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Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc. (RRGB)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 12, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Incorporated Fourth 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 of similar meaning. 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 operation, 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 technology, development and remodel, performance of remodeled and acquired restaurants, new technology, devices, systems, and service offerings, 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 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 and expectations 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 the risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could impact the company's future operating results and financial condition. The company has posted its fiscal fourth 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 would 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, Robert. Good morning, everyone. With me on the call here at the headquarters of The Burger Authority are Stuart Brown, our newly minted Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Denny Marie Post, who has been promoted to President of Red Robin. Congrats to both of these talented leaders. After we deliver our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to answer any questions you might have. This quarter, we're shaking things up a bit, and Stuart Brown is going to kick off the call with a brief update on Q4 financials. Stuart?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Good morning and thank you, all, for joining us today. Following the pre-release and this morning's full earnings release, I'll keep my comments on our fourth quarter performance brief and then cover 2016 outlook. Steve and Denny will then fill in details on guest engagement and business initiatives that we have teed up for 2016 and to support continued growth thereafter. I will not be reiterating all the details in our earnings release or the supplemental reporting package, so please refer to those for more information. Our 2015 full-year financial performance highlights, includes comparable revenue growth of 2.1%, which outpaced our peers by 1.1% according to Black Box. Adjusted EBITDA growth of 20.5% to $148.2 million, and adjusted diluted EPS growth of almost 25% to $3.32 per share. Both EBITDA and EPS numbers are adjusted to exclude asset impairments, a one-time benefit from a change in gift card breakage estimates in 2015 and executive transitioning cost in 2014. In the fourth quarter, comparable restaurant guest counts were negative 4.6%, which was 1.5% below the U.S. casual dining peers according to Black Box. Average check increased 2.6%, resulting in comparable restaurant sales growth being negative 2% on a constant currency basis. Although, as a reminder, our Canadian operations have entered our comparable restaurant pool as of the fourth quarter. Despite the lower comp sales, fourth quarter operating margins held up nicely as lower ground beef costs helped to offset the sales deleverage we experienced and expenses associated with newly-deployed restaurant technology. This resulted in restaurant level operating margins of 21.9% at 60 basis point increase from a year ago. For comparable units, restaurant level operating profit per unit grew 2.1% despite the lower revenue. For the full-year, our comparable restaurant level profit per restaurant increased 8.8%. We opened 11 new restaurants…

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. As Steve said, we are coming to you from the home of The Burger Authority, and I hasten to add, the home of the Super Bowl Champion, Denver Broncos. Go, Broncos. I will take the next few minutes to share what we've learned from the last quarter and how we'll be applying it to our marketing and menu plans going forward, ever mindful not to tip our hand to competitors, as we are all seeking to gain and hold the competitive edge in this very challenging consumer environment. In Q4, we were, frankly, swamped by competitive media pressure behind myriad $6 price point and so-called endless food promotions. While it is nothing new for us to be outspent by bar and grill competitors, it is no excuse, and we should have been prepared to outthink them. We have relied on our $6.99 every day value Tavern Double with Bottomless Steak Fries televised message on and off for much of the last three years. We did not have a go-to back-up tactic or compelling news worth talking about in earned media and PR channels. When it became evident that the pressure was taking a toll, the team rallies and got us back in the conversation, first with tremendous PR behind our new Finest chicken burger dubbed the Marco Pollo, and then by dialing up our outreach to Red Robin Royalty members with a profitable traffic driving 12 days of burgers promotion. By quarter's end, we were back in the fight. It set us up for a better course moving forward. We are working in earnest on a new advertising campaign to improve breakthrough and on thoughtfully reconsidering our media spending patterns and choices. Changes will be evident in Q2 and beyond. We are also digging…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will take our first question from Joseph Buckley with Bank of America.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you. Could you just review the different technology initiatives, and what can be implemented in 2016? Kind of across the waterfront, there was mention of a lot of things, but just to kind of understand the sequencing of it and how much – how many of those projects can be accomplished this year? Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Joe. This is Steve. As we look across the next 12 months to 18 months, the first technology following up on Ziosk or our Robin platform will be the Kitchen Display System, which we expect to have implemented by midyear. That is going to dramatically improve a couple of things. First our food quality. Right now, the technique we use in the back of the kitchen to make sure an item that takes 10 minutes to cook comes up with an item that takes 2 minutes to cook is we scream at each other. What we've learned not surprisingly is this is not the most efficient method to do it. So, with KDS, there is algorithms that fire food exactly timed so that the full order for that table comes up at the same time in the expo window and can get delivered hot and fresh to the table. We're then going to follow that up a little later this year with a dynamic software for table management, which is a way to seat guests more efficiently, to make sure if there's two chairs, two people sit in them and if there's four chairs, four people sit in them. This is also going to be linked to the Kitchen Display System, so that the kitchen has a heads up digitally about what the wait times are looking like. We are also going to pilot the comprehensive supply-chain management system this year, which is going to automate or arduous and manual inventories, ordering and production processes in a restaurant. This is a significant upside for us, not only it will help us manage cost of goods and waste, including liquor waste, but it's going to free up our general managers to spend time training their team members and interacting with guests. So, they'll be on the floor instead of sitting in the back office. And we are also going to get after online ordering and a wait list management just the end of this year by putting those technologies in place. So, we'll get some payoff in 2016 on KDS and table management. We're going to pilot these other key technologies and we'll get the full benefits of them in year 2017 and out.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. And then – that's very helpful. A question just on sales sequence. You know, it sounded like you took some initiatives toward the end of the fourth quarter and maybe ended the quarter a little bit better than the down 2%. But I know the new advertising campaign is a second-quarter event. And just curious kind of the sequencing of sales, yeah, particularly here – for the first quarter.

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Joe, yeah. This is Stuart. I mean, yeah, we don't typically talk about results in our quarter. I mean, we did talk at ICR a little bit about – and we talked about it here about coming back with new messaging and new news in December, which helped us to bend the trend as we exited the quarter.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. So, you finished the – did you still finish the quarter negative, or can you say that much?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

I mean, the industry in December was negative. I think casual dining was negative about 3%. So, our performance relative to the industry was better in December than the previous months, but more detail than that we're not going to give.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from John Glass with Morgan Stanley. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thanks very much. Just first maybe on a high level, so RED2, you're going to grow double EBITDA in five years, so you're going to compound growth, grow it at maybe 15% a year. So, how do you think about – is this primarily a revenue plan and expenses are secondary, or is it balanced? How do you think about the big buckets that you discussed and how they contribute to that 15% growth each year?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. John, this is Stuart. I think it's going to be a combination of things. Some of it's going to be top-line driven, which then you get leverage off of. So, in order to achieve that, to your point, yeah, you need to get, on average EBITDA growth of 15%. You need EBITDA margins to expand. Our EBITDA margins today are still probably around 200 basis points below industry. So, we've been just getting back to industry margins over that timeframe will cover a big piece of it. So, if you get top line growth – total revenue growth of call it 8% to 10%, then you'll need margin expansion of somewhere 200 basis points to 250 basis points in order to achieve that over the timeframe. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. And if I were to just summarize how you think about the buckets for revenue, it sounds like it's the to-go business and maybe the alcohol beverage business, and then on the expense side, it's like KDS and table management that kind of allows better labor – are those like the four, or am I missing a couple of other big building blocks that will get you there? Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, this is Steve. Remember the KDS and table management piece is going to dramatically enhance our ability to grow the sales during, particularly our peak times when we're on wait in our existing four walls. The supply chain stuff, which we will pilot this year and begin to benefit for in 2017 is going to help us on margin expansion. And then I'll turn it over to Denny for a couple other major revenue growing initiatives that are big opportunities for us.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

Obviously, continuing to drive frequency through Red Robin Royalty is a key for us. And we continue to see upside there, just frequency of visit makes a huge difference for us, John, and additionally, some segmented and targeting efforts that we've got going on in our advertising programs I think can start to give us some edge as well. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And then just one final question, this offer you're doing, the 2 for $15 deal, and you emphasized a few times, limited. So, is this a one-time tactical offer? Or do you think you have to evolve to a more different? I know you've had before an every day lower offer, the Tavern Double, but does it have to evolve to a permanent, like, more sharp value? Or is this just one-time tactic and then you feel like your prior value messaging really works on a more go-forward basis?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

We are currently viewing it as a limited-time tactic to bridge us to our next efforts around product news. And I would say we're always evolving, so we just need to keep sharp. John Glass - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from Will Slabaugh with Stephens.

Will Slabaugh - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens.

Yeah. Thanks. I want to ask about the Tavern platform and future plans there. So, how did that platform trend during the period where you had increased discounting from a lot of your bar and grill peers? And can you give us any more detail about what types of changes you feel like you need to make to better insulate your proposition to your guests?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

You know, I don't think we saw material change in mix in Q4 for Tavern overall. Certainly emphasizing it now, we've seen some uptake with Taverns, which is a good every day value trial tactic for us so the guests come to know us. There's still limited awareness of the fact that we do have a $6.99 offering to start every day. And then beyond that, I think we have opportunity to always increase the value side of that barbell, but to do so in a way that doesn't involve discounting as much as it involves every day value. So, we are working to see what other items we can add there that would bring some news.

Will Slabaugh - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens.

Got it. And as a follow-up there, are you planning that the burger-focused discounting that we saw so heavily in 4Q continues throughout 2016, or are you assuming some of that tapers off, which I realize we've seen some of it taper off already?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

In terms of competitors?

Will Slabaugh - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens.

Right.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

They use burgers a lot of times as the low end of their menu to pull other folks in to their entrées and other things. So, we've seen increased activity. I wouldn't ever count it out, and certainly would expect it to come back, certainly by fall.

Will Slabaugh - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens.

Okay. And lastly, whenever you think about the buyback that you put out this morning, that was a pretty big number, so, just curious on any sort of thoughts you can give us around how that could play out through 2016 as you think about share repurchases?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. Will, I think it's very consistent with what we've been telling investors and shareholders in terms of our capital allocation strategy over the next few years, that as we wrap up our brand transformation remodel program, we will start to free up free cash flow. And we will continue to look for ways to optimize returns for shareholders. There's a number of different things we can do. We'll get great returns on the technology we're talking about. So we'll put capital to work there. And at some point, though, I expect that we will generate more free cash flows than we can effectively put to work, at least for some periods of time. And so, we'll look for ways to return that to shareholders and expect that to be increasing as we look out over the next two years to three years.

Will Slabaugh - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens.

Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from Alex Slagle with Jefferies.

Alexander Russell Slagle - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies.

Hey. Thanks. I just wanted to follow-up on Joe's question earlier on just the trends, actually looking into the first quarter and weather – how we should think about weather and the Super Bowl having an impact on your business, especially with the Broncos' involvement.

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. We had Seattle last year, which was a strong market for us as well. So, I think in terms of what we're cycling over, I mean, we have weather every year. Our goal is to continue to outperform industry trends as, I mean, probably everybody saw Black Box and I guess maybe even Knapp-Track has released numbers as well. I mean, the industry cycled over a very strong January last year. On our call a year ago, we didn't talk about January's performance because it was really strong. You never know how the rest of the quarter is going to play out and we'll do the same thing now.

Alexander Russell Slagle - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies.

And in the fourth quarter, was California still a strong market for you, or was there any change regionally?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

I mean, California continues to perform well just as a regional market for us. We've got – from an operation's standpoint, they do a fabulous job and the economy there has done – has held up nicely as well.

Alexander Russell Slagle - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies.

