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spk04: Good afternoon. First, a clarification on the October trend. Greg Levin, I was wondering if you could share with us what your average weekly sales for the comparable period was last year, so we can get a sense for what the year-over-year change is.
spk08: I was trying to tell you, from a comp sales perspective, We're down in the kind of 20% range or so. So, to kind of take the 83 and multiply that up, I just don't have October's WSA sitting in front of me. I would tell you for last year's fourth quarter, Dave, we averaged $108,000 weekly sales average. So, that's kind of how I think about it from that...from the quarter perspective is around that $108,000, but generally looking at where we are today, we think comp fit or comp sales We can tell that we're just really trying to spend as much more time right now, and we think that's going to be in kind of that low 80,000 range.
spk04: Got it. And I guess the follow-up to that is, you know, is that primarily based on your outlook, or are you already seeing signs that you're going to level off or settle in as you get further into the quarter? I guess I'm trying to parse out whether you're just taking a – kind of prudently conservative view on what might happen as we get into the cold weather months and some of the factors you mentioned, or if you're already starting to see kind of a moderation or a slowing trend.
spk06: It is, Greg. We haven't seen a moderation yet. It's really the latter as we look forward. It's just been interesting throughout the last, you know, large part of the pandemic is we've seen just in general a flatter sales curve. And and not nearly the usual level of impact of holiday and back to school and, you know, all of those factors are muted as a result of people's behaviors have changed and really been, you know, much more consistent in that regard. So, a bit of it is the expectation that that will continue to be the case and we won't same level of holiday, you know, increase as usual. But, like I said, we haven't seen a pullback in terms of behavior and sales levels as of yet.
spk08: I think we've also... Greg made a really good point. We're not seeing the same sales patterns that we see historically. As we mentioned on the call, September was our highest community sales average. during Q3. And usually September is your lowest weekly sales average during Q3. So it's really much more of a flatline sales pattern based on capacity.
spk04: Yep. Okay. Understood. And then can you maybe comment on the markets that are further along, I guess, the recovery curve or the reopening curve, like Florida and Texas? relative to what you're seeing across the system? I know California has been challenged by dining rooms staying closed. So, perhaps, can you comment on what you're seeing in Texas and Florida relative to California?
spk08: Well, you know, without getting into comp sales by every single location or geography, the more capacity restrictions are eased or, you know, the better comp sales we see. I guess that's probably the best way to say it. So California is more of a lagger, per se, on comp sales. You know, it's got high weekly sales averages than a state like Texas or a state like Florida that's been open longer. And that's really just how it plays out. It's very much a capacity-driven weekly sales average.
spk04: Great. Thanks a lot.
spk01: And we'll take our next question from James Lutherford from Stevens, Inc.
spk05: Hey, thanks for taking the question. I have a question around the patios and the capacity indoors. I'm just trying to balance the negative impact of gradually losing a portion of those weekly sales from patios, which I think you mentioned were over $15,000 per week, as we head into the winter. to balance that with the increasing capacity that will come from the partition. So I guess the two questions related to that would be, how much are you capacity constrained today versus restrained by just kind of consumer demand? And then the second part to that is, how much additional capacity do you think you'll get across your system as you switch from no dividers to having dividers in the restaurant? Thank you.
spk08: Let me try and handle some of these questions here, James. I'm sure Greg will jump in here. So we think by adding the glass dividers into our restaurants that we can pick up somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 14 tables, which generally is going to be somewhere in the kind of 10 percentage range. At the same time, I would say our makeshift patios are kind of about that same amount as well. So if we can get the glass dividers in there and we're able to use them, by the way, which means states open up dining rooms or local areas open up dining rooms, the two would offset. The one thing I would say, though, as Greg Trojan mentioned earlier as well, is a majority of our makeshift patios are here in California. They're often somewhere in the warmer weather states like Texas. So even as we go into the wintertime and we're trying to analyze patio usage from historical periods and prior years, There's not as much of a drop-off as you might think. There is a little bit of a drop-off, but that $15,000 that I talked about shouldn't go down to zero based on what we've seen historically.
