Bloomin' Brands, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Blumenbrand's Fiscal First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow management's prepared remarks. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mark Graff, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Mr. Graff. You may begin your presentation.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. With me on today's call are David Dino, our Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Meyer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. By now, you should have access to our fiscal first quarter 2022 earnings release. It can also be found on our website at blumenbrands.com in the investor section. Throughout this conference call, we will be presenting results on an adjusted basis, an explanation of our use of non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures appear in our earnings release on our website as previously described. Before we begin formal remarks, I'd like to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements, including a discussion of recent trends. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. Some of these risks are mentioned in our earnings release. Others are discussed in our SEC filings, which are available at sec.gov. During today's call, we'll provide a brief recap of our financial performance for the fiscal first quarter 2022, an overview of company highlights, and an update to 2022 guidance. Once we've completed these remarks, we'll open up the call for questions. And with that, I'd now like to turn the call over to David Dino.

Well, thank you, Mark, and welcome to everyone listening today. As noted in this morning's earnings release, adjusted Q1 2022 diluted earnings per share was $0.80 versus $0.72 in Q1 2021, up 11%. We also saw good sales growth in Q1 with positive comp sales across all concepts. This momentum is directly tied to the planning and hard work that has taken place in the company over the last few years. We prepared a comprehensive plan to build a stronger, leaner, operations-centric company. one focused on providing even better food and service to customers. It's clear our strategies are working and reaffirm our ability to deliver on key commitments and drive even more sustainable growth. These results would not have been possible without the talented and dedicated employees in our restaurants and the Restaurant Support Center. Your commitment to providing guests the highest level of service and hospitality is what makes our restaurants so successful. As we build upon the momentum from the first quarter, we remain focused on executing against the following key priorities to deliver sustainable growth. First, grow in restaurant sales by improving service levels and food offerings. The investments made over the past years to elevate the customer experience are showing up in improved social and customer scores, especially at Outback. As part of this effort, we continue to look for ways to simplify the business to improve execution and consistency. This includes rolling out several innovations, such as new cooking technology, including advanced grills and ovens to improve food quality and productivity. We also are deploying kitchen display systems for meal pacing and handheld technology for our servers. These innovations should reduce costs and further improve customer service. While all this is going on, we continue to upgrade our asset base. Investments in remiles are offering good returns, and recent relocations at Outback are providing outsized sales lifts and volumes exceeding $4.5 million. Second, grew our leading off-premises business. We capitalized on our strong carryout and delivery capabilities during the pandemic. U.S. off-premises sales were over $1 billion in fiscal 2021. Retention levels held steady with Q4 and are contributing to sales outperformance. Importantly, profit margins in this channel are comparable to margins of the in-restaurant business. This is the result of initiatives that were completed the past few quarters. We are also pursuing catering opportunities as people continue returning to offices. We offer significant values through our bundles platforms, which includes group platters for large parties and or individual boxed options. We expect off-premises to remain a large and growing part of the business going forward. Third, leverage operating margin gains by growing sales and reducing costs. This starts by growing healthy traffic across the in-restaurant and off-premises channels. We also reduced reliance on discounting and promotional LTOs and pivoted advertising spend towards more targeted, higher-return digital channels. In addition, we remain disciplined in managing the middle of the P&L and are aggressively pursuing efficiencies in food, labor, and overhead. As Chris will discuss, despite large increases in food and labor inflation, we've been able to achieve our margin objectives. And finally, become an even more digitally savvy company. In Q1, approximately 79% of total U.S. off-premises sales were through digital channels. Last year, we implemented a new online ordering system and mobile app to support our digital business. These technology initiatives are aimed at creating a frictionless customer experience while also enhancing customer engagement. Both have outperformed expectations, and the new app has over 1.8 million downloads. you can expect to see more activity as we improve the functionality and features of our app and digital offerings. These priorities will be our guide for 2022 and beyond. Because of the momentum we have in so many areas and a much stronger balance sheet, we are in a position to begin growing our restaurant base in a meaningful way once again. I will now turn the call over to Mark Graff, who has recently taken over responsibility for business development to provide additional details on our new unit plans.