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BJ's Restaurants, Inc. (BJRI)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 24, 2017

$37.45

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to BJ's Restaurants, Incorporated Fourth Quarter 2016 Earnings Release and Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Greg Trojan, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please, go ahead, sir.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to BJ's Restaurants fiscal 2016 fourth quarter investor conference call and webcast. I'm Greg Trojan, BJ's Chief Executive Officer, and joining me on the call today is Greg Levin, our Chief Financial Officer. We also have Greg Lynds, our Chief Development Officer; and Kevin Mayer, our Chief Marketing Officer on hand for Q&A. After the market closed today, we released our financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016, which ended Tuesday, January 3. You can view the full text of our earnings release on our website at www.bjsrestaurants.com. Our agenda today will start with Rana Schirmer, our Director of SEC Reporting, providing our standard cautionary disclosure with respect to forward-looking statements. I'll then provide an update on our business and current initiatives, and then Greg Levin, our Chief Financial Officer, will provide a recap of the quarter and some commentary regarding fiscal 2017. And after that, we'll open it up to questions. So, Rana, please, go ahead.

Rana G. Schirmer - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Greg. Our comments on the conference call today will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of today's date, February 23, 2017. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, unless required to do so by the securities laws. Investors are referred to the full discussion of risks and uncertainties associated with forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Rana. As you're all well aware, the back half of 2016 and Q4 in particular was a very challenging time for restaurants and retail in general. Although, we're not satisfied with our Q4 comparable restaurant sales of minus 2.2% and our full year comp sales of minus 1.3%, BJ's has delivered a solid fourth quarter and full year financial and operating results. We continued to take meaningful market share in our segment and outperformed both industry traffic and sales trends for the quarter and full year. These results highlight the value of our brand, the commitment of our team, our menu offerings and quality value proposition we deliver to our guests. Today, we'll review the fourth quarter results, the elements of our plans to strengthen sales, our current expansion plans and the flexibility we have to operate through the current environment, while returning capital to our shareholders. Looking first at Q4, our traffic for the quarter was 140 bps better than Knapp-Track and a 150 bps above Black Box. For the full year, we outperformed the industry traffic trends by 90 basis points and 100 basis points, respectively. Our cumulative over-performance in terms of traffic versus the industry is about 270 bps over the last three years, marking an annual rate of about 90 bps per year. And keep in mind, that includes approximately 50-basis point drag we have on our traffic comps, as our new restaurants fall into our comp base. During 2016, we opened 17 new BJ's Restaurants, predominantly in newer markets for our concepts. The success of these openings allowed us to capture even more market share and these markets not yet measure by comparable sales or traffic. This strong relative performance speaks to the unique positioning of our concept at the polished or upper-end of…

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

All right. Thanks, Greg, and let me provide some additional perspective on the fourth quarter and 2016's operating results, after which I'll share our current perspective on expectations for 2017. Total revenues for the 2016 fourth quarter increased approximately 14% year-over-year to $265.6 million, while our net income and diluted net income per share were $12.9 million and $0.55, respectively. As noted in this afternoon's release, this year's fourth quarter was comprised of 14 weeks as compared to last year's 13-week fourth quarter. This extra week accounted for $21 million in sales for the fourth quarter of 2016. Excluding this extra week, sales for the fourth quarter of 2016 increased to $244.5 million, which is approximate 5% increase compared to last year. The extra week, which is for the period from Wednesday, December 28, to Tuesday, January, 3, is a very high sales week for us, as it is right in the middle of the Christmas and New Year's break for many people. Our weekly sales average for this week was approximately $113,000 compared to $102,000 weekly sales average for the entire fourth quarter. As such, we estimate the fourth week benefited our Q4 earnings per diluted share by approximately $0.10 to $0.11. Our fixed and semi-fixed occupancy and operating costs, as well as depreciation expense benefited most from this extra sales week and its relationship on our margins. In regards to the comp sales, our comparable restaurant sales declined 2.2% on a 13-week basis, and 2% on a 14-week basis. As we've already heard from many other restaurant and retail companies, December was a challenging month for the industry, especially how the holiday periods lined up this year with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day being on a Saturday and Sunday, respectively. In fact, for BJ's, our comparable restaurant sales…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll take our first question from Matthew DiFrisco with Guggenheim Securities.

Matthew DiFrisco - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Thank you, guys. I missed it. Just one bookkeeping question before I get into my other question. With respect to the G&A, did you say what it was for the first quarter, what you were expecting?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

I did not. I would tend to think that it's going to be $61 million divided by 4. Matt, I don't think that it will be too far off.

Matthew DiFrisco - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then, I guess, can you comment on – the last time, I think you guys did some steaks it seemed like there might have been a little bit of up-selling or confusion with your consumer and it came across a little bit more as a premium product and you've done a lot of hard work to take some complexity off of your menu over the last year or so, I think now down to a little under 130 or so items on the menu. How do you implement the slow roast product as well as is there anything coming off the menu to manage not bringing back in too much complexity or diluting your brand as far as the core items, such as pizza and deep dish pizza and the other products?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Hey, Matt. This is Greg Levin. I'll take the first part and I'll turn it over to Greg to really talk about the new technology. But I'm not sure what you're recalling in regards to steak issues or steak complexity in the past. We have had two steaks on our menu for many years and have consistently had about two steaks, which is a Rib-Eye and a Top Sirloin. And, frankly, their incident rates on our menu are some of the highest in the category. They do in our case – they're the two highest entrées outside of Chicken Parmesan in the entrée category. So, steaks have always done well for us. We've never had a huge steak line. I don't know again if you're thinking of something from a different time, but generally we're doing well and they're well received with our guests and as I just mentioned some of the highest incident rates in the entrée category. In regards to slow roasting and what we're doing, I'll let Greg talk about that.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Yes. So, Matt, we have been very careful in terms of adding more complexity to the back of it. It's a great question as you know, but these ovens are actually very less complex than the average complexity or labor content of the rest of our menu. I'm not going to go into excruciating detail for obvious reasons here, but they provide a consistency, given the technology of level of sophistication that takes the guess work out of cooking these proteins in a way that our kitchens will tell you they're loving using these ovens and overall they would say that they're simplifying operations, not making more complex.

Matthew DiFrisco - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

So, you're adding though more steak items on to your menu?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Well, we're adding prime rib. We're not adding steak per se at this point.

Matthew DiFrisco - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. So, you're going to be adding more proteins on to your menu than what you've had without the oven?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

This is Greg Levin. A little bit, I mean, so for example, as Greg Trojan said, we're adding a prime rib. So, we have a beef dip sandwich on our menu, right now, we're going to replace our beef dip with the prime rib dip. So, to change their...

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

And that is also taking in-house and slow roasting in the restaurants some products that were not being processed to the fullest in our restaurants as these will be, so, we did our ribs before, but we think these make our ribs even better, even though we were obviously cooking those at our restaurants. Our pork shoulder will now be slow roasted, both of those overnight and also a turkey breast product that we're starting out with the turkey dip sandwich, but we will use turkey in another applications as well and that -

Matthew DiFrisco - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then just can you talk a little bit about the size or the scope of the test as far as both the handhelds and the ovens? How many stores have you tested this in and is there any intel that, I guess, is it correct to assume that the handhelds will be beneficial to the top line for better speed of service, quicker table turns in addition to moderate amount of labor savings?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Yes. I won't go into exact numbers here. I'll start with the – and see that where we call it a slow roasted oven now in all of Texas and Florida, not with the full product lines rolled out, but in terms of our kitchens using that technology. So, it started as a test in a handful of restaurants towards the beginning of last year. We gradually expanded that test and moved it to Texas – to a part of Texas then as I said, it's now expanded into all of Texas and to include Florida and we're rolling those ovens out as I mentioned nationally. In terms of the handhelds, those have been in a, I'd say, a double-digit number of restaurants for quite some time. We started handheld testing frankly before May in the Anaheim Hills restaurant and have been looking at and testing different iteration of that technology for a number of years. And as I mentioned in my comments, we are very pleased with both physical product and the software integration with our current point-of-sale and what we're doing from a labor perspective and we're seeing some really nice improvements, those again I mentioned in the time to order in particular. So, if you elect to shorten your time in our restaurants, there is the option to do that. But, I'd say the biggest improvement is getting food or beverage to the table more quickly and then just an overall guest satisfaction. I mean, honestly, we've been surprised at the level of improvement in satisfaction scores that we've seen from the test thus far.