spk06: Yeah, I was just going to say, there's actually a little bit of a pickup in some of the states like Texas and Arizona where it's too hot to eat outside, you know, in a good part of the Q3. So there's a little more of a balancing than you might think there, but the dividers will help.
spk05: because the virus will help as well. Okay, that's very helpful. And my second question is on a theme we've seen among casual diners, and it's this ability to run just more efficient restaurants for a variety of factors. I'm just curious if you all think there's a potential, maybe in the second half of 2021, when you do get back to pre-COVID unit volumes, to run at higher margins, or if the menu will kind of get back to a more normalized state and operations return to normal. It's business as usual. So, just curious your thoughts there. There's a lot of puts and takes, but what do you expect?
spk06: I mean, a lot of that depends upon, you know, the dodges there, variables around labor pressures and rates and food costs are such big, big drivers. You would expect as a... part of a post-COVID softening economy for a while, labor rates should be more moderate than they are even today. And, you know, we don't have a crystal ball on food costs. But the point that others are highlighting that are very valid is the increase in the off-premise mix helps helps from a margin perspective, both from a food cost perspective, by the way, given the food mix, but also from a labor perspective. And, you know, we talk about mostly from a quality perspective the improvement that we've seen in the reduction in menu items and overall complexity. It also is helping from a labor content perspective, particularly in prep hours and and, you know, other process improvements in the kitchen. And, you know, we don't intend to go backwards on that. So, you know, off-premise and a more efficient menu, you know, I think are helpful items here to stay. Thank you, Greg.
spk05: You're welcome.
spk01: We'll take our next question from Jeffrey Bernstein from Bearclave.
spk03: Great. Thank you very much. Two questions. The first one just on the unit growth you talked about in your prepared remarks. And I know in the release you talked about being committed to the long-term national expansion and the 425 units we've heard before. And I think you mentioned the pipeline in excellent shape. With that said, I was surprised, I guess, when you said there's a modest increase in 21 openings. I know in 2020 we're only talking about two, so maybe you're talking about three or four openings next year. I know it hasn't been finalized yet, but looking back, that compares to what used to be 15 a year back in the day. So with the confidence that you have that the consumers want to eat out of BJ's and seemingly the pandemic silver lining of a bump in really good real estate availability, I'm just wondering why that wouldn't accelerate more significantly in 2021. Maybe there's a reason or so besides the idea of quality of a quantity, which you've talked about before. But any other thoughts in terms of why that number wouldn't accelerate with good real estate, more favorable labor, and just seemingly continued recovery?
spk08: Jeff, it's Greg Levinson. It's a great question. It's interesting. I would tell you right now, deal flow is picking up. We're seeing more opportunities out there. But frankly, the quality of the sites that we're seeing right now are not that great of sites. We're not seeing what we consider kind of the A sites available yet. We believe the A sites will be coming, but we think they're more on the horizon of six to 18 months away. The other thing that we're seeing right now as well is as companies across many different industries start resuming construction and other things. There's a backlog of construction, and actually labor costs, lumber, steel, and some of those things haven't quite come down yet. So we're taking a little bit maybe of a prudent approach here just in regards to we think that there's going to be some great sites coming aboard and coming into our pipeline. And while our pipeline is pretty full, we're also looking at, you know, what's going to be coming that just is probably, as I said, six to 18 months away. We also haven't seen necessarily, like, changes in rental rates or what we consider A locations. Definitely B and C landlords are coming to us with opportunities, lower rent, some of those types of things, but we're not going to give up on making sure we pick AAA locations.
spk06: But we do think, Jeff, that there is going to be a great opportunity here, you know, sooner rather than later. uh... exact timing of that look we're still working through that ever putting together our our plan and overall we're going to be prudent about we can't go from two to twelve in a year we don't we don't think we can open restaurants with the uh... with the your proper bench strength and quality that really really isn't important here but uh... we are excited about you know the near-term opportunity to to re-accelerate would be, you know, how much of that in the next 12 months or not we're working through.
