Kura Sushi USA, Inc.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Kurosuichi USA Inc. 4th Quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time you have been placed in a lesson only mode and the lines will be open for your question following the presentation. Please note that this call is being recorded. On the call today we have Hajime Jami Uba, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Yutes, Chief Financial Officer, and Benjamin Porton, SVP Investor Relations and System Development. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Porton.

Thank you operator. Good afternoon everyone and thank you all for joining. By now everyone should have access to our Fiscal 4th Quarter 2024 earnings release. It can be found at .kurosuichi.com in the Investor Relations section. The copy of the earnings release has also been included in the AK we submitted to the SEC. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of our discussions today will include forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements are also subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. We refer all of you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results in financial condition. Also, during today's call, we will discuss certain 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 nor as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP, and the reconciliation to comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release. With that out of the way, I would like to turn the call over to Jimmy.

Thanks Ben, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. I am pleased to report on end to the fiscal year that has meaningfully outperformed the expectations we shared during the last morning's call, and to share that a new fiscal year is off to a strong start. The sales pressures beginning in April improved significantly over the course of the quarter, resulting in fourth quarter comps of negative 3.1%, as compared to the expectations we shared during the prior earnings call of negative high single digit comps. I am very pleased that, in spite of the unexpected sales decline in the back half of the fiscal year, we were able to maintain positive full year comps of .7% and full year restaurant level operating profit margins above 20%. This was made possible by the rapid response by our team members throughout the company to find new efficiencies and cost saving opportunities. Total sales for the fiscal fourth quarter were $66 million, representing comparable sales performance of negative 3.1%. Our cost of goods sold as a percentage of sales was 28.5%, representing a 100 basis point improvement over the prior year. This improvement was made possible by improving the quality of ingredients while also lowering cost. Labor as a percentage of sales was 31.1%, representing an increase of 230 basis points as compared to the prior year due to wage inflation and sales deregulation. Restaurant level operating profit margin for the fourth quarter was 20.9%, as compared to the prior year at .4% due to sales leverage. On the development front, we opened one new unit in Lake Grove, New York during the fourth quarter for a total of 14 new unit openings during the fiscal year. Subsequent to the quarter end, we have opened five new units, Beaverton, Oregon, Tacoma, Washington, Rockville, Maryland, Cary Hill, New Jersey, and Bakersfield, California. We currently have six units under construction, but it bears mentioning that some of these units have just broken ground. While we are satisfied with the progress of opening new restaurants so far in fiscal year 2025, we expect that the opening of the remaining nine restaurants, especially those that not yet started construction, will be back-loaded for Q3 and Q4. As many of you know, Bellevue has been our strongest performer since its opening. With our most successful unit being in Washington state, we have always been excited about the massive potential of the Pacific Northwest Market. This year, we finally opened our second unit in the Pacific Northwest with Beaverton, Oregon. I'm extremely pleased to share that we were not disappointed. Following Beaverton, we opened our new unit in Tacoma, Washington. Tacoma has been a very strong performer since its opening. While it's still early days, I'm very happy to see that the new units in the Pacific Northwest have exceeded our already high expectations and are very bullish about the long-term potential of this market. Turning to new initiatives, we completed the full rollout of our -of-house streamlining efforts in early September, and results to date have delivered the expected improvements to labor costs. Supporting of Kurojapan's reservation and self-seating system is proceeding as scheduled, representing further opportunities for labor efficiencies later in the year. We have also diversified our marketing efforts so that we have more labor to pull beyond the heat ID collaborations. We are going to be more discerning with our ID collaborations going forward. We are also prioritizing the quality and growth-based appeal of partnering brands over the number of campaigns. Our strategy to showcase our unbeatable quality and authenticity will be key to building our long-term brand equity as we grow into our national footprint while also being more cost-efficient than rolling ID collaborations. During the fourth quarter, we took an impairment charge of $1.6 million. This charge is due to a changing sales environment at our eventual Florida location. While we are required to take this impairment charge this quarter per the accounting rules, we will continue to operate this restaurant and will implement several operational changes that we believe could improve results. The new fiscal year has started strong and it's clear that we are in a very different place than the last one in the score. The cost-saving efforts we began in preparation for the potential of longer-term macroheadwinds have been fully implemented, and these initiatives will serve us well as we enter a fully normalized environment. Our new unit openings to date have exceeded expectations and confirmed that the Pacific Northwest is a huge untapped market for us. In addition to the success we are continuing to see in the Pacific Northwest, we are highly anticipating our upcoming openings in smaller markets that will serve as proofs of concept for our ability to thrive in the United States beyond the largest DMAs. Indicating even greater white space opportunity. While Bakersfield has only been open for a few days, the strength of its opening has us optimistic about our ability to thrive in smaller DMAs. fiscal year 2025 is an opportunity to demonstrate the next level of cool society's potential, and I am incredibly grateful for the excellent work by our team members who have positioned us so well for the new fiscal year. Jeff, now I'll turn it over to you to discuss our financial results and liquidity.