Matthew DiFrisco - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then I guess just to better understand your guidance and the quarter-to-date trends, it sounds like, would it be correct to conclude then regionally, California is a laggard because of the rain, or is it still a stronger region overall than Texas? I noticed you didn't call out the tax refund as an issue or the delay in tax refunds coming out. Is that not an issue in your eyes?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

I do think the tax refunds are an issue from that standpoint. They fully bounced around over the last – once over the last four years or five years or so. Last year, they came in early and I think that got people a little bit excited going into Q1 in all of casual dining before it started to taper off in the casual dining overall, especially when you look at Black Box and Knapp data for 2016. Tax still does remain soft, I think you see that in the regional data from Knapp-Track and Black Box, in that regard, and I would tend to say that, I wouldn't necessarily call California a full laggard, but it's not where it normally is for us, but the rain and we're not trying to make excuses for our comp sales, we're trying to put some color around what we're seeing going into this first quarter and provide people with reasons as to what we're saying. I'll give you an example, Matt. Last Friday, Southern California was down 16% in comp sales on a Friday day with the rains that came through here. I don't care how good we've done in comps or how bad we've done in comp sales. Southern California is never down 16% unless it's a holiday flip-flop. So we just experienced some really soft days with some of these severe rains that have come through to begin this quarter.

Matthew DiFrisco - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Understood. Thank you for all the color.

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

You're welcome.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Welcome.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Nicole Miller with Piper Jaffray. Nicole M. Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Thank you. Good afternoon. It sounds like towards the end of the prepared comments there you've talked about, with certain food items, you'd be offering beverage, and with your beverage platform, you'd be offering food. I was wondering if you could expand on that commentary, and then also would you be adding the premium element to the beverage like you're talking about that you're addressing with the proteins? Thank you.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Okay. I will take that. So, Nicole, I'm happy to go through them. They are, we're calling them Brewhouse Specials and on Mondays that we're continuing our Half Off Pizza, half of our large deep dish pizza offering, and we're adding a $5 quality A Margarita to that mix on Mondays. On Tuesdays, we've had a nice franchise built on what we call Wine Down Tuesdays, with a deal on wine on all day Tuesdays, and we're adding a $3 Pizookie offering on Tuesdays to that day's special. Wednesday, we're rolling out $10 Loaded Burgers, with unlimited fries all day on Wednesday, and that's combining with late last year, we put forward a $4 BJ's Craft Beer in most of our markets, and I should do the marketing caveat of there are differences, slight differences or some differences across some of our markets depending on mostly legal restriction, but that being said, that's true in most markets. And then on Thursday, we're doing a $13.95 Half Rack, or $18.95 Full Rack of our great baby back rib, and doing $5 Call Drinks on those nights. So... Nicole M. Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Okay, and...

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Sorry, go ahead. Nicole M. Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

I was just going to say, some of those existed before, but not in tandem. We saw them being successful both on a beverage and a food perspective. So we wanted to add some more momentum to those offers, and complement either the food or the beverage offering. Nicole M. Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: That makes sense. And it sounds like it should help mix shift. Just one last quick one. On your commodity basket, what pieces will be up, what pieces might be down, and then as you think about grocery store deflation to the degree that lessens throughout the years, do you think you have more pricing power that you can add to the menu? Thanks.