Great. And then on the mix drivers for 2016, I mean is there – how should we think about overall check growth from menu mix in 2016, whether it's the apps, or beverages, premium items?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. I mean, we're going to continue I think a lot of the same efforts that we've been doing and Denny talked about alcohol mix, growing traffic counts as well and cranking up the to-go as we get in later in the year. I think from a pricing standpoint next year, we'll continue to watch COGS. The one thing I think for everybody to keep in mind is that the COGS benefit will be much greater in the first half of the year, like ground beef prices really came down really sort of in the August timeframe of 2015. And so through that, we'll be cycling against higher numbers really for the next six months or seven months, and then the COGS numbers below. As we get further in the year, we'll give more guidance on sales.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

I'd also point you to our current promotion so we've just rolled back into the Wild Pacific Crab Cake Burger which has returned for the Lenten season. I was at Red Robin last night in, enjoyed one, it was terrific and I also started off with Voodoo Fries which is – will blow your head off. I'll tell you that. It is smoking hot. And enjoyed the Voodoo Fries to start the meal last night. So we're continuing to drive news with that. I didn't have room for my Root Beer Float Cake. But I did take some Doh! Rings to go using Robin to order. And so, continue to see a lot of opportunity across all elements and my husband had a beer.

Alexander Russell Slagle - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies.

Sound good.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

Those opportunities continue to exist. I try to go to the restaurant wherever I can to model that kind of behavior.

Alexander Russell Slagle - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies.

Got it. Well, thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from Imran Ali with Wells Fargo.

Imran Ali - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. With your accelerating pace of development this year and going forward, what is the cadence of these openings in 2016?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. I mean it's inherent in our overall revenue guidance. We were quite back-end weighted in 2015. 2016 will be a little bit more balanced. It's still fairly back-end weighted, I would say, sort of on average. We've got about half of them still opening in the late third quarter, fourth quarter, but it'll be more well-balanced, and that's what's inherent in the operating week guidance.

Imran Ali - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Okay. Understood. And just looking beyond this year, how's your pipeline, if it's not too early to talk about it? How's your development pipeline shaping up in 2017? And also, can you remind us what you believe your ultimate unit potential is?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. The overall unit potential, yeah, it's been a little while since we've updated it. But there continues to be at least 400 additional sites as we look out there, especially, as we've gone more towards building the mid-sized units. They cannibalize less, so we can build tighter densities of networks, which is great and more profitability, team member, training, openings of those have been great. And so, if we got the pace back up to call it 35 per year, which I think is where we peaked in the mid-2000s, I think it's something we could handle from management perspective. The pipeline is getting in better shape. We've reorganized our real estate team, re-engaged brokers, we've changed a number of processes. And so, in addition to having a better pipeline, our development timelines are coming down in terms of how long it takes us to get locations opened from when we get a lease signed. So, we're feeling very good. And then we see an increasing number of conversions of existing change as well. We got landlords coming to us to take over other restaurant spaces.

Imran Ali - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Okay. Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from David Carlson with KeyBanc.

David Carlson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc.

Hey. Thank you so much. Denny, Stuart brought up a couple of minutes ago in discussing mix. He also discussed traffic initiatives as well. But it's not really apparent from the recent results that the remodel program has driven much same-store sales improvement, and traffic performance over the last year was pretty volatile. So, realizing you don't want to tip your hand to the competition, but hope you can help us understand what are the most important initiatives to drive a sustainable traffic growth this year?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

I think competing, as we talked about for that deal buyer to start off of the year, getting back in the conversation with regards to product news, candidly, we didn't have a lot go on past mid-summer of last year when we were tied in with the Terminator movie and got a lot of activity around that terrific burger, so the eternal combinations of great value and great news. And then once they're in the restaurant, getting them to step up to whether it's the Finest mix which continues to grow – our Marco Pollo chicken item that we just added there has been doing really, really well. We're very pleased with that, or adding on the things we've talked about alcohol, apps, and desserts. And with regards to BTI, those locations continue to outperform those we have not yet transformed. So, it's still the right thing for us to have done moving the business forward and inviting our guests in for multiple occasions, particularly in an economically pressed environment, we want to make sure we're capturing adult dine-in, as well as family.

David Carlson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc.

Maybe just a follow-on to that. We saw selling expense down 15% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, which likely led to that traffic number you guys said up front. But would you say that – would you expect selling expense to be down in any other quarters year-over-year in 2016?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Selling expense patterns will largely – I mean as a percentage of sales – will stay largely the same in 2016 as it did in 2015 and the timing of that gets impacted by the different things, just gift card costs and timing of media. But overall...