spk03: Got it. But it sounds like there's no other inhibitor. So maybe if you're talking about six to 18 months, maybe we're talking about 2022, but there wouldn't be any reason to believe that that year wouldn't see a significant jump in absolute number of openings if that real estate became available. Is that fair? I think that's a good way to think about it. Great. And then my follow-up was just on the restaurant margin. I know last quarter you gave some color just because there was so much noise month to month, but you talked about how in June the restaurant margin was at 13% with the comp down 30%. And now we look at the full third quarter, the restaurant margin maybe in the low 8% range, the loyalty point noise you talked about, but the comp was very similar in terms of down 30. So just wondering kind of as we think about restaurant margins going forward and now you're talking about a comp maybe at down 20, how should we think about that over the next number of quarters? I think the question came up earlier about peers doing more with less, but... Just trying to get a sense for maybe what's swinging the numbers, what seemed to be much improved in June, and maybe eased a little bit in the third quarter. Thanks.
spk08: Yeah, a couple things there. Jeff, it's a great question from a comparison standpoint. There's the patios and setting up the patios that came on board. We reintroduced the manager bonus program. and we're very happy to be issuing bonuses to all of our managers out there that we didn't have in the second quarter as we were battling through just the early parts of the pandemic from that standpoint. And then as you do open up dining rooms, you do add labor. So our hourly labor, and I even mentioned this in the second quarter call, stepped up to the third quarter, and it stepped up here or stepped up in June versus the other month. even as the sales averages went up. And then here in this quarter as well, we saw hourly labor increase as we increased our dining rooms from that standpoint. We're still running a good 200-plus basis points better on hourly labor, some of this because of the smaller menu, which Greg chosen to talk about, and so we're saving this in the kitchen. And then we're also getting it because as we drive that off-crunch business, we're leveraging that. But really, it's a combination of those three things. One is a step-up in hourly labor now that dining rooms are open. It's the patio costs coming on board that we didn't have before, so it's got incremental costs there. And then there's some of the manager-incentive costs on there. The one other piece, just to kind of throw that out there, is as we set up these paddies and got those going in July, July was a pretty inefficient month for us. put those up. And as we got those going, we saw a nice step up in our margins at the restaurant level throughout the quarter.
spk06: And what you realize is we're just really pleased to be generating cash flow. You know, if it comes at a lower margin, but we're producing more dollars and able to, you know, contribute cash flow to our enterprise and be back in investing in the business, then our people You know, we're a lot happier even at a lower percentage margin to be able to do all those things than have less dollars at higher margin. You know, it sounds obvious, but that is how we're running the business today.
spk03: I got you. So, I mean, obviously, looking month to month is hard to do, but you said July was pretty inefficient. It sounds like June was a better one. So, maybe September to close out the quarter, is there more of a comparable, is that a double-digit type restaurant margin with a comp down 20%?
spk08: Well, I think as we just, as you said, kind of low income talking about right here, we finished at $74,000. So if I had to think about it, stepping up from that standpoint, I think we picked up, you know, probably to a $300,000 baseline that we moved from the mid-70s into kind of a low 80s on that restaurant-level margin.
spk07: Gotcha. Thank you.
spk01: And we'll take our next question from Brian Bittner from Oppenheimer.
spk05: Thanks. Good afternoon, guys. Just trying to tie a bow on the margin questions here. So basically at 80,000 to 84,000 sales per week on average, you do underlying margin trends at like 200 to 300 basis points. Are you saying above the third quarter levels? is what you're saying, so something around that kind of 10%, 11% margin profile for the restaurant level at this kind of 80,000 to 85,000 weekly sales?
