Noodles & Company

Good afternoon and welcome to today's Noodles and Company's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants are now in a listen-only mode. After the presenter's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce Noodles and Company's Chief Financial Officer, Mike Hines. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter of 2026 earnings call. Here with me this afternoon is Joe Cristina, our Chief Executive Officer. I'd like to start by going over a few regulatory matters. During the call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. Any such items should be considered forward-looking statements within the meeting of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are only projections, and actual events or results could differ from those projections due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those referred to in this afternoon's news release and the cautionary statement in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC. During the call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in our first quarter 2026 earnings release. To the extent the company provides guidance, it does so only on a non-GAAP basis and does not provide reconciliations of forward-looking non-GAAP measures. Quantitative reconciling information for these measures is unavailable without unreasonable efforts. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Joe Cristina, our Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon. As we look at our performance in the first quarter and into the second, the story is clear. We are delivering consistent and sustainable, favorable results across noodles and company, demonstrated by system-wide comp sales growth of over 9% and adjusted EBITDA more than tripling year-over-year in the first quarter. More importantly, this momentum continued into the second quarter with April system-wide comp sales growth of over 9%, including over 10% for our company-operated restaurants. To date, we have delivered positive same-store sales for the last 16 consecutive months, In conjunction with the increase in comparable sales, our restaurant contribution margins increased by a significant 460 basis points in the first quarter, with the combination of the strong sales and margin increases reflected in the over-tripling of our adjusted EBITDA results. What gives me confidence in the sustainability of our results is that our progress is driven not by a single initiative or unlock. It is a result of a focused, disciplined approach to executing the fundamentals of our business and doing the small things right every day, with those small improvements adding up to meaningful wins. Moreover, we are seeing those winnings behaviors spread across the organization, leading to stronger execution and a better overall guest experience. What's important to understand is that this progress is not accidental. It is the result of how our teams show up and operate every day. We are seeing that come through clearly in three areas. First, we are running more consistent restaurant operations. Second, our marketing is more disciplined and more connected. And third, Our culinary strategy is driving demand through relevant, craveable food. Let me start with our restaurants. Put simply, we are operating better restaurants today than we were a year ago. Across the system, we are executing at a higher level in the moments that matter most to our guests. We are seeing meaningful improvement in service, particularly during our dinner day part, where consistency and hospitality have the greatest impact. Our overall guest satisfaction score has increased by 10% in the last six months, with significant improvement achieved in all of our major sales channels. In-restaurant, native digital, and third-party delivery. That comes from more focused, more aligned teams who understand what matters most and hold themselves accountable to it. we are recognizing strong performance and reinforcing it, which raises the standards across the system. Guests are noticing the difference, and that is showing up in stronger in-restaurant sales and more consistent traffic patterns. At the same time, as execution in our restaurants has improved, our marketing has become more disciplined, more connected, and more effective. We're not relying on a single campaign or promotion. We are operating with a consistent, ongoing dialogue with our guests, anchored in what we do best, delivering craveable, globally inspired noodle dishes. That work is showing up in the business. We're seeing it in both sales and transactions, supported by stronger engagement across our paid, owned, and earned channels. Importantly, a meaningful portion of that growth is coming from new guests entering the brand. In fact, New guest active purchases increased 36% year over year, and loyalty sign-ups grew 33% in the quarter, clear indicators that our brand is reaching new audiences. We also become intentional in how we invest. In paid media, we are actively managing performance in real time across channels, allowing us to allocate dollars more efficiently and maximize returns. We are not separating traffic from brands. The same work that brings guests into our restaurants is also strengthening how they think about noodles. In the first quarter, we introduced what we call a Boost Week offer, a focused, time-bound activation designed to drive immediate, profitable traffic during key periods. During this winter, reward members can enjoy two of our culinary classics for $12.00. The results were strong as we added new loyalty members, reactivated last guests, and drove a meaningful increase in traffic to our website. Based on that performance, we plan to build this into a repeatable program and execute it on a quarterly basis. We also launched our Fresh campaign, highlighting ingredient quality and reinforcing the care that goes into every dish, helping to elevate how our guests perceive our food. On the culinary side, we're executing a focused strategy that balances fan-favorite returns, bold global flavors, and culturally relevant partnerships to drive both frequency and new guest engagement. This progress began last year with the most significant menu transformation in our company's history as we introduced a range of new and enhanced dishes that strengthened the core of our offering. We followed that with our Delicious Duos platform, which reinforced our value proposition in a disciplined way, as well as provided further reinforcement of the new and enhanced menu items. Later in the year, we introduced Chili Garlic Ramen, one of our most successful limited-time offers, which brought new guests to the brand and further reinforced noodles as a credible, differentiated, fast, casual destination for globally inspired noodle dishes. In the first quarter, Steak Stroganoff returned as a highly successful limited-time offer. We brought it back in response to strong guest demand, and the results reinforced both the strength of our loyal guest base and our ability to attract new guests. We also expanded how we supported that launch through differentiated marketing initiatives to build broader awareness to reach beyond our core guests. More broadly, fan favorites like Steak Stroganoff play an important role in our strategy. For longtime guests, they create a reason to return. For new guests, they provide an easy entry point into a brand through dishes we know resonate. We continue that approach into March by highlighting our Asian category and bringing back Indonesian peanut sauté alongside chili garlic ramen. This work reinforced our global flavor profile, showcasing the variety on our menu, and helped lift the overall Asian category. During this LTO window, our Asian category mix has increased 40%, a clear signal that this strategy is resonating with guests. As limited time offers remain a key part of our menu strategy, I'm excited to share our newest LTO, chicken artichoke and asparagus rigatoni, which is available today nationwide. This dish is a bright spring-forward pasta that brings together fresh seasonal ingredients with the comforting flavors our guests expect from noodles. In tandem with this LTO, we are partnering with Cravings by Christy Teigen to offer guests the Craveable Bundle, which includes our new chicken artichoke and asparagus rigatoni, alongside a Cravings-inspired crispy, a nostalgic sweet and salty twist on our signature treat. This is another example of how we are delivering craveable food while elevating it through the right partnership. We know Noodles and the Cravings brand, which has a significant following by one of our key demographics, certainly knows Craving. Together, we are bringing those strengths to life in a way that allows us to show up in culture authentically while driving awareness, trial, and engagement. Across all these efforts, the through line is clear. We are executing well in our restaurants, supporting it with disciplined marketing, and delivering craveable food. We create a better guest experience that is translating into consistent performance and steady growth in both comparable sales and margins. At the same time, we have taken a disciplined look at our portfolio and how our restaurants are performing across markets. In select areas, we had too much density, particularly as our off-premise sales continued to grow. We made the decision to optimize our footprint. By closing underperforming restaurants in these areas, we have seen a significant transfer of their sales to nearby restaurants, which results in a higher baseline average unit volume for those go-forward restaurants, which also further improves restaurant-level margin and profitability. It also allows us to focus our resources on our strongest restaurants, improving efficiency and driving better overall company profitability. The progress we are seeing is helping across the business, and it's building on itself. We are seeing a shift in mindset across the organization, and our teams believe they can impact results. They are taking ownership, and as we continue to reinforce strong execution, winning is becoming contagious across our teams. That is what allows this momentum to sustain. As we look ahead, we will stay focused, remain disciplined, and continue executing at a high level every day. With that, I will turn it over to Mike to walk through the financial details.