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

We're not cutting back.

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

...it's going to be largely the same. We're not going to be cutting back.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

We're not cutting back.

David Carlson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc.

Okay. Fair enough. And then one more if I can. You guys have noted that the Red Royalty program is really an important part, obviously, of the overall marketing strategy. I was hoping you, guys, could let us know, what percentage of your sales is generated by that loyalty program?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

Like you know, we let everybody else know. We're not going to do that. Sorry.

David Carlson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc.

Okay. Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's material and growing.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

It's material and growing?

David Carlson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc.

Fair enough. But if I can add something on to that, are these numbers more or less reliant than non-loyalty members to keep on usage and other discounts is really what I'm getting at?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

They're responsive to great offers. But as you remember, our program is structured primarily on the earned value of buy 9 get 10, and that's the majority of how our guests engage with it. And otherwise, it becomes an opportunity for us to speak directly to them about things like the Lenten Crab Cake being cake or to go out and tap into them with something like 12 Burgers of Christmas which we did the end of last year. But I wouldn't say they're any more reliant on it. It certainly creates resident value for them. Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: David, recognize that with this base of users, we understand both their frequency of visit and their spend. And so, we don't market to this base the same way. We can put an offer to someone who hasn't been in for six months. It's very, very different than someone who comes in on a monthly basis, and that's one of the secrets to the program. It allows us to micro-target specifically against users' frequency and spend levels appropriately to see if we can generate the behavior we want. So, it's much better than, say, some of our competitors here in Denver, as an example, who will drop a Sunday insert in the Denver Post. Basically carpet bomb the market with two units. We don't have to do that.

David Carlson - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc.

Thank you, guys, for the time.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

Thank you. Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Welcome.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from Brian Vaccaro with Raymond James. Brian M. Vaccaro - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Thanks. And good morning. Just a couple of quick ones for me. First, just back on the fourth quarter comp, Stuart, can you provide the price mix breakout of your average check in the quarter?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. Price was – in the fourth quarter was about 1.9% of the total. Brian M. Vaccaro - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. All right. And sorry if I missed this, but how are you thinking about menu price increases as we move through 2016?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. I think, overall, I mean, the guidance assumes sort of price mix total of call it 2% to 2.5% and then we'll break out more of that as we get through the year and see what happens from a COGS perspective and how much we need to take. Brian M. Vaccaro - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. All right. And on the 2016 guidance, I appreciate the EBITDA guidance you provided. But as you think about store margins, I think you said modest leverage in 2016, can you provide a little more color as it relates to sort of your food and labor cost outlook in terms of the inflation or deflation as it would seem we're going to see on the food cost side?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. I mean – I think, obviously, the – I mean in total 2016 will probably look a lot like it did in 2015, obviously higher labor inflation, particularly with California minimum wages going up $1 as of January. And so you've got – and you'll have COGS that will be for the year flat to slightly down. Obviously, within the seasonality that I talked about earlier on that. Brian M. Vaccaro - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: So, on the labor side, specifically, I think, in the past, you talked maybe about let's say a 4% type of range?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. 3.5% to 4%. Brian M. Vaccaro - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: 3.5% to 4%. Okay. All right. And then just last one on the G&A outlook, I know you didn't guide for this specifically, but it looks like you're expecting relatively flat, just sort of looking at your EBITDA guide. Are there any costs associated with the technology and equipment rollouts that you discussed in that, or is that purely flowing through CapEx?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

No. Some of that's in the EBITDA guidance as well. Some of that will hit the restaurant. Some of that will hit G&A. And so, you'll get some G&A growth with inflation but also new unit growth largely. And then some of it is also recycling that we had with the rollout of Robin last year, some of last year's technology – there is something inherent already in the run rate. Brian M. Vaccaro - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. All right. Fair enough. Just one last quick one. On the acceleration in your unit growth that's underway, can you speak to the unit economics that you've achieved, say, in the class of 2013 and 2014 that have sort of reached a maturity curve here that's supports that accelerated rollout? Can you give an update on that?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. No, we continue to be really, really pleased with how they're doing. Again, we balanced out the number of openings between what's in our core existing markets and what's in new markets. And so, I mean overall, the blended returns continue to be IRR in the upper teens on average and that you get 25% to 30% cash-on-cash return. And we continue to see some inflation in build costs, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and in the Northeast. But those returns are holding up nicely. Brian M. Vaccaro - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Steve Anderson with Maxim Group.

