Operator
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Incorporated first quarter 2015 earnings call. Today's call is being recorded. As a reminder, part of today's discussion will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These statements are commonly identified by words such as anticipate, continue, plan, expect, intend, should, will, and other terms with similar meanings. These statements include, but will not be limited to, statements that reflect the company's current expectations with respect to the macroeconomic and competitive environment, the financial condition of the company, results of operations, plans, strategy, objectives and future performance, including the company's traffic and revenue-driving initiatives, sales growth, operating margin and operating weeks, costs, expenses, expense management, deployment of capital, restaurant development and remodels, performance of acquired restaurants and other expectations discussed within the course of this call. Although the company believes the assumptions upon which preliminary or initial results, financial information and forward-looking statements are based on are reasonable as of today's date. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and, therefore, investors should not place undue reliance on them. Also, these statements are based upon facts known and expected as of the date of this conference call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements to reflect events or circumstances that might arise after this call. Participants on the call today should refer to the company's Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could impact the company's future operating results and financial condition. The company has posted its fiscal first quarter 2015 press release and supplemental financial information related to the quarter's results on its website at www.redrobin.com in the Investors section. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Steve Carley, Chief Executive Officer of Red Robin. Please go ahead, sir. Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Eric, and hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning. I'm here with Stuart Brown, our Chief Financial Officer, and we'll kick off by each sharing commentary on the business, and then we'll open it up for questions. Denny is not able to join us today, but I want to publicly congratulate her on a well-deserved promotion to Executive Vice President and to a newly created role here at Red Robin, the Chief Concept Officer. She'll oversee franchise operations, marketing, menu innovation and implementation, and is also serving as the President of our Canadian operations. Let me begin with an update on our strategic priorities which we've organized under the headings of engagement, efficiency, and expansion. As you know, these provide us with a roadmap through which we are strengthening our brand, gaining market share, and enhancing shareholder value. Related to engagement, we continue to provide our front-line team members with the training and tools necessary, so that they can efficiently engage with our guests and deliver what we term Triple R service, which is recognizing each guest individually; recommending something they're proud of; and then reassuring the guest that they made a great choice. Having a great Red Robin experience begins with our team members because when they deliver, they have the ability to build frequency and expand upon the number of distinct occasions that our guest can now associate with Red Robin, everything from a great family dining experience to adult occasions including date night, coming in with your buddies after softball practice, guys or girls night out, et cetera. Of course, critical to guest engagement is the breadth and quality of our food and beverage offerings, as well as our ability to bring innovation and creativity to the market on an ongoing basis. Some recent examples of that include our Cure Burger that launched as a secret menu item January 1 and was positioned as the perfect remedy for guests that needed some post-holiday relief. Of course, The Wild Pacific Crab Cake Burger was the first premium seafood offering to join our finest lineup and at $14.29 continues to build trial and deliver strong repeat. We have a few other great things coming up this summer, which we'll review with you in our Q2 call. In addition, we continue to have an opportunity to grow our adult beverage category. And with our new Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Lee Dolan, on board who reports today, we believe we'll get there. Lee brings to us nearly two decades of experience at MillerCoors and Coors Brewing Company, and his responsibilities encompass menu innovation and implementation, along with key marketing strategy and tactics, and particularly believe he'll be a vital asset in evolving our positioning as Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews. In terms of our brand transformation initiative, guest reactions and satisfaction scores from the transformations have been excellent. We are not only doing a much better job sorting at the door, which means matching each guest to the part of the restaurant where they'll get the best experience, but creating a unique and fun environment in our bars. We're also bringing in guests who haven't tried Red Robin for a while, and we're reintroducing them to the new concept. Our guest feedback and research shows meaningfully higher ratings and facility attributes, service and atmosphere, resulting in a significantly higher overall guest satisfaction score. Based on the guest feedback we've received, we now expect to complete at least 150 remodels this year, up from the 125-plus we stated previously, and we should be able to complete the entire company store base by the end of 2016. Another element of engagement is the company-wide rollout of the Ziosk tabletop device, which we are still on track to complete by the end of this year. Ziosk will also further enhance our ability to customize the Red Robin guest experience with the added convenience of paying at the table, ordering refills on demand, improving speed of service, and of course, the option for game entertainment on the table, too. As for marketing, we continue to advertise our $6.99 Everyday Value offering of Red's Tavern Double with Bottomless Fries. That's featured on television and continues to meet the needs of our value-conscious guests. We also featured a movie ticket tie-in in Q1 with that cinematic gem, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, which our research showed had significant appeal with our guests. We'll continue to do movie screening research to ensure that our guests are interested in the movies we do movie ticket tie-ins with. We also continue to grow the Red Robin Royalty program. And we send each Red Robin Royalty member occasional offers to maximize their incremental visits in addition to the base frequency reward program. Let's talk about efficiency for a second. You can see that our operating margins continue to expand. We have savings from repair and maintenance costs as we've consolidated vendors, which will include janitorial and inventory management. Our acquired restaurants are performing well, and we continue to find other opportunities in the business to consolidate vendors and offset inflation. Regarding our Canadian operations, we are developing a labor management system, and we believe we can achieve additional improvement in the middle of the P&L this year in Canada. Looking towards expansion, in 2015 we plan to open 20 Red Robin restaurants along with five Burger Works, while our franchisees are expected to open two locations. Interestingly, we're seeing more development opportunities as the macro environment improves. This should enable us to pick up our development pace in 2016 and 2017 relative to this year, and we are actively working on our pipeline. Burger Works is also gaining momentum. We're very pleased with the kitchen and the heart of the house and its ability to turn out customized, hot gourmet burgers with hot crispy fries in a time that meets and exceeds our guest expectations. We're encouraged that the downtown Chicago and Washington DC locations continue to do well and the original Colorado locations continue to comp positive. If you haven't been to any of our latest locations in Chicago and Washington DC, I encourage you to do so. They represent the branding, menu, and real estate strategy that we believe is the right formula for our use going forward. These includes further penetration of new restaurants in Chicago, Washington DC, and Denver, and we are planning to open a fourth market. With that, I'll turn it over to Stuart.