Texas Roadhouse, Inc.

will assist you. I would now like to introduce Michael Balin, Head of Investor Relations for Texas Roadhouse. You may begin your conference.

Thank you, Rob, and good evening. By now, you should have access to our earnings release for the fourth quarter ended December 26, 2023. It may also be found on our website at TexasRoadhouse.com in the investor section. I would like to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer all of you to our earnings release in our recent filings with the SEC. These documents provide a more detailed discussion of the relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. In addition, we may refer to non-GAAP measures. If applicable, reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures to the GAAP information can be found in our earnings release. On the call with me today is Jerry Morgan, Chief Executive Officer of Texas Roadhouse, and Chris Monroe, our Chief Financial Officer. Following the prepared remarks, we will be available to answer your questions. In order to accommodate everyone that would like to ask a question, we kindly ask analysts to please limit yourself to one question. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Jerry.

Thanks, Michael, and good evening, everyone. 2023 was another great year for Texas Roadhouse. We generated over $4.6 billion in revenue and increased average unit volumes to over $7.6 million at Texas Roadhouse. And for the full year, comp sales grew over 10%, with more than half of that increase coming from higher guest traffic. Along with this top line growth, we also reported double digit increases in restaurant margin dollars, income from operations, and earnings per share for full year 2023. Our results clearly reflect the commitment our managing partners have in taking care of their guests and their communities. There are no better examples of this passion than our Veterans Day celebration and our national fundraiser to benefit Tinnitus Research. On Veterans Day, we honored nearly 700,000 veterans by providing a free meal or voucher for a future meal. And just over a week ago, we raised over $925,000 for the American Tinnitus Association in honor of our late founder, Kent Taylor. These are just two of the many ways our operators give back to their local communities. 2023 was a record year for system-wide new store openings. For the full year, we opened 30 company restaurants across all brands, and our franchise partners opened 15 restaurants, including our first two franchised Jaggers. For 2024, we continue to expect to open approximately 30 company-owned restaurants across the three brands. Our expectation is that this year's openings will be more evenly distributed throughout the year as compared to last year when 50% of our openings occurred in the last four months. Additionally, we expect our franchise partners will open as many as 14 international and domestic locations, including Four Jaggers. In 2024, We will also maintain our emphasis on operational efficiencies and improving the guest and employee experience by focusing on technology investments. Based on positive feedback from our operators, we're accelerating the number of digital kitchen conversions to be completed this year. We now expect to convert approximately 200 existing Texas roadhouses to a digital kitchen in 2024. And we have also standardized this equipment for new openings at all three brands. We are also focused on increasing guest awareness of our digital platform, which is the most efficient way for our guests to put their names on the wait list, to dine in our restaurants, and to place their to-go orders. In closing, we are extremely excited about the direction of our business and our three brands. There are so many things to be proud of, But at the same time, we still have many opportunities to continue building our business going forward. Now, Chris will provide some thoughts.