Brinker International, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Brinker International Q3 F20 trainings conference. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Micah Ware, VP of Finance and Investor Relations. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. With me on today's call are Wyman Roberts, Chief Executive Officer and President, and Joe Taylor, our Chief Financial Officer. Results for the quarter were released earlier this morning and are available on our website at brinker.com. Wyman and Joe will first make prepared comments related to our operating performance and strategic initiatives. Then we will open the call for your questions. Before beginning our comments, it's my job to remind everyone of our safe harbor regarding forward-looking statements. During our call, management may discuss certain items which are not based entirely on historical facts. Any such items should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such statements are subject to risk and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such risk and uncertainties include factors more completely described in this morning's press release and the company's filing with the SEC. And, of course, on the call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that management uses in its review of the business and believes will provide insight into the company's ongoing operations. And with that said, I will turn the call over to Wyman.

All right. Thank you, Micah, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Last time we talked with you, at the beginning of February, we were just emerging from the Omicron wave, which, while thankfully with a short-lived strain, had a whipsaw effect on January's staffing and sales. We got back on track quickly and generated positive progression in February and March. Brinker ended the third quarter in a good position with an adjusted EPS of 92 cents, which is up significantly from last year's 78 cents. Considering all the noise in the results and comparisons, we believe average weekly sales may be a clearer guide to the growth of the business. Chili's average weekly sales accelerated throughout the quarter, with February and March reaching four-year highs. Now, as consumers navigate the economic challenges that are starting to play out, we're cautious but optimistic about where our top line sits. At Chili's, we're encouraged by the shift we're seeing back into the dining rooms, which is driving higher check averages. Off-premise remains at more than 200% over pre-pandemic levels as we continue to grow the delivery business. And the same is true for Maggiano's. We feel really good about the changes we've made to the business model, specifically the restructured value proposition for both dine-in and off-premise. The brand's off-premise business is up 180% versus pre-pandemic, and data shows the brand's delivery business is attracting a highly incremental guest. So as banquets come back, Maggiano's is poised for some really good growth. On the cost side, we're seeing labor pressure start to stabilize now that we've addressed our most critical staffing needs. We don't foresee as much inflationary pressure on wages going forward like we experienced in the last year. And now we're focused on managing that piece of the business as effectively as we can as we work through training our new team members to run our operational systems and deliver a great guest experience. It will come as no surprise that looking ahead, our biggest challenge is commodity inflation. We do believe the elevated costs we're dealing with today won't stay at these levels permanently. So we'll continue to leverage a pricing strategy that isn't passive but isn't reckless either. We've taken six pricing actions already this year to ensure consumer acceptance and protect our long-term traffic growth. We've put a stake in the ground as an industry leader in value, which has been key to driving our AAVs and our guest frequency. And as we move into a slower economic cycle, this becomes an increasingly important competitive advantage for us. So to further mitigate the inflationary pressure, we're also actively pursuing ways to run a more efficient operation. In a few weeks, we'll roll out a new menu that reduces operational complexity, restructures our value proposition for better margins, as well as future pricing flexibility, and takes additional price, which will get us close to 6%. We're also achieving efficiency gains with our now fully implemented service model that leverages both handheld and food runners. With this model, we're already seeing front-of-the-house labor hours at near-record lows, and servers are making more money than they've ever made. which we know reduces turnover and the associated pressures on the P&L. And those tenured team members deliver a better, more consistent guest experience. As we continue to manage these near-term headwinds, we're also playing offense on a lot of fronts. I'm really excited about how we're investing in the business and accelerating our timelines to aggressively grow the business longer term. We're investing in our restaurant pipeline. All the hard work we've done to build the pipeline has come to fruition And now we start opening new Chili's on a consistent basis. And the response to the brand has been tremendous. For example, our most recent opening just outside San Antonio did more than $100,000 in sales during the first week, beating expectations as all our most recent new locations have. Our operators are doing a great job creating loyal guests in these communities by delivering great experiences from the very first visit. As we move into next fiscal year, we have plans to open two to three new restaurants on average every month. We're investing in our virtual brand business on two fronts. First, we're expanding our delivery business in existing markets with additional third-party partners, which drives business across the whole portfolio. And second, as I mentioned last quarter, we're taking our brands to previously untapped markets and expanding points of distribution around the country through ghost kitchens and smaller footprint locations. We've seen our global partners embrace this as well, so we're optimistic about the potential, both domestically and internationally. Now that we've fully implemented our new technology-based front-of-the-house service model and takeout systems, we're pivoting our innovation efforts to upgrade our kitchens for the first time in close to 10 years. We're testing some exciting new equipment that makes our heart-of-the-house team members' jobs easier, delivers a better product, is more efficient, and more effectively supports high volumes. We're moving quickly down that path, so more on that to come. And finally, we're taking the robotics technology we've been experimenting with at the host stand for nearly three years now and incorporating it into our new service model. Our robot, Rita, has been promoted to food runner. She does a fantastic job and our guests love her. We've expanded to an additional 50 restaurants, which is yet another example of how we're bringing our technology expertise to scale and bear. It's been nearly 40 years since Norman Brinker founded this company, and it remains today a strong, innovative organization with exciting growth potential and competitive advantages. From our leading edge technology stack and the systems that enable us to run higher volume restaurants to the exceptional quality of this team, our operators are doing a great job managing through headwinds, and our leadership team continues to navigate the most challenging business cycles many of us have ever seen. We have a clear grasp on what will grow this business in the near and longer term, and I couldn't be prouder of the work this team is doing. Now I'll turn the call over to Joe to give you details on the quarter and update guidance for the year. Joe?