Casual Dining Market Share Opportunities for Large Concepts

By Mark Kalinowski Published on December 8, 2020 at 12:00 AM

About six months ago, we published a report examining market-share opportunities within the casual dining sector. In this report, we update our numbers. One of the important changes is that we now look for 8%-20% of the casual dining restaurants in the U.S. that were in operation as of the start of 2020 to be closed permanently by the end of March 2021. (Previously, we were looking for 3%-15% of casual dining restaurants to be closed permanently by the end of December 2020.) Keep in mind that we expect these closures to be heavily weighted toward independents/momand-pops and, to a somewhat lesser degree, smaller (privately-held in nearly all cases) restaurant chains.

YUM Updating Our Rating on Yum Brands

By Mark Kalinowski Published on April 24, 2020 at 12:00 AM

With this report, we change our rating on Yum Brands (YUM; $85.61) to Neutral (from Buy). This change largely reflects the following factors: (1) currencies that may work against Yum’s earnings over the remainder of 2020, (2) other costs that may creep up in Q2, (3) the possibility of store closures hurting Q2 by more than the Street anticipates, (4) possible same-store sales issues at Taco Bell, and (5) YUM shares’ +55% rise off of its 52-week low, which has allowed it to come within less than 50 cents of our $86 target price (which we now move to “NA” with this report. We note the following:

Tidbits re DPZ, CMG, and Subway

By Mark Kalinowski Published on February 3, 2019 at 12:00 AM

We briefly note the following tidbits regarding Domino’s (DPZ; Buy), Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG; Not Rated), and privately-held Subway: