Brinker International, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Q1 F24 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions and comments following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Michael Ware, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Holly, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. Joining me today are Kevin Hochman, our Chief Executive Officer and President, and Joe Taylor, our Chief Financial Officer. Results for our first quarter were released earlier this morning and are available on our website at Brinker.com. As usual, Kevin and Joe will first make prepared comments related to our strategic initiatives and operating performance. Then we will open the call for your questions. Before beginning our comments, I would like 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 believe will provide insight into the company's ongoing operations. And with that being said, I will turn the call over to Kevin.

Thanks, Micah, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us as we recap another quarter of progress against our long-term strategy. For the first quarter, we delivered a 6% comp sales growth, which is Chili's fourth consecutive quarter of outperformance versus the casual dining industry. Our focus on improving the guest and team member experience while launching profitable and sustainable traffic driving initiatives continue to increase momentum on our business. And importantly, our traffic gap versus the industry narrowed throughout the quarter, despite the discontinuation of Maggiano's Italian Classics virtual brand and cycling through the deep discounting on the remaining virtual brand, it's just wings. This traffic progress demonstrates the improving strength of our core Chili's business. Our investments both in the guest experience and marketing are working according to plan. Our data shows we've steadily gained share of wallet over the past four quarters across all day parts, particularly dinner, and across all income groups with higher income households growing the fastest. As we move further into the fiscal year, we anticipate delivering sustained traffic growth ahead of the industry. Currently, we're on air with our third wave of advertising since restarting campaigns in March, and we continue to be encouraged by the sales results. We're on air where people are watching and consumers are responding well to our unbeatable 1099 platform, which delivers a complete value that gives us a competitive edge in the current consumer environment. As we moved into October, we accelerated traffic growth versus the industry and delivered positive Chili's traffic for the month. We believe advertising superior value, delivering an improved guest experience, and continuing simplification is the best plan to deal with any economic headwinds. We'll continue to monitor it closely and and make sure we have the best possible plan to sustainably grow market share. Now let's talk about menu progress. Last quarter, I gave you an early update on our Chicken Crisper relaunch, one of our core four platforms. Since then, we also introduced our National Hot Crisper, and with a new lineup in market for over a quarter, we have a better line of sight to its performance. Through recipe simplification, selling larger piece counts, and pricing behind improved sauce and side innovation, the average crisper food cost as a percentage of sales has moved from 23% to 20%, and we are now selling 40% more crispers. A much bigger business with lower food costs and better margins is a great result. It shows what this business can do with a focus on core innovation, and this initiative is a big driver of our improved financial performance this quarter. Last quarter, we also gave you an update on the new bar menu launched in late August, which featured new premium margaritas and introduced our It's Just Wings brand to the Chili's Bar and Dining Room. While it's still early, the results are promising. We're seeing mix move into the new premium margaritas, and we are seeing guests trade out of three for me and into full-price wings and crispers, which is improving both sales and margins. We're hard at work at the next wave of core four improvements, and we look forward to sharing more details in the coming quarters. The momentum in our results doesn't happen without strong, stable leadership in our restaurants. Through our efforts to simplify the menu and operations, We've made significant progress making our operators' jobs easier and more rewarding. As a result, we've lowered our 12-month manager turnover now to 24%, which is 14 points better than the industry. When you improve manager turnover, you would expect hourly turnover to start to improve, too. And I'm pleased to report we are starting to see improvements in hourly turnover, which is now down 44% on an annual basis. Looking to the back half of the year, we have made a decision based on the results of the advertising campaign and a stronger base business in place to add an additional four weeks of advertising during the third quarter. This will increase our weeks on air from 21 to 25 during fiscal 24, which will help us continue to accelerate sales and traffic growth throughout the fiscal year as we build a guide path to drive sustainable long-term sales and traffic growth over the next few years. This commercial plan, along with continued simplification, will continue to accelerate our business results. I'm pleased with the continued progress against our long-term strategy. It's clear the changes we are making to the service model while increasing our voice with advertised value is a winning plan. We are rebuilding the Chili's business the right way, and we're encouraged by the growth we are seeing in sales and traffic, as well as improvements to restaurant operating margins. Now I'll hand over the call to Joe to walk you through the numbers and share guidance for fiscal 24. Go ahead, Joe.