W. Benn
Analyst · Morgan Stanley
Well, thank you, David. Total revenues of The Cheesecake Factory for the first quarter increased 3% to $419 million compared to $405 million in the prior year first quarter. Restaurant revenues reflect a 1.7% increase in total restaurant operating weeks due to the opening of 4 new restaurants during the trailing 15-month period plus a 1.3% increase in average weekly sales. Overall, comparable sales of The Cheesecake Factory and Grand Lux Café restaurant increased 1.6% for the quarter. Inclement weather negatively impacted restaurant traffic and hence, comparable restaurant sales by approximately 80 basis points. Despite the weather, guest traffic was positive, and our average check was up about 1%. We implemented a 0.7% menu price increase at The Cheesecake Factory in our Winter 2011 menu change, lapping a 0.6% menu price increase from the winter of 2010. We had 1.4% of price in the menu exiting the quarter. At the bakery, external sales were $11.9 million, up slightly versus the prior year. Cost of sales increased to 25% of revenue for the first quarter of 2011 compared to 24.3% in the same quarter of last year. As expected, we experienced higher food costs related to certain non-contracted items, particularly dairy and fresh fish in addition to pressure from seafood and a number of grocery items. Labor was 32.8% of revenue for the first quarter, down 50 basis points from 33.3% in the prior year. Our direct operating labor was about 30 basis points better than the first quarter of last year due to overall productivity gains. The remainder of the decrease was related to lower group medical insurance cost and lower equity compensation expense. Other operating cost and expenses were 24.7% of revenues for the first quarter of 2011, up from 24.5% in the first quarter of last year. This slight increase was driven by lapping unusually low workers' compensation and general liability insurance expense in the first quarter of last year, which impacted the comparison. G&A expenses were 5.8% of revenues for the first quarter, flat as compared to the first quarter of 2010. And depreciation expense for the first quarter of 2011 was 4.2% of revenues, down versus 4.5% in the prior year period. The favorability stemmed primarily from the rate of depreciation on corporate and IT investments over the past few years and from comparable sales leverage. Net interest expense was $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2011, down significantly from $2.5 million in the first quarter last year. This is driven by the fact that we paid off the balance on our revolving credit facility as of the end of fiscal 2010. Our tax rate for the quarter was 28%, in line with our expectations. As David mentioned, we effectively managed our cost structure in the first quarter of 2011, keeping operating margins at 7.1%, flat with the prior year in spite of 70 basis points of food cost pressure. Ultimately, our goal continues to be to return operating margins to peak levels. We've made significant progress toward this objective over the past 2 years, while we increased our guest counts and maintained high guest satisfaction scores. And we continue to expect to have additional margin expansion this year. Our liquidity position is as strong as it's ever been with a cash balance of about $76 million and no bank debt. Cash flow from operations for the quarter was approximately $52 million. Net of $10 million of cash used for capital expenditures, we generated about $42 million in free cash flow during the quarter. We used our free cash flow, combined with some of the cash on our balance sheet, to repurchase a little over 1.7 million shares, returning approximately $50.6 million in cash to shareholders. That wraps up our business and financial review for the first quarter of 2011. Now I'll spend a few minutes on our outlook for the second quarter as well as the full year 2011. As we've done in the past, we continue to provide our best estimate for earnings per share ranges based on realistic comparable sales assumptions. These assumptions, factoring everything we know as of today, which includes quarter-to-date trends, what we think will happen in the weeks ahead, known weather influences and the effect of any impacts associated with holidays. 2011 is a 53-week year for us, with the extra week falling in the fourth quarter. Our assumptions for the full year reflect this. For the full year 2011, we expect diluted earnings per share to be between $1.58 and $1.70, representing an increase in the midpoint of our guidance. This is in spite of an additional $0.06 in higher cost of sales that we are now expecting for the year, over and above what we anticipated when we provided our last update in February. All told for the year, cost of sales is impacting our earnings per share by about $0.11 relative to the initial guidance we provided last October. We are absorbing this pressure by actively managing our cost structure, including ongoing improvements in labor productivity and tight G&A controls. And, as we previously indicated, we will implement a higher level of menu price increases in our upcoming summer menu change if commodity cost pressures continue at the current level. Our earnings estimate for the full year is based on an assumed comparable sales range of between 1.5% and 3%, which reflects both guest traffic and average check growth. Our business remains strong and stable, continuing the trend from last year. For the second quarter of 2011, we estimate diluted earnings per share between $0.39 and $0.41. As we discussed last quarter, we expect year-over-year food cost pressures to be significantly higher in the first half of the year and then to moderate on a comparative basis by the fourth quarter. We believe this will be the case, primarily based on the fact that we experienced very high dairy cost in the fourth quarter of 2010 that we expect to mitigate on a comparative basis. Our earnings estimate for the second quarter reflects about $0.05 in year-over-year pressure from cost of sales. Our earnings per share estimate for the quarter is based on an assumed range of comparable sales between 1.5% and 3%, consistent with our full year assumption. We expect our tax rate to be between 28% and 29% for both the second quarter and full year 2011. Our projection for capital spending in 2011 remains at $70 million to $90 million in support of our planned 6 to 9 new restaurant openings in 2011 as well as expected early 2012 openings. We continue to target at least $100 million of our free cash flow toward share repurchases in 2011. And as mentioned earlier, we completed about 1/2 of our expected repurchases during the first quarter. With that said, we'll take your questions. In order to accommodate as many questions as possible, please limit yourself to one question and then re-queue with any additional questions.