right, where you said, hey, it's been a good start to the year and I would certainly reiterate that. For us, We always expected the first part of the quarter to be the best. If you recall for us, with our West Coast footprint, the West Coast had some really tough weather events in the first quarter twenty twenty four. And really depressed our first quarter.

So we always expected the start of this quarter to be frankly the the best part of the quarter and potentially even the year just given the easier comparison we expect it to be a good start and it has been. So that's been encouraging. I think the way I talk about the the February, there was weather across a lot of the industry numbers. That's embedded in what G. J. Said in terms of the first eight weeks. So always going to have some ups and downs. We try not to get caught up on the weeks. Last piece I'd share we're really thinking probably more about the quarter And so we expect the first part of the quarter to be the best.

We expected the second part of the quarter to be more normalized. As we think about it, I'll tell you, we're kind of at the mid range of our thinking. Is call it a plus three same store sales on the quarter. Obviously, the weather has to cooperate and we still have, as you said, eight weeks to go. But that's the way we see the quarter coming together. As we sit here today. That's the top line side. I'll try to be brief here, but on the profitability side, I'll give you a of how we're thinking about that as well. We A simple way to think about it if you look at Q4, we basically generated a little over $1,000,000 a week of adjusted EBITDA.

In a sixteen week Q1, that will get you to about $16,000,000 And then obviously we did make the change with adding back stock based compensation. And that's another $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 on the quarter. So again, eight weeks to go in the quarter here. That's kind of the simple way we're thinking about top and bottom line. Got it.

Great. And then let's just come back to some of the initiatives here on driving restaurant level margin. So So kind of roughly 100 basis points, maybe 200 basis points during the year. And it sounds like you have some great labor initiatives going on. I wanted to get a sense for of that range of improvement from the 10.8% that you saw in 2024, what portion of that do you expect to come from labor versus COGS or other line items.

Yes, the vast majority, Jeremy, will come from labor. Our COGS generally are at a point pretty low in the first place. So I don't expect a lot of it to come from there. The majority will come from labor.

Got it. And then coming back to kind of trends and what you've seen, you noted that you've seen a lot of strength in the dine in portion of your business, which I think implies that kind of takeaway or takeout has been weak spot And wanted to get a sense for initiatives that you're looking at there to drive that, whether that's going to be helped by enhanced digital engagement or what you think you might be able to do to improve that business? I think it's what 20%, 25% of total sales? Third party is more like 15% of sales. And we are very pleased with where we sit to date on what we're doing with third party. It is things digital initiatives. As you know, in third party it's where you sit and where you come up in the algorithms. And we some of that is how much you invest with these third party folks. And so we plan for that in 2025. And our results in terms of where we sat from a year ago are very good and I'm very hopeful in terms of where third party can what it can do for us in 2025.

Great.

Last one for me, just in terms of other marketing changes. I think last year your budget was around $30,000,000 or so. On marking your you're making some changes kind of at the top of that. Division of your business. In terms of thinking about that pivot, what should we expect We know a year ago you had some fairly expensive marketing during March Madness. Don't think you're planning to repeat that, but wanted to see if there's any additional color you can share there?

Sure. Yes. So the numbers are about the same in terms of that. Jeremy, one of the things that we're doing is really having a comprehensive program around marketing. So everything from local store marketing to digital social to just more traditional media We are currently in a test from a media and a very balanced approach in three markets. And too early to talk about results of those markets, but we are optimistic around that.

That if we find out that we're getting a great return on that investment, we'll invest more in marketing because it'll be pretty immediate in terms of the return.

So that's something we're definitely looking at. I would say that last year too, we did a similar thing last year where you have it up to your point. There around the March Madness And we do not see all the success, but there were some mitigating circumstances around that. Terms of where media was placed and just other things that We didn't see the kind of results that we would have expected. So again, I'll go back to what we're doing this year, more to come on that, but I would tell you that we're cautiously optimistic of what that can do for us. Thanks so much for the color and good luck [indiscernible] The next question is from Andrew Wolf from CL King.

Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I wanted to ask about the loyalty year two point zero. Good afternoon again. I think you said you had a 13% increase in transactions with loyalty members. Maybe parse it out a little on how that varied between new users and increased utilization from existing members and kind of what the growth outlooks are for the program and how you see it evolving over the I guess the coming year or two?

Yes. So I would say that we are seeing nice growth from lapsed users as well as new users. I will tell you that 25% of our visits are new users.

And 20% from lapsed users. So we're seeing really, really good improvement on all levels which again gives us reason to believe in what we're doing here in the future. And so we feel great about that.

And again, if you start to do some math around the loyalty can do for us, it's pretty significant if you increase that average frequency on a fairly average guest that comes three times a year, you get some of those lapsed users and you can continue to get sign ups. We continue to be very robust in terms of our efforts around sign up.

And we have a big target for this year to be able because we're having so much success So far, we're on track with that and feel great about that.

Good. Thanks. Would you kind of ascribe the sequential pickup in the guest traffic trends and the two year stack gives a little better as well. Describe that more to loyalty or more to the the overall service and discount? I mean, how do you it's almost an impossible question, but do you have a at least a qualitative sense of that, how you would [indiscernible] think it's kind of the whole?

It's really hard. I mean, I would tell you my answer is going to be pretty vanilla. It's really a little bit of all. And clearly, the experience is better. We talked about that. And clearly, loyalty is really helping us. So hard to say the percentages on that, but it's all the above.

Okay, fair enough. Growing component of that and pretty significant and boosting traffic moving in a better direction. That's correct.

All right.

And just one more, this is most likely just for Todd. I know you don't have formal guidance on free cash flow, but I think you mentioned it as in your plan And I think that would be a change from burning cash.

