Could U.S. Restaurant Industry Same-Store Sales Turn Positive in Q4

By Mark Kalinowski Published on October 19, 2020 at 12:00 AM

Could the U.S. restaurant industry as a whole get back to positive same-store sales in Q4 2020? At this point, we believe that our Kalinowski Restaurant Industry Index — comprised of 47 publicly-traded restaurant concepts, and which generated over $180 billion in 2019 U.S. systemwide sales, and this accounted for over 30% of the overall domestic restaurant industry — has about a 40% chance of turning positive in Q4 2020.

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PZZA (Post-Call) A Shaq-tastic Q2 and July

By Mark Kalinowski Published on August 6, 2020 at 12:00 AM

Earlier today, Papa John’s (PZZA; Buy, $99.14) reported adjusted Q2 EPS of $0.48, coming in meaningfully above our $0.35 forecast and sell-side consensus of $0.44. We had been concerned that costs related to franchisee assistance — which amounted to a -$0.12 hit in Q2 — would hold back Q2 earnings, but the strength of the business (North American same-store sales up a previously-announced +28.0%) more than made up for this. Built into our Q2E estimate heading into today was an EPS hit of -18 cents related to franchisee assistance, so even specific to Q2, this came in +6 cents better than we expected.

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SBUX (Post-Call) June and July Sales Trends Better than Expected

By Mark Kalinowski Published on July 28, 2020 at 12:00 AM

After today’s market close, Starbucks (SBUX; Buy, $74.64) reported fiscal Q3 (calendar Q2) adjusted EPS of -$0.46 — better than our -$0.63 forecast and sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) of -$0.62. In its June 10th business update, Starbucks indicated it was then targeting fiscal Q3 adjusted EPS of -$0.55 to -$0.70. Fiscal Q3 EPS coming in better than the high end of the target range relates to better-than-expected June same-store sales (for example, June U.S. same-store sales down by -19%).

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