Thank you, Jimmy. For the fourth quarter, total sales were $66 million as compared to $54.9 million on the prior year period. Comparable restaurant sales performance compared to the prior year period was negative 3.1 percent, with regional comps of positive 3.9 percent in our West Coast market and negative 8.9 percent in our Southwest market. Turning now to costs. Food and beverage costs as a percentage of sales were 28.5 percent compared to 29.5 percent in the prior year quarter, largely due to pricing and supply chain initiatives. Labor and related costs as a percentage of sales were 31.1 percent as compared to 28.8 percent in the prior year quarter. This increase was largely due to sales deleverage and wage increases. Occupancy and related expenses as a percentage of sales were 7 percent compared to the prior year quarter's 6.6 percent. Depreciation and amortization expense as a percentage of sales increased to 4.6 percent compared to the prior year quarter's 3.8 percent due to sales deleverage and the accelerated depreciation of assets being replaced due to planned remodels. Other costs as a percentage of sales increased to 14.7 percent compared to 13.8 percent in the prior year quarter, due mainly to utilities, delivery fees, software licenses, and operating supplies. General and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales increased to 20.3 percent compared to 13.2 percent in the prior year quarter due to a litigation expense. General and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales excluding litigation expense for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year were 13.2 percent and 14.1 percent respectively, representing full year leverage over fiscal 2023 of 90 basis points. Operating loss was $5.8 million compared to operating income of $2.2 million in the prior year quarter, largely driven by litigation expense as well as sales deleverage, higher labor costs, and incremental other costs associated with a greater number of unit openings and units under construction. Income tax expense was $19,000 compared to $167,000 in the prior year quarter. Net loss was $5.2 million or a negative 46 cents per share compared to net income of $2.9 million or 25 cents per share in the prior year quarter. Adjusted net income was $1 million or 9 cents per share compared to adjusted net income of $2.9 million or 25 cents per share in the prior year quarter. Restaurant level operating profit as a percentage of sales was 20.9 percent compared to 24.4 percent in the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $5.5 million compared to $6.3 million in the prior year quarter. Turning now to cash and liquidity, at the end of the fiscal fourth quarter we had $51 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt. And then lastly, I'd like to provide the following guidance for fiscal year 2025. We expect total sales to be between $275 and $279 million. We expect to open 14 units, maintaining an annual unit growth rate above 20 percent, with average net capital expenditures per unit of approximately $2.5 million. And we expect general and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales to be approximately 13.5 percent. And with that, I'd like to turn it back over to Jimmy.

Thanks, Jeff. This concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to answer any questions you have. Operator, please open the line for questions. As a reminder, during the Q&A session, I may answer in Japanese before my response is translated into

English.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using the speaking equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. The first question we have is from John Tower of City. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Good evening, guys. Maybe just to start, I'm curious about the guidance for revenue and based on the new store openings greater than 20 percent. I think the sales growth would imply something lower than that. You're talking about the current quarter. You're pleased with the start to the fiscal year. I'm just curious if you could help square that for us. Why the revenue growth that looks relatively conservative versus the new store growth and how bullish you sound on the current state of same-source sales?

Thank you, John, for your first question. Please allow me to speak in Japanese. I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can translate. As John said, I think it's true that we're looking at the conservative side of things. We're happy with the sales growth in September and October, but we're still in the middle of the growth, which is better than the Q4. We're not in a position to be too optimistic about the situation. Especially since we had a sales increase in the middle of the year, we wanted to repeat the same thing. So, we're looking at the current situation.

