Good afternoon and welcome to today's Noodles & Company First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. All participants are now in a listen-only mode. After the presenters' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I will now introduce Noodles & Company's Acting General Counsel, Melissa Heidman. Melissa Heidman - Noodles & Co.: Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2018 earnings call. Here with me this afternoon are Paul Murphy, our Executive Chairman; and Dave Boennighausen, our Chief Executive Officer. Let me start by going over a few regulatory matters. I'd like to note that during our opening remarks and in response to your questions, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. Any such items, including our guidance about anticipated results in 2018 and details relating to our future performance should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are only projections, and actual events or results could differ materially from those projections due to a number of risks and uncertainties. The Safe Harbor statement in this afternoon's news release and the cautionary statement in the company's most recent Form 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC are considered a part of this conference call, including the portions of each that set forth the risks and uncertainties related to the company's forward-looking statements. I refer you to the documents the company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for its 2017 fiscal year and subsequent filings we have made. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in…

Thank you. Our first question is from Jake Bartlett with SunTrust. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks for taking the question. My first one was on the guidance for the second quarter, the 1% to 3% same-store sales. How much of that is what you've seen so far in the quarter or how much is that is what you expect Zoodles and the other changes that you've made to help results? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Yeah. Ultimately, Jake, I think it's just the sequential improvement that we've continued to see not just thus far this quarter, but also in the latter parts of Q1 as well.

Okay. So, in trial traffic or what have you you're marketing around the Zoodles could be incremental to that, is kind of what I'm hearing? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Yeah. Although I would keep in mind that for the first couple of weeks we have Zucchini noodles in place. We're really not doing significant marketing around it. I want to make sure that our teams from an operational perspective are extremely comfortable with executing the Zucchini noodle. I want to make sure that that is 100% execution before we pull more of the marketing triggers.

Okay. And then remind me how extensively you tested Zoodles? I don't have to get used to saying that word, but how much you've tested it in the markets before? How many markets have you tested it? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: So, we tested it – it's almost been nine months since we've been testing the Zucchini noodles, which started as an operational test, ultimately moving to a consumer test and then as we introduced the Zucchini Romesco earlier this year. We ultimately had one of our major markets, Baltimore, and then two or three smaller markets as well that were part of the test.

Okay. And can you share what the results of those were? I know strong enough to roll it out, but just to frame the potential upside to the model here? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Yeah. I mean, I think it's a little bit difficult to disclose the entire impact that we saw from a test perspective, but what was extremely exciting with what we saw is without much marketing support, really nice lifts in traffic from those particular restaurants. And it was being driven by frequency. So, we took advantage of the opportunity we have with our rewards program and the information that we received from that program and seeing that even our loyal guests were coming more often due to the Zoodles introduction.

Okay. And then, is this what you expected when you gave prior guidance? I know you reiterated guidance, but looks like the sales trends are fairly strong. Is this what you would expect? I'm just trying to understand, I know we're kind of – the terminology is the same for modestly positive same-store sales, but seems like it's more than modest right now. I'm just trying to understand why the rest of the guidance was maintained, whether that's just conservatism? Paul J. B. Murphy - Noodles & Co.: Jake, this is Paul. We, obviously, are very happy with the sequential improvement that we've been seeing quarter-to-quarter. Very pleased with the lift we've seen entering into Q2, which really began in P3 of Q1, from a strengthening standpoint. Certainly remaining somewhat conservative because we just frankly launched the Zoodles eight days ago, so we just felt like it's early to make any changes until you just get a little bit more time under your belt to make sure that the things that we saw in test prove out on a national basis over a period of time.

Great. And then lastly, you mentioned looking at your development plans going forward. But can you share whether your pipeline, you've been actively building your pipeline for new units or is that kind of far off in light of kind of the more recent improvement in results? I'm just trying to gauge how that's trending in terms of your pipeline, what we might be able to expect? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Yeah. Well, certainly as we've seen strengthening in the core business as well as the – the new restaurants that we opened in 2017, we've spoken about in the past, has been our strongest class since early 2009. So a lot of confidence in the underlying momentum of the business as well as what we're seeing in our new restaurants, so a lot of confidence there. 2018, from that perspective, Jake, certainly too late to impact, but we certainly will evaluate what 2019 looks like in terms of potentially a significantly increased growth rate.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question is from Nicole Miller with Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open. Nicole Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Two questions please. First, what does a positive 1% to 3% or just call it low-single-digit comp translate to in terms of store-level margin? And related, albeit separate, what does it take to return back to the 18%? I really can't believe I'm asking this, this final way in terms of cutting costs, because I know it's a top line leverage story and as it's certainly suggesting it, but is that also what is needed in combination with a low-single-digit comp? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Yeah, I mean, I think, with modestly positive comparable restaurant sales, which would probably be on the low end of that, low-single-digit, we expect margin to roughly stay flat, Nicole. As we continue to get same-store sales above that number, we would certainly expect a pretty significant leverage that's something that this brand is capable of doing. In terms of the 18% number, as a reminder for those that are – maybe not followed the story as much, this brand has had the potential to be above 20% in the past and we certainly know there's upside to come. Certainly volume is the biggest driver, but I think supply chain is one area where we're particularly confident that we have the ability to really make some tremendous improvements, which should help that margin get closer towards that high-double-digit range. Nicole Miller Regan - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Okay, great. And then my second and last question, how are your guest satisfaction scores, is it trending (21:35) up or down? And then if these are the important pieces and there may be other that…