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Yes, Nicole, in regards to our commodity basket, I think we're continuing to see some pressure in some of the seafood around salmon and mahi, and we're still seeing avocados high as much as we're expecting them to, I think, come down after some of the historic highs from last year, in that regard, and frankly cheese was extremely low last year, so we're expecting cheese to go up and in our general viewpoint of going into the share, we think about that 0.5% to 1% increase in commodities. In regards to speaking about food away from home versus food at home, we have seen that taper off a little bit, but I think you're seeing across the restaurant industry, the issue with labor and we mentioned it seem kind of in the 3.5% to 4% increase in wage rates and others are seeing that as well and we're trying to be thoughtful in regards to how we take our menu pricing to offset some of that pressure. When you've got a state like Arizona, that went from $8 to $10 literally on January 1, we've had to take some pricing there and we're seeing the same thing in some, what I would consider, the high minimal wage take. And I think our guests understand that because they hear the increases in minimum wage in those states. Nicole M. Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Thank you.

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

You're welcome.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Nicole, just one other just quick addition on the pricing front that I'm not so sure it's still well understood for us, when we're looking at overall pricing, one of the things and we did talk about this last year, or I did, is that aside from our nominal pricing, we've – not just in things like Brewhouse Specials, but with our level of promotions have gotten more aggressive to offer deal-oriented guests more offers out there, right, and we increased our discounting, still we think much lower than the data suggests in our average competition, but we increased that on a percentage basis quite a bit last year. And when you put all of that together with what we've done from a mix perspective, consciously to add value to our menu like last year, the Piadinas and Grilled Cheese, the year before that, Brewhouse Burgers. Our net effective pricing or check growth has been just barely above 1%. And so I think one of the things that we have consciously been doing to continue to drive traffic and share is to take these cost savings that we've been successful at achieving and managing check in a way that we think will drive traffic. Nicole M. Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Thanks, again.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Okay.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to John Glass with Morgan Stanley. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thanks very much. First, Greg Levin, I'm sorry if I missed this, did you provide the pricing in mix or check for the fourth quarter and traffic?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

I didn't. Our pricing was around 3% from that standpoint, while I think as Greg Trojan mentioned, yes, I think he mentioned for the full year, our net check in the fourth quarter was only up 1.2%. So, that unfortunately puts traffic down in low 3% range. If you think about – our absolute pricing was 3%, we gave some of it back, both on mix and discount in this year, our average check only grew 1.2% in the fourth quarter. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. And then just related to that, Greg, or either Greg, the enhanced Brewhouse menu, what do you think that does to check in 2017? Does it incrementally cause pressure or is it roughly similar to – how do you think about check in 2017 versus 2016?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Well, look, I think there is an opportunity to both drive some positive check growth here, John, but also traffic. And that's what we saw in our testing particularly at the primary products and really going up the others that the goal is, and we are seeing really strong, some of the best value scores, for example in this prime rib and you've been following us long enough, $26.95 isn't a price point we've touched before, right? And we weren't sure how our guests would react, but our value scores are through the roof on that product, because, A, that's such a high quality, but also we're giving people a lot of food, you get two sides and a Pizookie and a salad there. So, that's the idea. But to answer your question, it's our expectation that they certainly won't put the idea anyway and I can't imagine a scenario where they're going to put pressure on check that should help us build some check and offset, frankly some of the tepid check growth that we've had over the last few years, but through word of mouth, and it gives Kevin a lot to talk about in differentiating from a marketing perspective, we really want to drive traffic obviously.

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Yes. And, John, just real quick to put that in perspective as Greg was saying, we had Half Off Large Pizzas last year, we started out in Texas, and we saw incrementally those days with better traffic on a trend basis in Texas than what we've seen prior, and then we slowly rolled that out throughout last year, and it didn't have a huge impact on our average check, same thing with the rib that was started last year as well. If you think about our Tuesday, by introducing a $3 Pizookie, frankly, at the end of the day, we hope that's incremental, and as somebody decides to add on a Pizookie to their already entrée and drive check average up. So I don't think based on what we've seen last year and how we've laid these out that individually, they would actually take down our check. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay, helpful. And then just finally, how do you think about development into 2018 and 2019, I know you have – you may have addressed this in the past, but just remind us how you think about it, with the reduction this year, does it slow the overall pipeline or what are your ambitions over the next two years, let's say from the development standpoint?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