John, as you said, it's true that we are being a little bit conservative. We're very pleased with the performance that we've seen to date as we've done to the fiscal year, September and October. Q1 is definitely our performance Q4. We're very happy to see that. But it's also true that we're still in mid-process in terms of recovery. We feel it's prudent not to be overly aggressive with our revenue guidance at the beginning of the year. The last thing we want to do is to have to do a repeat of downward revenue guidance that we did last year. So, we felt that this was the most prudent approach.

On the other hand, we were very surprised with the sudden sales increase in April. We think it's very important that we can control it. For example, we were able to achieve 20% less than average profit by controlling costs and new operations. We've also been able to do a strategy to minimize the impact of cannibalization to manage the Comp. We have nuance as we go about another strategy, but we were often asked to do that. And that's why we know we can control our surge and but the macro of supply and demand changes become extremelyVEN ground we can't control. As to the issue of this trend, we would please bring up that case roasted. As I've said up to this point, I hope we can growth oùferewise or even increase our drivers

In terms of looking at the impact of the post April sales deceleration, we're very proud of how we were able to manage the things that were under our control, namely our cost control efforts, the streamlining changes that we made to our backup house in particular. Those changes were what allowed us to maintain that restaurant level operating profit margin about 20%. We're also very pleased. That we were able to maintain a unit growth rate for fiscal above 20% for fiscal 25, in spite of the fact that we've trimmed some of the from our pipeline. In an effort to minimize cannibalization and reduce comp headwinds. And so we're very pleased in terms of how we've been able to execute the things that are under our control. But unfortunately, the macro environment is something that. Is not under our control, nor is it something that we can predict. And so that's really the thinking behind our guidance at this point. Of course, should the environment continue to prove favorable, then we look forward to a revision.

Okay, so when thinking about the components of growth this year. I can back into slightly positive comp growth and the, I'm also trying to figure out the new store productivity implications. Are there anything, is there anything to note? I mean, you just hit on the idea of. Perhaps being in markets where you're not going to have as much cannibalization with the existing stores. But are you doing anything with the size of the stores or these kind of all on trend relative to what you've been opening the past couple of years?

Go ahead, Jimmy. As you say, John, in terms of how we look at new stores, 1 of the things that we really focus on, and we put a lot of cringe in is cash on cash return. And that allows us to be very, it allows us to look at a bunch of different sites. We're not dialed into a particular cookie cutter size. So, you know, we'll build a smaller store if that's a great site that's available. And we don't necessarily always dial into a particular, because if I can get a cash on cash return of 40 or 50% on a smaller restaurant, that may do a little bit lower. We'll do that all day. And then in terms of your comment about our comp assumption for fiscal 25, you know, we don't, we don't give comp guidance. But to kind of reiterate what Jimmy said, as we came out of Q4, I think we kind of saw what everybody else did. June wasn't great. Then towards the latter half of July and into August things started to get better. But in our mind, it isn't quite yet a trend. So we didn't want to get too far ahead of our skis and put an overly aggressive comp assumption in our model. But I can tell you that the comp assumption for next year is not a negative enough without quantifying it for you.

Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then maybe just in terms of thinking about the digital initiatives, I know you hit on earlier. Well, actually, I'll stop pausing that. Going back to the labor initiatives that you did at the store level. Those things should remain in place as volumes kind of return in the future. There's nothing that would suggest as volumes come back to stores, you should anticipate having having a need to add more labor in the back of the house to meet that demand.

What about first, regarding this, quiguandT could probably not totally understand, but the next emotions.

made possible by anyaze's increase in s!the number of people eh get

into By anyaze's

increase in s!the number of people it becomes is to account pouroret widely The changes that we've

made in terms of operational streamlining or structural is the combination of multiple make stations into a single one. And so an increase in sales would not require an increase in labor. While it's still very much early in the fiscal year, our belief is that our full year labor numbers percentage of sales should be better than fiscal 24th.

And of course,

if the macro environment recovers as we hope, then there's further upside to the labor line. But even without that, we expect our labor to be an improvement year over year, you know, between the operational streamlining and whatever pricing that we take.

Great. And maybe my last one, pricing fourth quarter in the mix in the quarter as well, if you wouldn't mind, and what the pricing is to start the year in 25.

