Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Good Times Restaurants Incorporated Fiscal 2023 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Call. By now, everyone should have access to the company's earnings release, which is available in the Investors section of the company's website. As a reminder, a part of today's discussion will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities Laws. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements involve known and unknown risks, which may cause the company's actual results to differ materially from results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include among other things, the market price of the company's stock prevailing from time-to-time, the nature of other investment opportunities presented to the company, the disruption to our business from pandemics and other public health emergencies, the impact and duration of staff constraints at our restaurants, the impact of supply chain constraints and inflation, the uncertain nature of current restraints, development plans, and the ability to implement those plans and integrate new restaurants, delays in developing and opening new restaurants because of weather, local permitting, or other reasons, increased competition, cost increase or shortages in raw food material, other general economic and operating conditions, risks associated with our share repurchase program, risks associated with the acquisition of additional restaurants, the accuracy of cash flows, and the cost and availability of capital or credit facility borrowings to provide liquidity, changes in federal, state, or local laws and regulations affecting the operation of our restaurants, including minimum wage and tip credit regulations and other matters discussed under the risk factors section of Good Times annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 26, 2023, filed with the SEC and other filings with the SEC. During today's call, the company will discuss non-GAAP measures, which they believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP and reconciliation to comparable GAAP measures available in our earnings release. And now I would like to turn the call over to Ryan. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Krista, and thank you all for joining us on the call today. As mentioned, everyone should now have access to our fourth quarter earnings release and our 10-K filing. As with last quarter, the final quarter of the fiscal year delivered mixed results with continued strong performance at our Good Times brand, where we again posted another quarter of positive same-store sales. In addition to the positive sales, we were able to improve margins compared with prior year, primarily through the benefit of lower food and packaging costs. Near the end of the fiscal year, as had previously been reported, we purchased two Good Times restaurants from prior franchisees. And though there were the typical transition and integration inefficiencies that initially accompanied the acquisition of these restaurants. We are currently growing year-over-year sales at both restaurants, and both restaurants are profitable and contributing to the brand's overall results. We now own and operate 25 company-owned Good Times restaurants, including six restaurants in which we are equal partners with a third-party. Additionally, we have six restaurants in the system that are franchisee-owned. We launched our loyalty program, GT Rewards, during the quarter. GT Rewards is a points-based loyalty offering that provides our guests an opportunity to earn deals and other rewards driven by the purchasing behavior. The app already provided order ahead and direct order of delivery. And the GT Rewards platform is accessible by our guests, both in a digital native order and also in a traditional drive-through transaction with the order being placed at the Menu Ordering Board. While card-based payment for digital native orders has been a part of the app from its initial release, payment in the drive-through has not been a feature of our app. We intend for the next major release of the…

[Operator Instructions] We have a question. Your first question comes from Brian London, an Individual Investor. Please go ahead.

Hi, Ryan. Just a quick question. On the Good Times brand, you guys invested money and it seems like you're reaping some of the benefits of improving the stores. Do you think there's any opportunity for growing the Good Times restaurant or looking, you know, forward over the next two or three years?

I think the challenges associated with that in the immediate future are we have a large presence here in the Colorado market and real estate prices combined with wages decrease the attractiveness of doing so, and I think it's a bit of a big bet to jump to another market. With that, I would say we continue to believe in the Good Times brand and I would say that if we continue to see strong sales that accompany the investments that we've made and the continued investments that we will make in some of the light refreshes, the remodels that I described earlier in the call, the possibility exists for future development of that brand.

Okay, thanks. The Bad Daddy results, I mean, I'm -- you know, I know this is anecdotal, but following a lot of restaurants, feeling like there's recessionary pressures, kind of, on that type of restaurant. I don't know if you have any feel for that or feedback, but that kind of led me a little bit into the Good Times question. I'm wondering if there are pressures, like recessionary-type pressures on the Bad Daddy's brand over the next few years, I was wondering like if you might look towards, you know, Good Times expansion, but yes, I know I totally understand your comments in regard to real estate prices and appreciate your answer.

