Coverage

All Reports:

Starbucks Corp. (SBUX)
Mark Kalinowski

SBUX (Post-Call): A Percolating Outlook

Before today’s (Wednesday’s) market open, Starbucks reported fiscal Q1 2026 (calendar Q4 2025) adjusted EPS of $0.56. This was short of our $0.60 forecast as well as sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of $0.58.

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McDonald's Corp (MCD)
Mark Kalinowski

MCD: Franchisee Survey Part 2 (Updated National Franchising Standards)

McDonald’s plans to release its Q4 earnings after the market close (not the usual before the market open) on Wednesday, February 11th. Today we publish part two of the January 2026 edition of our proprietary McDonald’s Franchisee Survey. As part of this, we asked our franchisee contacts to provide their thoughts and commentary about the updated National Franchising Standards.

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McDonald's Corp (MCD)
Mark Kalinowski

MCD: Latest Franchisee Survey Leads to Updated Projections

McDonald’s plans to release its fourth-quarter earnings after the market close (not the usual before the market open) on Wednesday, February 11th. Ahead of that, we publish part one of our two-part, proprietary McDonald’s Franchisee Survey today.

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Restaurant Industry
Mark Kalinowski

Kalinowski Restaurant Industry Index for Q4 Shows No Sequential Improvement from Q3

With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Restaurant Industry Index for Q4 2025 to +1.6%. All in all, this ties for the second-best quarter since Q4 2023’s +3.6% result. But, it’s still over a percentage point below the long-term average, and does not imply any sequential improvement from Q3 2025. It has been a long two years for the domestic restaurant industry!

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Restaurant Industry
Mark Kalinowski

Updating our Q4 Kalinowski Quick-Service Other Same-Store Sales Index (1/21/2026)

With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Quick-Service Other Index for Q4 to +2.6%. Comparing to Q4 2019 levels – a pre-pandemic basis — the Kalinowski Quick-Service Other Index for Q4 2025 is at +23.1%. These numbers are based on our latest proprietary checks/data as regards same-store sales performance for this segment during October, November, and December.

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