Yeah, so we're running about for Q4, we're running about 4% price in the numbers we just released. And then as we think about the upcoming year, John, in terms of pricing, typically, we've been taking pricing in January, but we're thinking about taking pricing sooner than that this year, simply because we've determined that if you take it a little bit earlier than January, you can really capture a lot during that December holiday period and capture a lot of those sales. So you'll probably see a price increase, which we haven't quantified yet, coming up shortly before the end of the officially, I mean, I'm sorry, before the end of the calendar year.

Got it. Thanks. I'll pass it along. I appreciate taking the questions.

Thank you,

John. The next question we have is from Jeff Bernstein of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking the question. This is product guys. Just a quick question on development. You've already opened five and you've alluded to a pretty decent pipeline with six under construction. Just wondering on why there isn't more upside to the 14. I know anecdotally we've heard that maybe the approval and permitting process is a little bit better these days, but maybe not yet exactly where it needs to be. But just anything you can provide on just the availability of quality sites, the ability to get permits, approvals, just are there any kinds of headwinds you're seeing there that we need to be a little bit more conservative on the unit level? Thank you.

So this hate protect product business bed, in terms of development, what are the things that we're seeing? This is really more a reflection of us taking seriously the site selection strategic changes we mentioned in the last earnings call. We did prune a number of LOIs. There's nothing wrong with the sites per se. It was just not the right timing in terms of catabolization headwinds. And so we decided to either cancel them or hold them for future years. And so part of the middle of the year type of thing is that we're going to be able to get a pipeline approved. And so that's really what it is. And the reason that we've got a 14 instead of a range is just looking at our lease timing. That's really what we're led to believe. And so we felt it just made the most sense to give you guys what we're actually expected.

Got it. I appreciate that color. And then just turning to commodities, I know you have a very different basket than most in the industry. But what is a good inflation level that you're assuming in fiscal 25? I know it's early, but things can change pretty easily. But just what you're assuming in fiscal 25 and just how easily you can kind of pivot in and out of different items on the menu if the need arises.

Yes, our commodity basket, as you know, is pretty varied, things that we do buy. In terms of what we look at for next year, there were so many moving parts. Some of that was solidified last night as to what's going on. We do have the Fed tomorrow, so we've got a lot of things going on. There is an assumption of low single digit commodity inflation in the budget, just comparable to what a CPI increase would be. Nothing super aggressive in terms of inflation assumption. But yeah, because our basket is so diversified, we can pivot quickly. For some reason, we have a problem getting particular fish or products. We can pivot to an LTO or something with a different product. The other thing that I've talked about too, which is great, is with our two broadliners, they overlap each other. So if one of our broadliners happens to run out of a product, we can go to the other one, and most likely they will have it. So we do have redundancy in our supply chain process, and because of that, very rarely do we run out of things. And the process has been very streamlined over the last year to two years. That's great. And if I

can just sneak one last one in, just on the labor line, Jeff, you've spoken to all these efficiencies that are going to yield some dividends, and it looks like you're going to last AB 1228 as well later on in the year, although it doesn't look like your concept really saw much of an impact. But just what is a more normalized rate of inflation on the labor line going forward once kind of like all these prior year nuances are lapped? Is there something like around mid-single digits that we should expect?

Okay.

Historically, labor inflation on an annual basis has been about low single digits. For fiscal 24, it was closer to mid-single digits. With the operational improvements that we've put into place, we're confident that we'll be able to exit fiscal 25 with a full year labor line that is superior to fiscal 24s. And obviously, if the macro environment improves and we get further sales leverage, then that's additional opportunity there.

Thank you so much. I'll pass it on, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.

The next question we have is from Brian Mullen of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Allison Arstroman for Brian Mullen. Thank you for taking the question. In regards to the 20.9 restaurant level margin this year, I'm curious how you're thinking about the range for next year and what some of the headwinds and tailwinds might be that we should consider.

In terms of

restaurant level operating profit margin, we've never provided guidance, but one thing that we've said very consistently is that one of our primary goals is to maintain our restaurant level operating profit margins about 20% on a full year basis. We're very pleased to see that in spite of the headwinds that we saw in terms of sales sea leverage beginning in April, we were able to maintain restaurant level operating profit margins about 20%. And we absolutely expect to do that again in fiscal 25, hopefully without the headwinds that we saw

beginning in April. Thank you. The next question we have is from Jeremy

Hamblin of Craig Hallam Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the improved results. I wanted to dig in a little bit on the other operating cost line item, which has been a bit more challenging to control here in recent years. And just get a sense, we know some of that is due to utilities inflation has been higher, insurance inflation has been higher, but wanted to get a sense for what you are seeing here at the start of this fiscal year related to that line item. And I know embedded within that is some of the delivery cost fees. And just understand how the DoorDash deal is kind of progressing.

