GEN Restaurant Group, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Gen Restaurant Group Inc. Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the lines will be open for your questions following the presentation. Please note that this conference is being recorded today, March 6, 2024. And now, I would like to turn the conference over to Tom Crowell, the company's Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon. By now, everyone should have access to our fourth quarter 2023 earnings release. If not, it can be found at www.genkoreanbbq.com in the investor relations section. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that our discussions today will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, including but not limited to statements regarding how growth plans and potential new store openings, as well as those types of statements identified in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2023, and our subsequent reports filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements represent our views only as of the date of this call and are also subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we currently expect. We refer you to our recent SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K, for a more detailed discussion of the risks that can impact our future operating results and financial conditions. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. During today's call, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings press release and our SEC filings, which are available in the investor relations section of our website. Now I'd like to turn it over to our board chair and co-CEO, David Kim.

Thank you, Tom, and good afternoon, everybody. During 2023, the company achieved record revenues of $181 million, representing growth of over 10% versus 2022. This was driven by the opening of six new restaurants, including three new restaurants in the fourth quarter. As we look ahead to 2024, we expect double-digit revenue growth driven by eight new restaurant openings over the coming year. Before I get into the details of the quarter, let me remind you of what makes Gen Korean BBQ truly unique. We are a full-service, sit-down, not a buffet, casual dining restaurant concept, serving a variety of proteins, including steak, pork, chicken, seafood, and salad across both lunch and dinner, all at an affordable, all-inclusive price. Unlike other restaurant concepts, every Gen Korean barbecue experience provides our guests with an efficient cook-it-yourself at each table model. This eliminates the need for cooks at our restaurants, enabling us to keep our prices low It allows us to provide the best value proposition to our guests. Moreover, our smaller kitchen footprint also provides us with additional space for tables, allowing more guests to enjoy our dining experience. With that background, let's talk about the restaurant development. During the fourth quarter, we opened three new restaurants. one in Houston, Texas in October, one in Kapolei, Hawaii in November, and one in Arlington, Texas in December. This gives us a total of six new restaurants for year 2023. Looking ahead to 2024, we anticipate opening eight new restaurants. During February of 2024, we opened two new restaurants, both one in Dallas and one in Seattle. The six remaining restaurants will open throughout the year with most expected in the fourth quarter. In addition to the eight new restaurants in 2024, we have 10 additional leases in various stages of negotiations that we would expect to be 2025 new restaurants. We are excited and committed to expanding our footprint and growing Gen Korean BBQ. We believe the growth opportunity ahead of us is substantial. We remain pleased with the performance of our four restaurants from 2022 and early 2023. As we stated on our last call, the stores continue to collectively generate annualized average unit volume of approximately 5 million and remain on track for an average payback period of approximately 2.2 years. Within our restaurants, we're currently in a testing phase of new menu items and drinks options that we are in the works of a rollout. Operationally during the quarter, we completed an integration of the two operating companies into one. We also completed a switch from US Foods to Cisco. While these operational initiatives involved additional costs above what we were expecting in the quarter and impacted our profitability, I'm pleased to say that both of these initiatives are completed. Importantly, We believe we have a solid foundation to create a great guest experience and drive further growth for Gen Korean BBQ as we add new restaurants throughout the country. In closing, we believe we have an exciting growth pipeline ahead of us. Not only do we expect to open eight new restaurants, but we are also funding these new restaurants, primarily through the free cash flow further demonstrating the strength of our business. Coupled with the attractive new unit economics that are among the best in the industry, we believe we have the necessary foundation to capture the opportunities ahead and enhance long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Tom Crow, to discuss our results.