Your CapEx, if I $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 So does that imply you expect to have cash from operations above that figure? Like a traditional free cash flow measure, Or are you thinking free cash flow includes maybe selling some assets or something?

No, Andy, your first interpretation was correct, meaning achieving our guidance means we will have some free cash flow in what I would consider the most traditional sense, meaning from operations funding our CapEx as you alluded to, We do think that that will generate some free cash flow this year. [indiscernible] a number that we hope will build in time. So you can do the math on call it $60,000,000 to $65,000,000 of EBITDA, to your point $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 of CapEx. Cash interest for us this year we think will be around 24,000,000 is kind of our midpoint So it's a number that we'll look to grow in time. But that's a metric that I expect you'll hear us talk more about going forward It's been a bigger focus for us internally. And as I alluded to, to, paying down the debt as a means to then refinance that is certainly top of mind for me. Okay. Thank you. That's good to hear. Thanks, Sidney. Next question is from Mark Smith from Lake Street Capital.

Please go ahead. You guys are kind of building into the guidance and expecting $10,000,000 to 15 this year. And any insight into kind of the timing of that? And does that include kind of these asset sales here in Q1? Yes, you're spot on on all of that Mark. We the three restaurants that were alluded to as asset sales are included in that $10,000,000 to $15 Those we expect those are under full contract. We expect that will be a Q1 event. But in terms of the ten to fifteen, we frankly expect it to be pretty spread over the course of the year. It's not necessarily concentrated in one quarter. Even with those three in Q1. So that is embedded in the guidance as you noted. Okay.

And then just any shifts in commodities that we should be thinking about, anything on contract that's rolling off, any just insights into cost of sales would be great. Yes, absolutely, Mark.

Say our commodity basket broadly is pretty what I would consider to be standard inflation. We think the commodity basket is call 3% in total Ground beef for us is always a big part of that. And we do see that's the one we see the most inflation in. Which means we have offsetting deflation in other areas. But in total, GJ alluded to it. Our cost of goods, we feel pretty comfortable with where that's at. We'll find opportunities where we can. But that's one that from a price value standpoint, we were conscious of not driving too low.

But in terms of the commodities, We do expect kind of that 3% range. I'll maybe tag onto that and just build on a comment GJ made earlier. From a price standpoint, believe he referenced 1%, which is the incremental action we expect in 2025 We will have, as he alluded to, the actions that we took in 2024 will carry over to 2025 as well. I would expect we would expect that you'll see that pricing roll off in terms of the headline number through the course of the year from we expect we'll probably carry a good 8% or so of price in Q1.

Ramping that down to about 2% by Q4 and that includes the what the only additional increase this year of 1% that G. J. Mentioned. Obviously, that will have an impact on cost of goods as well.

But that certainly helps to cover the commodity inflation. Excellent. Very helpful. Thanks, Mark.

The next question is from Todd Brooks from Benchmark Company.

Please go ahead.

Hey, good evening everybody and that's that's a nice way to end a year full of progress for you. So congrats. Thanks, Todd. Appreciate that. Few tag end questions, if I may. You talked about some of the menu newness coming in 25 gs [indiscernible] maybe drill down some more on the [indiscernible] And also remind us what it's competing against year over year when it launch in March? And is this a LTO or is this something that you can foresee based on performance flowing directly into permanent menu items? [indiscernible] The Hot Honey perspective, that's pretty the whole sort of sweet and savory together is something that's hot and we're trying to capitalize on that. So far it's tested well. So we're excited about what that can do. I don't believe we're going up against anything from a year ago Todd. So there's nothing really [indiscernible] And yes, it's basically our first menu roll of two menus that we'll do during the year with some LTOs. Sprinkled in. That helpful?

Yes, that is. Thank you. Secondly, can you talk through and you talked through seeing kind of attach rates hold. But if you look at the same store sales performance in the quarter, which was very strong, Did you see a spread or any sort of changes when you look by income cohort? Just wondering if there's any variability maybe in that lower income cohort or if they've responded to the value and hung in from transaction standpoint? If I understand your question, I would tell you that As Todd just talked about a minute ago, we're pretty pleased with what's happening in terms of what people are ordering. We're still seeing nice lift on our Gourmet Burger line, more premium products as well as we're seeing that lift on the Tavern some of the value stuff. So I don't think we've seen any significant movement during the quarter. We did as we commented on, an overall comp perspective, it got better throughout the quarter.

Yes, I didn't know if you looked at the sub-fifteen $50,000 household versus higher income tranches if the performance was more variable with the lower income customer? Why I was asking.

I don't think there's anything to note there at all.

Agree. That's great to hear. And then a final one, I know you shared some of the meaningful progress you drove in satisfaction scores over the course of this year Just wondering as you're looking at the individual components, how are customers rating you as far as scores on value metrics? The three pillars now Monday through Wednesday. Are customers responding and scoring you on value? And if you look at the overall competitive environment, I imagine, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Feel pretty good that the value offering is competitive in traffic driving at this point and maybe no need to add more things stand out.

Yes. I would agree with your last statement that we are happy we're from the value. And hopefully, some of the stuff that noise that's out there around value will start to dissipate through 2025.

And in terms of the first part of your question around you're trying to get at value in respect to what we are going to do in the future or let me make sure I understood.

No, it's more of more of a part of satisfaction. Customers when they're scoring you on value, With the appointment time. Yes. So I would yes, I'm sorry, I got you. So when you look at our satisfaction levers and value being one of every metric has gone up.

Value included. I would tell you that that's good news from our perspective because a little over two years ago that number was continuing to go down. So we've made progress there. Perfect. Thank you, Buzz. Thanks, Todd.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor over to G. J. Hart for closing comments.

All right. Well, thank you all for joining us tonight. We look forward to reporting on the next quarter. Thank you very much. Good evening.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. You for your participation.