spk08: Yeah, I think that's reasonable. Okay. And then I just wanted to ask about the weekly sales. You know, on average, you talked about these weekly volumes being what they are in that 84,000 range, and... You talked about those continuing, not just for the rest of this quarter, but really trying to help us think about that for the first half of next year. And I understand why the weekly sales wouldn't improve for the rest of 4Q. There's just colder weather, a lot of dynamics. But just curious why this is the right volume to think about for the first half of next year.
spk05: Is it simply because you believe the environment across your portfolio right now is kind of the new steady state for the next several quarters? It seems like sales levels have been constantly improving every month, so I'm just wondering about your commentary related to the first half of next year.
spk06: Well, at some level, we believe we're going to need, you know, improvements in capacity, which there is room in our system as more states in a more COVID-stable environment, call it, not, you know, we're in vaccine land, but is there room for more of our restaurants to be at 50% or six-foot social distancing kind of levels of requirement. There is some upside to that if you think that's going to happen, which probably isn't baked into, you know, our steady state number here. So, you know, you could argue we're being conservative on that front. But we're not going to go from, you know, low to mid 80s to 110,000 until we're in a very different place from a dying in COVID immunity perspective. And that's really, we don't have any more of a crystal ball than you guys do, but thank you for asking the questions because we can give you a little more color of how we're how we're thinking about it. And really, what I said is basically it is we think we're, until we're in a step function different place, you know, from a COVID perspective, we're probably in the zip code we are in today. There's probably a little more upside than downside, you could argue. But, you know, who knows what the fall and winter is going to bring here. So, You know, we're in that band until, you know, hopefully it's not too long in the distant future here that a vaccine and therapeutics really start to make a difference.
spk08: Well, we haven't seen any state ease their regulations over the last three or four weeks. You know, we started seeing it, I think, towards the later July and August, and then it's been kind of a steady state. In fact, if anything, it's probably been... brought back a little bit, a couple curfews and things like that that don't really impact us.
spk06: Well, interesting. What's opening is California, right? So, California is improving, by and large. We're seeing a few pockets, but everyone else has been kind of, you know, status quo, a step backwards here and there. So, that's really what we're saying, you know. And we don't think that changes significantly until we're in a different COVID world.
spk05: No, thanks for putting all that color behind it. We obviously appreciate it. Thanks.
spk01: And we'll take our next question from Sharon Zaxia from William Blair.
spk02: Hi. Good afternoon. I guess congratulations on pivoting so much and kind of thinking outside of the box. But within all of that, I think it's just confusing. kind of understand what percent of your capacity is actually available right now for seating. I don't know if you have a blended average through the system, and maybe if you could give us kind of some points of time, like where that was in July versus where it is now, I think that could help us.
spk08: Yeah, Sharon, I don't know if we've got it by the period. in front of us. I would tell you right now we're probably in the kind of low 60s or so, probably about 60%, 65% when I think about capacity as in with social distancing and the mid-shift patios. I think there's that opportunity for us to get into the mid-70s or so when we get the glass dividers and we get other areas of California opened up, but...and that's really as Greg was saying, probably kind of the last area unless unless different states start to ease from 25% capacity to 50% capacity, etc.
spk02: That's helpful.
spk06: So, Sharon said it another way. We're in mid-60s with a lot of states or, you know, some jurisdictions still being in 25% land or other restrictions. And that's pre-dividers, right, but includes patios. And in a world where patio stays about the same and we add dividers, you get into mid-70s, call it 75% round number there, again, without any more easing of restrictions and even California openings. So does that give you a little more specific understanding? So dividers could add... Another, you know, even future dividers we don't have in our plan today, another 5% or 6%. Some additions of easing capacities, et cetera, or restrictions can get you from, you know, mid-60s today to 80 if all those things came true.
spk02: That's helpful. I guess one other question. I know you guys have always had really high volume... weeks around the holidays. Greg, could you give us a perspective of kind of what the average weekly volume typically is around those holidays, around Christmas and New Year's, and how you think the month of December, in essence, plays out? I mean, do you think it's kind of better volumes pre-Christmas, and then you see year-over-year softness around the holidays? I just don't know how to think about the month of December.
