Ark Restaurants Corp.

Greetings and welcome to the Arc Restaurant's first quarter 2026 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to introduce to your host, Press Secretary Christopher Love. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us on our conference call for the first quarter ended December 27th. My name is Christopher Love, and I am the Secretary of Arc Restaurant. With me on the call today is Michael Weinstein, our Chairman and CEO, and Anthony Sirica, our President and CFO. For those of you who have not yet obtained a copy of our press release, it was issued over the news wires yesterday and is available on our website. To review the full text of that press release, along with the associated financial tables, please go to our homepage at www.arcrestaurant.com. Before we begin, however, I'd like to read the safe harbor statement. I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion this morning will include forward-looking statements and that these statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed on them. We refer everyone to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more detailed discussion of the risks that may have a direct bearing on our operating results, performance, and financial conditions. I'll now turn the call over to Michael.

Hi. Before I get going, let's have Anthony go over the balance sheet and anything that was significant and was really a quiet quarter.

So, Anthony, you go ahead. Yep. Real quick, as you saw in the release, our adjusted EBITDA was about $150,000 better this year than it was last year. Our balance sheet, the cash was $9 million and change, and our debt is $3 million. Other than that, the balance sheet did not have any significant changes. Like Michael said, it was a very quiet quarter compared to the last several quarters with impairments and things like that. So, it's really, you know, pretty consistent, the balance sheet. I'll turn it over to Michael.

Yeah, on the operations side, I'll speak to that in a second. Just with regard to the cash balance, as we have indicated, you know, we, signed a new lease with MGM for New York, New York a couple of years ago. And part of the requirement of that new lease was doing some work within our restaurants. And the work is mostly done at this point, but the redo of America, which will, it's open, but the new facility that we're building will be open in April. That's taken a lot of cash in the last couple of months. Also, our litigation bills at Bryant Park has taken a lot of cash. So we expect once the build-out of America is completed, the cash position will start to improve. And in the March quarter, That's a low point for us in cash on an annual basis. So we'll see cash starting to improve in the next couple of months. On the income side, venue by venue, Las Vegas remains a high point for us. We're seeing better results there despite the strip being down 11%. Our operations are doing quite well. We're more efficient. Keith, who runs those operations, is doing a spectacular job for us. And we're starting to see, hopefully, some expansion opportunities in Vegas for what we do. Alabama is fine. The Florida restaurants have continued to be down 10%, 12%, 13% on the revenue side. So margins are squeezed. Expenses drop. Although we think we're efficient, they're much higher than they were a couple of years ago. Just inflation. We've raised some prices along the way, but revenues are soft. That's in our full-service restaurants. Our Hollywood fast food in the Hard Rock continues to do extremely well. Sequoia in Washington, we have new management there. I was down there last week. We're really excited about the opportunity of new management and supporting us. Washington's been a difficult environment for everybody. The project we're in is not doing well as a whole, but we're starting to see a little perk up in Sequoia. New York, Bryant Park, again, we're still in this litigation mode. It has hurt us with events. It continues to hurt us with events. But the litigation, we think we're in good shape. And the beneficiary of us being operating the restaurants over the last year and a half, despite the fact that everybody seems to know that there's a litigation going on, more event business is starting to be So I think this year will be better on the revenue side in the event and corporate and social event side than it has been. So I think we'll pick up a little bit there. Robert continues to do very well. The other things I guess we should discuss is the Meadowlands. Right now, we are doing, we, you know, the owners of Meadowlands Racetrack, we're doing surveying to find out where the public will stand on a referendum to vote for a casino in the northern part of the state away from Atlantic City. So, once that survey is complete, if it's positive, we think that's the ammunition the legislature needs to go forward and put a referendum on the ballot this November. We just started this process about a week ago. It'll take a month, month and a half to complete. So, hopefully, we'll see a positive result.

So, with that, any questions? Thank you.

