Looking to Popeyes to Learn about Domino’s and Papa John’s

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on June 1, 2021 at 9:19 PM

Over the last six months, have published multiple reports suggesting that to learn how Domino’s and Papa John’s might lap very challenging same-store sales comparisons over Q2 2021-Q1 2022, keep an eye on Popeyes — and how Popeyes is lapping its highly challenging same-store sales comparisons during Q4 2020-Q3 2021. Our bottom line remains that Domino’s and Papa John’s could end up lapping these tough numbers better than the Street anticipates. This report updates our thoughts in that regard.

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Updating our Q1E Kalinowski Quick-Service Other Same-Store Sales Index

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on April 8, 2021 at 4:57 PM

With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Quick-Service Other Index for Q1E to +7.3%. This +7.3% figure reflects implicit monthly numbers of about +7% for January 2021 (helped by consumer spending driven by stimulus), flattish for February 2021 (reflecting a dwindling of the prior month’s stimulus benefits, and coupled with bad weather across a good chunk of the U.S. in mid-to-late February), and +23% for March (helped by more stimulus-related consumer spending, plus easy year-over-year comparisons being lapped from mid-to-late March 2020).

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Look to Popeyes to Learn about Domino’s and Papa John’s (Updated)

By Ryan D. Lavender Published on February 16, 2021 at 4:59 PM

In December, we published a report — “Look to Popeyes to Learn about Domino’s and Papa John’s” — in which we noted that Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen would lap highly challenging same-store sales comparisons before Domino’s and Papa John’s would, and how Popeyes performed might have some lessons for these pizza players. Since then, Popeyes’ parent company Restaurant Brands International (QSR; Not Rated) reported that Popeyes’ Q4 2020 U.S. same-store sales declined by -6.4%. This, of course, lapped Popeyes’ Q4 2019 U.S. same-store sales advance of +37.9% — the best quarter for any publicly-traded restaurant concept of meaningful size of which we are aware.

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