Earnings Labs

Ark Restaurants Corp. (ARKR)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Dec 23, 2014

$6.96

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Ark Restaurants Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Bob Stewart, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Robert Stewart

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our conference call for the fourth fiscal quarter and full year ended September 27, 2014. With me on the call today is Michael Weinstein, our Chairman and CEO; and Vinny Pascal, our Chief Operating Officer. For those of you who have not yet obtained a copy of the press release, it was issued over the Newswire, Friday, and is available on our website. To review the full text of that press release along with the associated financial tables, please go to our homepage at www.arkrestaurants.com. Before we begin, however, I'd like to read a Safe Harbor statement. I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion this afternoon will include forward-looking statements and that these statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed on them. We refer everyone to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the risks that may have a direct bearing on our operating results, performance and financial condition. I will now turn the call over to Michael.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Hello, everybody, happy holidays. We're kind of pleased with the fourth quarter results and for the full year as well. This has been a difficult 2- or 3-year period for us, not only because of economic conditions that have started to improve dramatically but also because we've been losing valuable leases as they term out and real estate prices as such, especially in New York, where we cannot, in good conscious, go forward with new negotiations at the rentals that our landlords were asking for. So we're losing some good properties and that waterfall has been severe in the last couple years, but we're now starting to overcome that. In general, New York has been extremely strong, the restaurants that we have. As you know, from previous calls, over the last 12, 13 quarters, we had a great deal of difficulty getting Clyde's going, lost great deal of money early on, it's been constantly improving. This quarter that we're presently in, we'll see some positive cash flow out of it. We feel we turned a corner. The area that it is in has substantially improved. There's a lot of construction going on. Several hotels being built. We think we're just going to be fine there. And it's gratifying that everybody who has been working hard to get this into positive territory is being rewarded. Robert and Bryant Park and El Rio Grande are just really, really strong properties. So we're fine in New York. Washington, D.C., we were up for the year a couple of percentage points. We're being hurt in union station in Washington, D.C., which is under construction. Our entrances are being blocked. We've had discussions with the landlord about rent abatements, but our volume is off dramatically there. But it has picked up significantly in Sequoia, where…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] It appears we have no questions at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to management.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

All right. Well, thank you very much. This is Michael again. Enjoy your holiday. We're all excited. It's our holiday day here. And we're all going off to a nice lunch, and I hope you have a healthy and happy new year. Look forward to speaking to you all next quarter.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.