We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star key. Our first question comes from the line of Roger Lipton from Lipton Financial. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, good morning, Michael and Anthony. Good morning. It looks like because you're operating line by line, the cost has decreased with beverage and payroll. It looks like your menu prices were raised noticeably kind of across the board. You mentioned down in Florida, but, you know, it came down quarter to quarter from your fourth quarter to the first quarter. Cost of sales, as you well know, I'm sure, is down 270 basis points. And your payroll is down 34.9. That's several hundred. Yeah. Over 300 basis points. So that's pretty material. So it sounds like that was the case. And has it affected traffic, I guess, is the question.

Too hard to answer the last question, has it affected traffic?

You know, there's so much that goes on, weather, you know, and other things. We're just trying to be more efficient. We have not raised prices significantly. I would disagree with that. I think we're just being more efficient.

I mean, we've, you know, re-engineered some menu items We're trying to be more efficient on payrolls, reduce overtime, things like that.

Well, that's good to hear.

I mean, it's preferable to improve margins without raising prices, obviously, right?

Yes. No, but we have raised them a little bit, you know, and certain menu items, I mean, it's crazy. You know, I go back to rust again, king crab legs. You know, pre-COVID, it was a $99 item. Now, it's a $235 item. Why? The cost per pound has gone through the roof. So, you know, but other than a couple of items where, you know, just shortages and the cost, the menu increases have been very modest.

Well, all right, that's good to hear. So how has the traffic trend been? We've had very cold weather in the Northeast, but obviously most of your revenues are in Las Vegas. You said Las Vegas has been firm. How has the weather been in Alabama and Florida this first quarter?

Alabama is fine. Florida has been a disaster. It got down to 45 degrees. Last two weeks, yeah. And not to try to be, you know, funny, but iguanas have fallen out of trees, if you read those articles. So, that impacts us dramatically. I mean, last week, we were down 40% at some of our full-service restaurants in Florida. It has, you know, it's just been a disaster, as well as in New York. I mean, you know, nobody was going out.

So... the first two weeks were very, very tough.

So the good news is that the comparisons will be easy next year. It will not be any colder next year than it's been this year.

Hope not. Okay. Well, thanks very much. You're welcome, Archie. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Kaminsky with JJK Consultants. Please proceed with your question. Good morning, Anthony.

Good morning, Michael. Two questions, different directions, but two questions. Michael, you just said on the call that with respect to the litigation at Brian Park, you feel that you guys are in pretty good shape. I was wondering, I know it's a legal issue and it's probably things you can and can't say, but what gives you the belief that you're in good shape As I pointed out on this call three months ago, it's my understanding that when it came to winning the lease back, that ARC actually came in third, not second. So should you be successful in this litigation, that doesn't necessarily mean that ARC gets the lease back because there was someone who came in second, not you. So that's one question, and I'll pivot and address them both. In the... In the press release, you mentioned, as you have spoken in the past, with respect to the Meadowlands, that there's likely to be some dilution in terms of BART's ownership. I understand that BART owns about 8% roughly. You can correct me if that's a wrong number. What do you expect the dilution impact to be on the ownership of the casino in the Meadowlands? Thank you.

All right, so on the Brian Park issue, the discovery process has brought to light certain things that we think are beneficial to us. That as well as the time period over which we will remain in possession, we believe, has, while the litigation goes forward and any appeals go forward, we think we've got a significant amount of time to resolve the issues. So that's, you know, and I encourage everybody to read, you know, the court process that is public documentation that's available on this

The New York State Supreme Court website.

Yeah. With regard to dilution at the Meadowlands, there are too many moving parts. Where there is no dilution, if a casino is a license is granted to the Meadowlands, is our exclusive on all food and beverage. So that is apart from our ownership position in the LLC, which is New Meadowlands, So, from that point of view, there's no dilution in our exclusive, but there will be dilution based upon what deal, you know, is made with an operator and how much money that has to be raised. you know, if it's speculative, obviously, I don't know what our ability to raise money will be if a casino license is issued in the North. And I guess that would depend greatly on the price of our stock and whether it makes sense to do a secondary to keep the dilution to a minimum or whether we just decide to be diluted or take in a partner. You know, there are too many issues. So,

but I imagine there will be some dilution. Okay, thank you. I hope that answers your question. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I'd like to turn the floor back over to Michael Weinstein for a closed remark.

All right, thank you for your participation, and we'll speak to you in three months. Thank you.

Thank you. And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.