Yeah, let me hit the operating supplies and then I'll put that in the chat. I think that Jeremy and Ben will talk about the DoorDash deal. And certainly the operating supplies, you're right, Jeremy. I mean, utilities are up, software licenses, everything has gone up. When you call a plumber into the restaurant to fix something, just more than it was in prior years. One thing to remember as we think about the year coming in terms of the cadence of that line is that while a lot of it is variable, there are some fixed costs in there. So Q1 in terms of sales is seasonality wise, while our low is quarter. So when you look at some of those fixed costs that are in other costs, you'll see a trend in that direction. What we're seeing as the year started is pretty similar to what we've seen in past years. We're continuing to push and work as much as we can to renegotiate contracts and widen our vendor lists of people that come in. We do use EcoTrack, which is a great software that the Facility Department uses in order to work with multiple vendors when something goes down in the restaurant in order to find the vendor that not only has the best response time, so we're not down, but also has the best pricing. And we're looking at all of those things to try and do what we can. Unfortunately, things like utilities are a little bit out of our control, but we're looking line by line by line at other costs, things that are under our control to do what we can to continue to chip away at that cost line. And then I

say that Jeff really covered 99% of what there is to discuss in terms of other costs. For the delivery costs, that's a reflection of a promotional campaign where we subsidized part of delivery fees for first time orders on DoorDash. And so it's not a typical fee. I wouldn't expect it to be

a recurring fee.

And can you quantify what the impact of that promotion was on that line item?

I

don't have that

number on me, but not huge.

Okay, got it. And then could you just provide a bit more color on some of the upcoming technology initiatives, just in terms of the timing of when you would expect some impact on those? Right. It sounds like you're expecting your labor line, which I think was .9% of sales to be a little bit better this year. I'm sure that's not kind of a straight line shot, but can you help us just understand the context of timing on those initiatives and how you expect that to play out to get to that target?

Yeah, yeah, I'm more than happy to discuss. The biggest opportunity in terms of fiscal 25 is the new reservation and self seating system. I've been working in lockstep with Japan to port that system translated into not just English, but how they make it appropriate for American use. It's going up very much on track and we expect our first store implementation in early spring. That for fiscal 25 is definitely the biggest opportunity. There's maybe a maximum of 50 basis points to be saved with its implementation.

That being said,

Jimmy's earlier comments in terms of our expectations about being able to produce labor's percentage of sales in fiscal 25 that is lower than last year, that doesn't contemplate the upside represented by the reservation system. So should that that'll be gravy for us on the labor line and restaurant level operating profit margin line as well.

Great helpful color. Last thing, just a little bit more color on the 4.7M litigation expense. Any more details you can share on that?

It's just Jeremy, the typical wage and hour claims that restaurant companies unfortunately have to deal with from time to time around really liberty to get into the details of it. But it's your run of the mill. I don't know a restaurant company that hasn't had to deal with these types of claims over the last 7 to 10 years. So it's it's it is wage and hour.

Thanks for color. Best wishes. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and

gentlemen, just a reminder, if you would like to queue for a question, you may press star and then one. The next question we have is from Sharon of William. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I guess, and I apologize. My phone is a little bit muffled, but. It sounds like trends have improved more in November in the November quarter and certainly improved as the August quarter progressed. I guess, as you do like the post mortem on kind of what happened in April through August. Do you really think it was the promotional tie in? Do you think it was fast back? I mean, what is your best insight now on kind of what caused that flu?

I think the strength of IP is also a little bit affected. August one piece, August one piece, and October Pikmin. I think that was reflected in the past. So, in November, there are a lot of noise and elections. I don't expect to return completely from March, so I'm not sure how much I'll be back. I'm not sure. In terms of

our thinking on the self-desolation starting in April through August, I think we're pretty much aligned with the rest of the industry. Initially, we thought a lot of it was coming from sticker shock with the implementation of AB 1228. Our thinking changed once it became clear it was a wider national macro factor, which has been corroborated by the earnings calls of our peers. And then to your comment on IP collaborations, that certainly could have played a role as well. Our August benefited from one piece, which was a very successful campaign, ran from August to September. As we entered October, we've been working with Pikmin, which is a Nintendo property. Also, we're very pleased with the results there. November, we just entered, so it doesn't really make too much sense to comment on the first five days. But we're hopeful that these trends continue. But just given the opacity, we felt it was appropriate to be proven with our revenue guidance, going back to Jimmy's earlier comments.

