Darden Restaurants, Inc.

Welcome to the Darden fiscal year 2022 first quarter earnings call. Your lines have been placed on listen only until the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star one on your touchtone phone. The conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Calacac. You may begin.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating on today's call. Joining me on the call today are Gene Lee, Darden's Chairman and CEO, Rick Cardenas, President and COO, and Raj Vinam, CFO. As a reminder, comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. Those risks are described in the company's press release which was distributed this morning, and in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are simultaneously broadcasting the presentation during this call, which is posted in the Investor Relations section of our website at Darden.com. Today's discussion and presentation will include certain non-GAAP measurements, and reconciliations of these measurements are included in the presentation. Any reference to pre-COVID when discussing first quarter performance is a comparison to the first quarter of fiscal 2020. This is because last year's results are not meaningful due to the pandemic's impact on the business and the limited capacity environment that we operated in during the first quarter of fiscal 21. We plan to release fiscal 2022 second quarter earnings on Friday, December 17th before the market opens, followed by a conference call. This morning, Jean will share some brief remarks on the first quarter results. Rick will give an update on our operating performance And Raj will provide more detail on our financial results and an update of our fiscal 22 financial outlook. Now, I'll turn the call over to Gene.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. As you saw from our release this morning, we had a very good quarter. Our teams continue to operate effectively in a challenging environment, and I'm proud of their focus and ability to deliver another quarter of strong sales and profitability. All of our segments delivered record first quarter profit. Our ability to drive profitable sales growth is a testament to the strength of our business model and our continued adherence to the strategy we implemented six years ago. Our brands remain laser focused on executing our back to basics operating philosophy anchored in food, service, and atmosphere. While at the Darden level, we concentrate on strengthening and leveraging our four competitive advantages of significant scale, extensive data and insights, rigorous strategic planning, and our results-oriented culture. Our first quarter sales trend started strong as momentum carried over from the fourth quarter, and they further strengthened and peaked in July. However, in August, sales slowed due to the impact of the Delta variant, but remained positive relative to pre-COVID levels. For the first quarter, sales per operating week were up 4.8% relative to pre-COVID. And through the first three weeks in September, sales per operating week were up approximately 7% relative to pre-COVID. Regardless of the operating environment, our unwavering commitment to our strategy ensures we'll stay focused on what we do best, providing exceptional guest experiences. Throughout this unique period, our operators have shown tremendous flexibility while remaining locked in on the fundamentals of running great restaurants. At the same time, our focus helps us continue to find ways to make our competitive advantages work even harder for us. One of the ways we do this is by leveraging our ability to open value-creating new restaurants. We opened seven new restaurants during the quarter, all of which are exceeding our expectations, and we remain on track to open approximately 35 to 40 new restaurants this fiscal year. A long-term framework calls for 2% to 3% sales growth from new restaurants, Given our stronger unit economics, our development team is working hard to build out a pipeline of locations for fiscal 23 and beyond that would put us at or above the higher end of our framework. Before I turn it over to Rick, I want to thank our team members in our restaurants and our support center. As I visit our restaurants and talk with our teams, I'm constantly reminded why our people are our greatest competitive advantage. Their passion for being of service to our guests and each other fuels our success. Rick?