Stephen Anderson - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst · Maxim Group.

Yes. So good morning. And I know you have discussed some of your bar and grill competition. It looks like, if I read it correctly, like, some of the burger-based promotions maybe – may have decelerated a bit from what you saw in the fourth quarter. But what about what's going in the quick-service burger segment? I don't know if you're seeing any kind of defection there. And I know that they had a fantastic quarter in the entire segment. But I just want to see if that's the kind of – if you see any kind of overlap with those kind of customers?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

I was going to say, certainly, with burgers being one of the most popular menu items right up there with pizza, you're always going to see some overlap of usage. But we have not seen that, I don't think, specifically, particularly when you look at occasions and how we meet different occasions per guest. That occasion is primarily filled by to-go, on-the-go, lunch, drive-through. Now, obviously, with being able to get breakfast at least one or two places all day long, there is some pressure there, but it's a different occasion than we serve with the full-service dine-in.

Stephen Anderson - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst · Maxim Group.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from Joseph Buckley with Bank of America.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Thank you. Round two. Just a couple of quick ones. Did Canada entering the fourth quarter comps have a significant impact one way or the other?

Stuart B. Brown - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Management

Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say it's significant because of the number of restaurants, but given the impact of the lower oil prices and what that's doing on the economy in Alberta, the impact was negative. I mean, Canada underperformed the U.S. So, from a comp standpoint, it was negative 3%, 3.5% I think on the top-line really economically-driven.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

Yeah. 5 of our 18 locations are in Edmonton, Alberta, and they've been very, very heavily affected.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Okay. And then, I'm curious on the time, the service time, growing so much longer. Do you have a sense of what has driven that as you attempt to drive those service times – to take the table service times back down? Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure, Joe. If you look back at our menu five years or six years ago, we had a line of Gourmet Burgers that had a multiple different buns, the same size patty, and different builds. Fast forward to today, we have the entire Tavern platform, which tends to cook much more quickly than another platform we've put in place that we really, really love, which is the Finest platform. So, if you come in with me and I get a Tavern Double and you get a Smoke and Pepper, the difference in cook times is material in the kitchen. We've simply asked our people to figure it out. And as we add more apps and more desserts and as we added more non-alcoholic beverage options, we've reached a point where we need to give those heart of the house teams the tools – the technology tools that, quite frankly, many of our – almost all of our competitors already have to help them manage the variance in cook times to ensure that a table of four entrées comes up all at the same time in the pass-through window and is immediately run to the table. We have a high level of confidence the technology, we're putting in place, is going to really address that issue.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Okay. And then, just a question on the Finest mix. Denny, I think you said it continues to rise. Are you seeing any leveling effect there? Is there some natural ceiling to – that you could see in the trend in terms of how high that Finest mix can go?

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

That's part of the reason that we are relying so heavily on or things like the Crab Cake, bringing it back right now, it attracts a different users, Joe, so you can broaden the mix beyond what beef is able to do, why we focus on LTOs like the Mad Love which was so popular in December. The results on those who tried that burger are just through the charts in terms of interest in repeat purchase. And then having just launched the Marco Pollo, we've actually seen mix double from holiday to winter. So, as we drive trial, it's really stepping up and we know that adding different proteins to that line had the opportunity to continue to grow it.

Joseph Terrence Buckley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Denny Marie Post - President

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

And this concludes our question-and-answer session. And I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Carley for closing remarks. Stephen E. Carley - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, everybody, for your time and attention. And we look forward to speaking with you here at the Q1 2016 call.