That's really helpful. I guess one other question, Ben, you just talked about the reservation self-seeding system coming in next year and maybe being able to get 50 bips from that. Are these savings that I know you continue to get more and more efficiencies, more and more savings? Ultimately,

how

do we think about that kind of in harvesting to the bottom line versus reinvesting in the business to continue to deepen the competitive mode?

Well, as for investments, are

there any costs? Costs or material? No,

not really. In a big way, we're developing it with the help of Kudo. We're just improving it with the help of the US, so the costs aren't that big. It's almost unprofitable. So,

do you reinvest the effort you've put into it? No, I

think that we can do it better. We have about 30% of the revenue. So, I think we can get closer to that.

That appropriate level for us. Yeah, and so that'll probably be the first thing that you

see. Great last question. Hey, Jeff, can we get the traffic in the quarter?

Oh, yeah, I have that number. It was minus, it was negative 2.4. So, 0.7 price, traffic down to 4 for a countdown of minus

3.1. The next question we have

is from Todd Brooks of Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for squeezing me in. I wanted to explore the regional spread in the same store sales performance that you highlighted. I know a lot of investors kind of focus on this number as a proof of portability of the concept, but is that weakness in the kind of southwestern market? Is that more of the two-year stack that you were lapping tougher same store sales, or is there an element that Texas got hit by barrels during the quarter and that was an artificial drag on that region versus the west coast region?

So,

So, the biggest thing that we really want to emphasize in terms of comps is that it's not necessarily, looking at the regional comps, it's not necessarily an indication of our performance or popularity or the demand that we see in those markets, but really just an artifact of the way that we've grown over the last 10 years. And so our company has about 45 units, about half of those are in California, got low, got over 10 in Texas. Outside of those markets, they're pretty much all single unit markets, which have recently gone into multi-unit markets. And so obviously that has a very meaningful impact on comps and it has nothing to do with demand. It just has to do with the fact that it's the first infill. Looking to the southeast in particular, there was one infill in Dallas and one infill in Houston, which impacted a story each in those markets, which had largely been not impacted by prior infills. And so that was a headwind there.

And just to

give you some additional thinking on the way that we've approached cannibalization since the last earnings call, we've been very proactive in terms of our pipeline and starting in fiscal 26, that's when you'll really start to see the impact of the pandemic on the economy. And so we're really looking at the greater number of new market units being included, which obviously don't play into cannibalization whatsoever in terms of fiscal 25 with lead times. It's pretty, your options are pretty limited in terms of adding new places. And so our approach for fiscal 25 is really removing places, which were existing markets would have been first infills. But looking at the early success of Bakersfield, that's a meaningfully smaller EMA than we typically enter. And we're doing great there. So that really opens up a lot of options in terms of what we would consider in terms of new markets. And so our ability to manage our infill strategy against comps, that's really going to come into full gear in fiscal 26, which we're very excited about.

That's great. And just one follow up, if I may, follow up an additional question. Ben, you talked about a lower frequency perhaps of the IP collaborations. Can you walk us through maybe some detail behind it? Is it the fewer events? Is it shorter duration of event? Just how do you see this evolving? And are you tying yourself to a specific number of collabs per year anymore? Or it's when the right partner comes along, you guys would work that into kind of your calendar of what you're looking to do. Thanks.

Yeah, so that's an interesting way of putting it, but that's pretty similar to our thinking as well, where before the thinking was you always wanted to have an IP collaboration. That's what Jimmy was referring to with the rolling collabs in his prepared remarks. But every brand new property collaboration is expensive and not every single one is worth the associated cost. And so the thinking now is really, let's go for the ones that we think are really going to be big hits. And so before we have six guaranteed, that's no longer the case. We're really just going after targets that we think will really move the needle from a comp perspective.