We haven't made decisions there, but I can tell you, we are behaving, and Greg Lynds is here, his team is moving forward with the expectation that we will build more restaurants, not fewer, because we want that optionality and it's our expectation as things improve, that will dial-up unit growth, John. But we don't know – obviously, we don't have a crystal ball and we're going to remain flexible, but that's the mindset, if that helps. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Yes. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

For our next question, we will go to Jeffrey Bernstein with Barclays.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much. Two questions, just one maybe thinking about the comp. Greg Trojan, I believe you mentioned that in 2017 you can reverse – I believe how you framed it in terms of the down 1.3% comp you saw in 2016, but I know there was another comment that maybe comps from the first test might be slower before the initials kick in and then accelerating in the second half. So I'm just wondering how do you think broadly about the 2017 comp, maybe what components you'd envision within that and where the industry is relative to that. I'm assuming you are expecting to continue to take market share, but just wondering what you are thinking, the broader industry is going to be doing relative to whatever kind of rough commentary you want to give them, on what you might be doing?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Well, look, again, we don't have a crystal ball on those things. I do think it's clear from the beginning of the year that things are off to continued tough environment and start for the industry. I do think – I can't tell you in terms of timing, but the fact that we are seeing things slowdown from a development perspective. We are seeing some of these weaker concepts go away, that the pressure on comps from a capacity perspective is going to get better over time here for sure. And I think that we crossed the threshold on when that time is going to start occurring, so to speak. So, I do think, at some point, that will start – certainly start helping. I do think if you look at some of the other core economic indicators out there and sort of the optimism around, sort of, the economic part of the platform that's going on, that's cause for some optimism as well. But our internal point of view on it is – look, we've got to take control, what we can control. The outside factors are what they are. We take some pride in doing a good job relative to the industry as I mentioned and taking share. But at the end of the day, a negative 1.3%, we've got to figure out how to turn it into a positive. And that's our expectation for this year, just in generally in terms of timing, since so many of these initiatives really get going at about the mid-year point and they are going to build from there. We are expecting the back half to provide a lot more of that momentum and strength than where we are today, but I do think for all the reasons we've talked about, it is better than it looks right now, because of all the factors that we've talked about, but that's what we know. And most of all, we feel really confident given these aren't ideas we came up with on December 15 and said, look, we need something to grow sales. I mean we've really been working on the majority of them a good part of last year and even before and we are going at them in a very focused way. We don't have 20 of these ideas. You've heard the big ones and that's what we wanted to share. And we feel good about our focus and we feel good about our test results and how our restaurants are reacting and what we are hearing from our guests. So, that's as good as we can feel about those elements at this point.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Understood. And then just comment just about the unit openings, the 10 and 17, I am just wondering if you can parse that out in terms of new and existing and maybe just give us an update in terms of those new markets. I get the impression from your commentary that despite the slowdown in units, it is not indicative of how new markets are performing. So, I'm just wondering, whether there is any color in terms of again how your stores are doing in new markets, where there's obviously limited brand recognition?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Yes. I'll let Greg fill in, but just in general our weekly sales volumes and where we're both in comparable markets this is one of our better years that we have had over the last few. So, I feel really good about that. And in terms of 2017, I'd say these are more fill ins of the younger markets. There is fewer sort of pioneering in the – yes, there is one, right, in that mix that I can think of. But most of them are – there is a restaurant nearby which is we don't want to leave one or even two restaurants alone out there for a lot of scale reasons, particularly people development. So, although they're still younger markets, they are not the first to plant the flag in most cases.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Sam Beres with Robert W. Baird. Sam J. Beres - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. In terms maybe one clarification, Greg Levin, how much nominal pricing before any mix shift, do you expect to have in the menu in 2017?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