Yes, and I'll offer some color on that. I mean, you know, we have to be cognizant of the reality in the environment that we operate in. And, you know, I don't want to make excuses for our team and I don't want our team to make excuses for the restaurant's performance. I do believe that if you look at other burger-centric casual dining brands, there are pressures there. And so I think our performance, while disappointing, is not entirely surprising, compared -- considering some of the results that have been reported by similar concepts. That said, I think our Bad Daddy’s concept has a greater degree of relevance. And I think if we execute the operations, strategies, and tactics that I've outlined on this call, that we're going to be in a good position to compete against our casual dining peers now and in the future. That said, I think it's beneficial to have a portfolio that includes concepts both in the full service and in the QSR segment, because I think the QSR segment does tend to perform better when there are recessionary pressures.

Thank you. Yes, I appreciate the answer. Also, again, I appreciate, I think that your strong balance sheet will help you out, and happy holidays to you guys. Thanks.

Happy holidays to you as well.

Your next question comes from the line of [Sanjay Raigaga] (ph), who is also a Private Investor. Please go ahead.

Hi Ryan. I just wanted to ask on the Bad Daddy’s of brand. So first of all, if you could just give a brief update on the Seaboard Station location, what's going on there? And just in general, do you guys have like an expectation of when you, you know, when the Bad Daddy’s, same-store sales will start, you know, kind of, either being neutral or positive. Is this like the first quarter, second quarter? Do you guys have some sort of idea there?

Yes, so to answer your first question on Seaboard Station, I was there about six to eight weeks ago and the -- to be quite frank, the traffic and construction situation there is pretty painful. There are our main entrance has been blocked off, access to the site is extremely compromised. We believe there is a lot of multi-unit residential being constructed there. And the long-term outlook for that site is extremely strong once the construction is finished. However, it seems like it has been and continues to be a bit of a never-ending point of pain in terms of the construction that is occurring and the impact of that. I don't believe that we've received from our landlord or other developers, who are participating in that construction a real clear timeline on when that's going to end. And I would like that as much as you and our other investors would like that. With respect to same store sales turnaround, that's an interesting question and one that I would love to be able to provide you a precise answer on. What I would say is that our comparable start to get easier in the third fiscal quarter, so the June quarter. I’m nor predicting that it will be turned around by then to the point whoever posting positive same-store sales. But internally we have the goals of we’ve set and I’m setting aggressive goals with my team and certainly, you know, I would love to be in a position where come June quarter that's what I'm reporting.

Okay, thanks. And just on going back to the balance sheet and the $4.2 million cash, I see from the 10-K, I believe you have a plan of opening one Bad Daddy's location in fiscal ‘24. Any other plans for the liquidity? And could you just touch on what prompted borrowing from the credit facility if you have cash on hand? Thanks.

So, in terms of investments and use of liquidity, we have share repurchase program. And as you've seen this past year, we've made investments, whether that's through the acquisition of minority interests or non-controlling interests, I should say, whether it's through the acquisition of franchisees. You know, we don't have any of those in the works, but we obviously still have some of those out there and would be opportunistic if situations would arise where we could do something similar, either this year or in fiscal 2025. I think with respect to new units, we are building a pipeline. I think we would like to be able to get one done this year. And we're going to try to. I think some of those may bleed in. That may bleed into fiscal 2025. And we're trying to get multiple units opened between now and fiscal ‘25. With respect to borrowing, you know, I would say really there's some cash management and treasury strategies that are involved in that. And it is not, I think there's also a certain amount of cash on hand that's required to run the business. And so just from an overall, from an overall treasury standpoint, we believe there was a wise decision to borrow that money.

All right and got it. All right, thanks Ryan, happy holidays, appreciate it.

Thanks, same to you.

We have no further questions in this time. Ryan, I'll turn the call back over to you for closing remarks.

I'm grateful to lead a talented team of people, who have the same commitment to our brands and passion for industry and for our guests as I do. I thank them for their continued hard work and meaningful contribution to our brands. I'm encouraged by the continued strength that Good Times has manifested over my tenure with the company. With sales growth in five of the six years I've been part of this organization. I know as does our leadership team and our operations leaders and Bad Daddy’s, the sales and profitability improvements are needed at that brand and that the best marketing is strong operations, which we are laser focused on. Thank you all for joining our call today.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.