And of course,

we're not just reducing the number of collaborations with nothing to replace it. We have a huge advertising pipeline. Our VP, our new VP of marketing, which I think we've mentioned on every call since we've hired him, is doing a really great job. If you're listening, we're very pleased. And so September and October, we've been seeing pretty strong results. The IP campaigns are part of it. But another big part would be the new advertising efforts that we put into place, especially the food focused ones. We're excited to see the performance in upcoming months where we don't have IP collaboration so that we can see just how successful these campaigns are without that additional variable. And just as some additional context, when we aren't doing a brand collaboration, that doesn't mean we're not going to be giving out the big coupon prizes. They just won't be branded

prizes. Understood. And then finally, just in the revenue guidance, which you talked about a lot of the reasons for the maybe the conservancy to start the year. Is this a part of it as well as we're kind of weaning ourselves to programs that make sense versus six programs a year and that that's you want to leave yourself a little bit of room there is kind of the new advertising mix kicks up?

So in

terms of revenue guidance, we've always in past years when we've given guidance, it doesn't contemplate the impact of IP collaborations. Basically, whenever we have a collaboration, that's opportunity for upside. And so that's the same thinking here. It does not contemplate like collaborations.

And thank you. Yep. Go ahead. Say that on those additional marketing campaigns. As Jimmy was talking about that will be in between the IP collaborations. What's really great about those and then alluded to the Sue is that they come with a fraction of the cost of the IP collaborations and they can be just as the top line. So a lot of that will flow down to the bottom line. It's also kind of ties into a question we were asked by another analyst earlier about other costs because with these IP collaborations flow into other costs. So, as we continue to put marketing campaigns in that are just as good for the top lines that don't have other cost line that flow straight to net income. So we're really looking forward to having some of those mixed in with the IP collaborations as well.

That's very helpful. Thanks, Jeff. The next question we have is

from Jim Sanderson of North Coast Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for the question. I just wanted to follow up a little bit more detail on GNA spending. I think you reported a slight improvement over prior year. So going forward, maybe you can walk us through what type of line item leverage you would expect and how that can flow through to the bottom line.

The biggest leverage will be on our support center salaries. Really, that's the biggest line item in GNA. And the entire team in our support center has done a great job in determining how do we do things more efficiently and how do we do things better without adding people. And that's where we're going to continue to see that leverage in our guidance of about .5% for next year would represent 60 basis points. And we came down from .8% two years ago to 15% last year to .1% this year. And we get into 13 next year. That is much better than I anticipated when joining the company. It's because of the efforts of everyone in the support center to just look at how we do things and use technology and software rather than having to add people every time we open 10 restaurants. And we're going to continue that cadence throughout next year.

Okay. Can I can I add something? We just comment. And to

add on to just comment over the last year, the two years, the two preceding years, we've had a lot of infills and unfortunately, the way the point of discussion in terms of infills has been cannibalization for the last call. But really, the other side is synergy. And so now that we have these infilled markets, we can have area managers handle more restaurants. And so for fiscal 25, even though we're adding 14 units, you don't expect to add any area managers. So salary savings, travel savings with greater density. Our facilities teams don't have to travel as far. We have proprietary equipment teams that deal with all of our patented technology that will get leveraged there. And so there are a lot of regional costs that are an opportunity for fiscal 25 and beyond as well.

All right, thank you for that. I also just wanted to follow up and make sure I understood the feedback about the same store sales and traffic for the quarter. I think you said 4% price negative 2, 4 on traffic. So that would imply a little bit of a. Worse negative mix in the quarter. Any feedback on what's driving that?

Actually, we're really happy with where it came out. Did you go back a year or you go back 2 years? Our negative mix had been in the high single digits. So really, we're looking at it now is, is we're. We're really happy because we're looking at it compared to last year. So I think that the change is really negligible. It's not anything that can necessarily be identified last year. We think people weren't having maybe a drink or maybe they weren't adding an additional by attachment. But let's come back this year and we're happy with where the next plan did for Q4.

Okay, okay. Last question for me just wanted a brief update on door dash. If you can provide maybe with the mix for delivery sales. Was in the quarter and if your pricing is set on marketplace equal to in store pricing. Yes,

so our mix is .2% of overall sales. Our pricing is the same as it is in restaurant with the so we added door dash in March. Just to give you some, some context on how we've grown our mix in Q1, which would have been September for November calendar. 23, the off premises mix at that point was 2%. And so it's grown meaningfully with the addition of. And so that's the end of our Q4.

All right, thank you very much. Thanks, Jim. At this stage,

they are there for the questions. And with that, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.