So, nominal pricing will be 2.5% to 3%, somewhere in that range. Sam J. Beres - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Great. Thank you. And I guess in terms of the slower unit development in 2017, could you maybe just talk about how that's impacting your margin outlook for the year? I assume, with less pressure from doing efficiencies likely, some type of benefit, but do you have any perspective on how to quantify that or on what lines we might see some of those benefits baked in?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Yes. Sam, I really don't. We know that looking at it in general as your cost of sales tends to get a benefit, as your new restaurants open. They open up with some pretty higher cost of sales in the first few months or so. And then, frankly, labor is the other one that you're going to get the benefit on. One is sometimes you have to hold additional managers in restaurants until new restaurants open. You have to bring out people to open up new restaurants, as well as you appoint people out there, but you might be overstaffed in certain restaurants. So, it's really going to come through cost of sales and labor. And my hesitancy is to kind of come up with the perfect number, is that we know labor is such a variable on comp sales. So if you told me that, look, we were going to maintain a 2% comp sales, then I would probably say that there is 30 bps to 50 bps in labor by itself that could come through. And you would see that, on an absolute basis, that anywhere comp sales are sometimes depends on where you're showing your restaurant level margins. And then obviously as your preopening line, which is just a factor of $425,000 times X amount of restaurants being opened, but I don't have an absolute this is what it's going to be in that regard. Sam J. Beres - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Great. Thanks. And then maybe just one last clarification. Do you expect any impact on the Q1 and Q2 comps from the shift in the Easter and spring break timing?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Well, I mentioned it in our call that in general I expect Q1, for doing a modeling and whatever modeling number you put in there, I would expect our average weekly sales to grow 150 basis points to 200 basis points less than the comp sales. As far as the Easter being a little bit later in the year, so it's going to shift to Q2. So we can get those spring breakers in Q2 and that should help us in Q2 and probably be a cash bolster in Q1 overall. You can pick up that Easter Sunday or something below that but that week leading into Easter Sunday will be softer. Sam J. Beres - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We will go now to Brian Bittner with Oppenheimer. Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc.: Thanks very much. Just circling back to the unit growth strategy and slowing it this year, how much of this is really maybe the equity markets not giving you the credit for growing right now in your right minds and maybe harvesting some more cash during this time and how much of it is really just maybe the execution risk with growing out of the pretty intense sales initiatives and just wanting to focus on that more than anything else? How do you think about the balance of those two and how you thought about the unit growth for 2017?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Well, Brian, as I mentioned in my comments, it really is both. I don't really have a weighting, but those are both significant factors. I mean, we've been very explicit with our – the cash flow advantage and opportunity from building few restaurants. And we think also holding off on to, because the deals are going to improve are the three reasons. But listen, we're going to be opportunistic about taking that cash and buying back stock, and we do think it will help us operationally and we think there'll be more better deals to do, six months, 12 months, 18 months from now as well. Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc.: And, Greg Levin, you kind of talked about the buying and some extra deleverage coming from implementing some of these things, the training costs and whatnot. Are you able to say how much of that or how many basis points is, I guess, somewhat non-recurring as the training costs and the rollout of these initiatives end?

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Yes. I think I said in my call, maybe asking a different question, if you are, we can talk about it afterwards or maybe I can understand a little bit better. But I said in the call that we probably see about 20 basis points to 30 basis points in labor to rollout these initiatives. We got to train people on the slow roasting technology which as Greg Trojan mentioned is a fairly simple technology, but it's something we got to train and we got to wrap the food on it, so we got to cook it. Wrapping means kind of tasting it and making sure they understand it. And then, the handhelds, server handhelds are actually a little bit more challenging than you expect. You think you could just give it to a server and you'd be gone and everything would be great, but one is the servers have to learn how to navigate through the system and then, we've got to make a couple of adjustments to the way we staff the restaurant as well which lead to basically improved order times and improved efficiency in regards to food and drinks being run out to you. And that requires us to make some changes in the staffing model a little bit. That will take a couple of weeks for restaurants to really nail down. So overall, if these are going to be coming throughout the year, I see that 20 basis points to 30 basis points and then it drops off. Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc.: Okay. No, that answers [Technical Difficulty] (01:09:17). And then just the last question, so where are you at now on [indiscernible] (01:09:24) as the percent of the business. It just seems that there is a trend that can hold with kind of steps like yours that seem to have pretty good portability with some of your menu, obviously, some are not. Is there an opportunity for you guys going forward?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Well, yes. We're at about 5.5% off-premise, Brian, and we think given that the category is closer to 10%, there is clearly a big opportunity for us there. We've been designing our technology, particularly our app, even a couple of years ago with this in mind to prove an API to be able to communicate with third-party delivery services and we're operationally testing that today as we speak, and from the technology perspective, it's working very, very well. I'd say our real advantage in all of this and why we are excited about the opportunity is our broad menu. I think it goes beyond any particular category, whether you think pizza or burgers or whatever as we're a place you can go to, and order for a family and everybody has an opportunity to order something out there. We've got to really look forward to and the diversity of our menu, and a lot of which travels really well, is a real advantage for us in this off-premise area. So - Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc.: What do you think is the biggest reason why you're under index versus the peer group on off-premise...

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

You know what, I think it's just been a matter of focus and given our large sales volumes in our restaurants, it just was we're focusing on the business within our four walls, there is not a structural reason where we bang our head against the wall and it hasn't work and it's been, look, we have grown this business over time relative and to us, but there has not been the kind of focus on it that we're now putting on these two channels. Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc.: Yes, and the large sales side, I guess. It actually makes a lot of send. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

You're welcome.

Gregory S. Levin - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Brian.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our last question from Will Slabaugh with Stephens.

Will Slabaugh - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, guys. Just a quick one on winning strategy. It sounds like with the other news and some other kind of strategy you're talking about, you're going after quality and even maybe a little bit more premium, where many of your competitors have moved more toward heavily discounting core items, so I'm curious, if that response is something that we should expect to maybe take a while to bear fruit given the tough environment or this strategy that is coupled eventually as you talk about with more Brewhouse options, is something you expect to sort of bear fruit more immediately as well and it's sort of in your long-term play?

Gregory A. Trojan - BJ's Restaurants, Inc.

Management

No, great question, Will. And thanks for asking it, because I think what's really important and we can – as we're talking about initiatives like this, sometimes lose sight of balance here. When you think about all the things that we've done manualize to add value, over the last couple of years, and really three years, and you know them well, right. It's the lunch items, and the Brewhouse Burgers and even this year all the – we're going to investing heavily in terms of value in these franchise nights that I just described as well. So, I don't want anyone to take away from this that we're solely focused on growing the high end and prime rib and we're trying to turn ourselves into Houston, exclusively. But I'll tell you the success of these quality items that we have on our menu. So the number two or three just to give you a sense and it's not as big a shift as people think that it is for our concept. I think those that don't know what it is, well, think of us as more pizza and perhaps bar and grill-oriented. We've been selling Atlantic salmon in cherry chipotle. Salmons are number two or three highest cost of goods item in our entire concept. We're the best I think our second or third our rib, it's not pizza and burgers exclusively and we sell a lot of that as you know. So this is not intended or do I think of it as the size mix strategic shift, this is something that Jerry started before me, moving us into the polished casual, higher side on the continuum and we have proven and our guests are telling us that they love that side of our menu. But don't interpret that to be we're walking away from $7.99 tier dinners (01:14:19) and lunch specials that are really attractive and $3 Pizookies and all the other offerings that we have in our menu. So, I appreciate you asking that question, because that balance it's one of the wonderful things about our concept and who we appeal to that we want to go after that value, that's why we've up-guard discounting and offering great values as well and top of all of that, but we also as I said we index really well on the household income front, and you walk into any of our restaurants, I don't care in what geography, and there are a lot of 1% or plus is that I think don't think twice about a $26.95 prime rib or a mid-teens price prime rib sandwich and all of it. And there's an opportunity to offer great value to that guest as well, so we really are trying to do both. We're not walking away from the fundamental value proposition in all of this.

Will Slabaugh - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude today's question-and-answer session, and brings to the conclusion today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.