spk08: I still think, in regards to our weekly sales average, that it's going to be what we talked about today, meaning I think it's more of a capacity issue in regards to the WSA, which gets the weekly sales average from that standpoint. When I think about, like, P12 and some of those other ones, I mean, the holiday time, we'll go into that, you know, 120 range and so forth, and even higher with the large parties and things we have from that standpoint. So, I know what tends to happen here is everybody focuses on comp sales. We're tending to focus on running our business really on a weekly sales average. And based on that weekly sales average, how we can optimize our business. And we're not as focused on the comp sales, per se, in regards to how it plays out. So, I think, you know, that's kind of the way I think about the business. And as you said earlier, Sharon, unless there's a huge change in capacity in our restaurants, you know, when I look at today being the most capacity we have is today. And right now, today, we're kind of in the, you know, mid to low 80s. That tends to be how I think it'll play out in the fourth quarter.
spk01: Thank you. And we'll take our next question from Nick Setien from Woodbush Securities.
spk07: Thank you. Just a bigger picture kind of question on the competition. Are you seeing kind of a tangible... decrease in the supply of the competition, or is it more on the horizon, like you said, around your AAA locations, et cetera?
spk06: We were having trouble hearing you on the back end of that. Sorry.
spk07: Or is it more on the horizon? Are you already starting to see competition go away, or is it more on the horizon?
spk06: I don't know. You're... We're seeing fewer seats out there, no question. You're seeing it... I don't think you're reading about it maybe as much because it's, you know, more focused around independence and the smaller mom and pops, et cetera, but, you know, it's meaningful and noticeable in terms of fewer seats and even in the number of seats saying, look, we're not reopening here. I haven't seen any exact numbers on it, but as we talk about each of our markets every week on our calls, we're seeing that happen. It's not a we think this may happen next year. It's the reality today.
spk07: Got it. One of the questions that's pretty topical now is delivery as it becomes a bigger mix versus or the cost of delivery as it becomes a bigger mix versus the efficiencies around labor and potentially food costs from a smaller menu. Let's say a year from now or two years from now, how do you think the net results of that plays out? Do we still think that we're going to have significantly lower labor and food costs versus the incremental delivery fees if you know, off-premise and delivery ends up stabilizing at a much higher level?
spk06: Look, I think it's a persistent, even pre-COVID question, and my response remains the same in a lot of ways. And, you know, I mentioned it at the, particularly the tail end of my script here is, We're in the dollars business, right? So what I really think is going to happen is we're going to come back and whenever we're in a more normal time, whenever that is, we're going to have just as many dine-in dollars and occasions that we did going into this, hopefully and probably more. And we're also going to have more delivery and more takeout business. Now, The takeout business, for lots of reasons, from talking about margin mix, is largely a higher margin business. Delivery is a lower margin business, but still very, very incrementally profitable. So when you start adding the sales dollars that could result in that arithmetic, you're looking at average weekly sales significantly greater than when we went into all of this. And that is going to flow and leverage a fixed cost expense structure in our business that will create you know, not just more dollars, but most likely overall a higher blended margin, even though delivery has always been, and I continue to, you know, don't see it changing, it's going to be lower on a percentage basis, we're going to love the total margin implications of the higher sales volumes overall. And that's what we are focused on. And we welcome those dollars. We're working hard. We love delivery.
spk08: Frankly, yes, there are going to be those lower margins there, but what we saw in the pandemic early on when we had to go to house premise is that incremental dollar from delivery on labor is very profitable. Yes, you're going to have to pay for it in the delivery commission, but it really helps within the overall economics within the four walls of your restaurant.
spk07: Understood. And then just last question, the beer subscription test, is that successful enough that you can actually roll it out to more markets now? And if so, what's the timing around it?