Our next question is from Andrew Strelzik with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Hey. Good afternoon. This is actually Ryan Royce on for Andrew. Just two questions for me. First one, on delivery, I believe you proved – on the last call you said it was in roughly 15% of the units, is that roughly in the same ballpark or has it expanded to additional markets? And what learnings have you had since it's been in test for a few quarters now, and what do you want to see before you expand that further? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Yeah. I mean, I'll start with the learnings perspective, Ryan, which is it does appear to be incremental, so it does – absolutely there's a demand for it, which I don't think is a surprise as those that follow the industry now. But there's also the challenge of economics and we feel it's important that the operations are seamless, that it's integrated into our overall execution to where it's easy for our teams to execute the order correctly. So it has not expanded beyond 15%. That said, we are very close to instituting additional tests with two additional delivery service providers that the coverage of those two providers could get us up to 50% in relatively short order.

Great. Thanks. And then just one more for me, your performance is, obviously, getting better from a top line perspective, but we've also seen the industry get better as well, so maybe can you just give some color on what you're seeing from the consumer or in the broader fast-casual competitive environment? Paul J. B. Murphy - Noodles & Co.: This is Paul. I mean, we're seeing a bit of a rising tide out there, but while we recognize that, we think it's partially the consumers is just kind of settling in a little bit. In terms of noodles, we really believe that the work that we've done operationally over the last six to nine months, the work that we've done on the brand presentation, work that we've done on the menu, we addressed some things that we saw in our metrics that maybe we were a little bit deficient on with the guest out there and we think that the majority of the movement we've made from being kind of running negative 3% to negative 4% to now, as Dave mentioned, looking at Q2 and expecting between a positive 1% to a positive 3% that's significantly greater movement than you're seeing broadly across the industry. So maybe part of it's attributable to a rising tide, but I think most of it's attributable to the strategy that we've implemented and are executing against and we'll continue to execute against as we move through 2018 into 2019.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question is from Andy Barish with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. Just a quick numbers question and then a second one after that. On operating expenses, I mean, that was the only line item that went the other way versus the leverage you saw in the 1Q. Was there anything discrete in there or anything to call out in that line or is that where some of the investments spend is taking place? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: It's a combination of two things, Andy, one is increased utility expense, particularly in the Midwest, because of just the amount for heating. The second thing was some investments on the off-premise occasion in particular on technology that was the other avenue that we had a little bit more investment in.

Okay. And then Paul, in the past on some brands you've worked on, I mean, putting the basics and the people back in place is, obviously, a key to then kind of building off of additional programs or marketing. I mean, do you see marketing as something that is eventually an important part in Noodles or the physical plan; I know you've made the changes with the pick-up shelves but are there future (28:08) looks underway at what the box may look like? Paul J. B. Murphy - Noodles & Co.: Andy, the answer is yes to both really. We continue to refine the brand position and then think really all aspects of the brand should come together, whether it's messaging to marketing, not only digital, but some traditional then, obviously, your in-store and then, obviously, the look and feel of the store that all those together need to be aligned and supporting the brand position. And I think ours had maybe become a bit disparate here at Noodles and we're working very hard to bring all that together. And I think you will see more iterations of that over the coming 12 months of work that we're doing. Once again taking a holistic approach where all aspects of the business ladder up and support one another to drive the brand promise and the brand position, the experience has to match it.

Thank you.

We have a follow-up question with Jake Bartlett. Your line is now open.

Thanks. I had a question about the margins and some of the moving pieces, and just in the context of you giving guidance that we're going to be kind of flat year-over-year for the rest of the year. I thought that there were some supply chain savings, I'm wondering whether that was – how much of that drove the 100 basis points lower COGS in the first quarter, but why that wouldn't continue throughout – through the rest of the year? And then also kind of on that front, I believe there's some laboring issues that should continue to be a benefit and then I'm wondering whether marketing then offset some of that. So, just those three moving pieces would be helpful. David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Yeah, I will start from a COGS perspective, which we did have some commodity benefit year-over-year and we expect a lot of that will hold. That said, we're about 80% – little bit over 80% booked right now and there's just still enough there that's moving in the market that we think we should be relatively conservative with how we think COGS will ultimately play out. From a labor perspective, I want you to (30:35) keep in mind as we talked about Q1 and the outsized impact that the closures of underperforming restaurants had, certainly you see that in the labor line pretty significantly. So now that we have lapped those closures, you'll see labor come much more similarly in line year-over-year and we'll also lap a lot of those initiatives, so those may recall that we introduced some processes and procedures such as the chopper that helped us from a labor perspective, we'll be lapping that. So we think from an inflationary component, we'll be hard-pressed just to combat inflation from the labor side of the equation. On a marketing front, we have always from the initial outset in terms of our guidance and our expectations for 2018 knew that from a cadence perspective, we would have more marketing spend during the second half of the year. So Q1's marketing spend was about 1.1% of sales. We think that upticks to between 1.5% and 2% over the balance of this year.

Great. Including the second quarter? David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Correct.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back to Dave Boennighausen for any further remarks. David James Boennighausen - Noodles & Co.: Thank you, Aiyala. I just want to thank everybody for their time today. We're extremely excited with the sequential improvement that we're seeing in the brand, very excited for what's to come in 2018 and I look forward to catching up with you shortly.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's program. Thank you for participating in today's conference. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.