DIN Our Meeting in Glendale with Management

By Mark Kalinowski Published on December 6, 2018 at 12:00 AM

We recently met with Dine Brands (DIN; Buy) — including CEO Stephen Joyce, CFO Thomas Song, Controller Gregg Kalvin, and Executive Director, Investor Relations Ken Diptee — in Glendale, California. We thank these folks for their time! Topics of interest that we asked about include the ongoing success of Applebee’s “Neighborhood Drink of the Month” initiative and the issues with second-largest Applebee’s franchisee RMH. We reiterate our Buy rating on DIN and note the following:

Updating our Q4E18 Kalinowski Casual Dining Same-Store Sales Index

By Mark Kalinowski Published on December 4, 2018 at 12:00 AM

With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Casual Dining Index for Q4E from +1.6% to +2.1%. This 50 basis-point increase is based on our latest proprietary checks/data as regards same-store sales performance so far for this segment during October and the first half of November.

Updating our Q4E18 Kalinowski Family Dining Index

By Mark Kalinowski Published on December 3, 2018 at 12:00 AM

With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Family Dining Index for Q4E from +1.2% to +1.6%. This 40 basis-point increase is based on our latest proprietary checks/data as regards same-store sales performance so far for this segment during October and the first half of November.