spk06: Yeah, no, we're only a few weeks into that test. We're very encouraged there, so we haven't made any rollout decisions at this point yet. But we'll be keeping a close eye on it through the remainder of this year and be looking at that early next year in terms of timing. But we've been optimistic and think we're really well positioned given the expertise and history that we have in craft brewing. So that's something that we're excited about.
spk07: Great. Thank you very much.
spk01: And we'll take our next question from Jeff Farmer from Gordon Haskins.
spk07: Great. Thank you.
spk08: Hopefully, a couple of quick follow-ups. So, from what you guys have seen, how does a consumer respond to that increase in outdoor capacity versus an increase in indoor capacity?
spk06: You know, Jeff, it succeeded. It exceeded my expectations. I think collectively we moved quickly, particularly here in California, when the shutdown of dining rooms came quite suddenly, as you probably know and remember in early July. And people, I think it's actually going to, there's going to be an element that's going to continue to be part of, you know, casual dining in our business beyond COVID. Like, people really enjoy dining. enjoy that experience. And, you know, again, it exceeded our expectations. We get excited thinking about some of the, you know, larger holiday periods and special event days and weekends like, you know, whether it's Mother's Day or Father's Day, Valentine's Day, where we basically do run out of capacity as a concept and that we may be able to add to those kind of occasions for a long time to come because we've learned a lot of how to execute it. And it's more than just putting up a tent. You know, we've figured out how to put music there and theme a lot of the place, you know, the sense of place, et cetera. So, yeah, we've been very pleasantly surprised by the level of engagement. again, I referenced it earlier, it's like it shows you how much people want to go out. I mean, honestly, there are some times, and I've been out in our restaurants during, like, the heat waves on the West Coast, and I'm like, you know, I want to kiss these people that are out during under tents with, you know, no air conditioning, and it's 110. It shows you, you know, people want to be out in dining, and the... the force and the attraction of that occasion has in people's hearts and minds.
spk08: That's helpful, but I was actually almost asking from the opposite perspective because your peers have sort of repeatedly mentioned that consumers will quickly fill up increases in outdoor capacity, but as increases in indoor capacity are made, they're a little bit more reluctant because they don't want to be the you know, the 60th, you know, 70th percentile in terms of being in that restaurant. So there's a little bit more reluctance. So the question really is in terms of thinking about moving forward and the overall capacity that you can put back into these restaurants, it sounds like a lot of it's going to come from indoor. That was really the question, whether or not you believe that.
spk06: Oh, I hear you. Sorry. Yeah. You know, we've been pretty conservative about the whole, you know, distancing, you factor in all of this, so I don't really have a good answer for you. We haven't really seen, you know, a relative difference. I can tell you, even in, you know, states where we've had, you know, California is the best example where we've opened up indoor dining. it has increased sales, you know, where, you know, it's like immediate, where we have a lot, you know, plenty of people that want to dine indoors. So we really haven't seen what you're talking about. It makes some level of sense, frankly, but at our levels of capacity, we haven't, you know, in blended capacity, I can't say that we've seen it.
spk08: That's helpful. And just one final question for Greg Love, and you guys did touch on it, but in terms of the cost benefits you're seeing from streamlining that menu, are there any sort of harder numbers or percentages you can put around what type of cost benefit you see on either the cost of goods sold line, the cost of sales line, or the labor line as it relates to running with that smaller menu? You know, Jeff, it's hard right now. I mean, as I mentioned, Lisa mentioned this last quarter as well, we're seeing a good couple hundred basis points that are on hourly labor right now. And the reason I say right now is you've got the kitchen and you've got the dining room. As our dining room is open, you're going to add labor to take care of that guest within the dining room, assuming, you know, it's a new guest coming in and you're not just transferring them from the patio. into the dining room and the restaurant side of things. And when I look at our hourly labor today, we're getting some of the biggest bang in the server side of things because, frankly, we're doing $25,000 in takeout right now as part of that. So that's, you know, giving that additional leverage there. In the kitchen, we are seeing, I would say, you know, still some nice incremental improvements in the 50 to 100 basis points in there. But as our restaurants get busier and we bring people back in, I do think hourly labor steps up a little bit. I do think overall, though, we're going to get some nice benefits in hourly labor when all this is done and we're running our restaurants forward. We just don't see enough prep that we've used in the past and so forth and maintaining our opportunities. But I think our business is a little bit in a step function right now, and as we increase capacity, you'll see that number go up a little bit, and then you'll leverage it against management later and sending out a fixed cost. All right. Thank you. Appreciate that.
spk01: And we'll take our last question from Todd Brooks with CL King and Associates.
spk08: Hey, thanks for squeezing me in. Just two quick questions. One, can we talk about what the improvement in average weekly sales that you saw across the quarter? What's happening in kind of the either bar events part of the business or the later night part of the business as we're starting to get some live sports back on TV? And is that an avenue that you can see further improvement in the fourth quarter?
spk06: Yeah, Todd. We still are not seeing, you know, it probably sounds obvious, but, you know, there are still significant restrictions. And in most places, you know, literally the bars themselves are, are off limits. We're seating socially distance and tables, et cetera. But, you know, sports has helped in the opening of these dining rooms as have, have helped, but we're still probably seeing somewhere in the neighborhood of an opportunity. When we look at our business pre COVID, uh, um, 11, maybe $12,000 a week of, of, um, of that late night business that, you know, will come back, um, just to give you, you know, some dimension, some dimension to it. Now that's come, you know, a good ways back from the start of COVID, um, when it was, um, you know, double that at least, you know, so, um, so we're happy to see, you know, some of that recovery happen, but there's, a lot of that, and just general alcohol sales to look forward to beyond just late night because of the mix in our business being more off-premise, we're not selling the same amount of alcohol in total. What's interesting, though, don't confuse that with when people are in our restaurant and even off-premise, our alcohol incidence is up nicely in both elements of our business. And on an absolute basis, it's much lower off-premise, right? So it totals up to us selling less alcohol. But people are drinking more when they're in the restaurant, and they're drinking more when they're ordering out, which is good to see, at least in my mind. But that's upside. As that dine-in business continues to recover... We're going to see, you know, some really nice tailwinds, both in terms of overall alcohol sales and late night here that, you know, our teams have done a great job of battling against, but, you know, we need some more late night traffic to make all that happen and dine-in traffic.
spk08: Yeah, it actually makes us really optimistic when I think about our future of our business. I mean, we're doing... 80-plus thousand a week in sales, which is greater than many casual dining concerts out there to begin with, with capacity restrictions, and frankly, without one of our day parks. So, as that day park comes back with things, I think we've got, you know, some real ability to move DJs to some of our highest AUVs ever with that coming back and then having that off-premise business. That's great. And then, just a final question. with the return to generating positive cash flow in the quarter. Maybe this is a Greg Levin question. How are you thinking about the right amount of cash to keep on the balance sheet versus continuing to pay down the debt balances? Yeah, that's a good question, Todd. And what we tend to do, and this is what makes it sometimes a little more difficult, it's kind of chunky, our cash flow, meaning... We've got to spend a lot of money for new restaurants being built, and then if you don't have restaurants being built, you can then save that money and kind of move it from that standpoint. In general, finishing at the $16.65 million that we're at right now, that's a pretty high number for us, and I think you'll tend to see that number go down throughout the quarter. I think, you know, we'd rather not have quite as much on the balance sheet. We'd rather pay down some more of our line of credit. The reason we have some of that sitting here right now is we're going to have some CapEx numbers and things like that coming up as we just finished our Orange Village restaurant, getting the last providers and some of the other things. But in general, as things have normalized, I don't even want to have that much cash sitting on the balance sheet. Okay, great. Thank you both. You're welcome. You're welcome. All right. All right, everyone. Thank you for today. We're around if you have any questions.
spk06: Thank you, everyone.
spk01: Thank you. And again, that does conclude today's call. You may now disconnect. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Hmm. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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