Andrew Charles: Great. Thank you. Your Olive Garden and LongHorn showed impressive performance in 1Q, while fine dining saw headwinds as you previously warned. And I guess I’m curious, what led the decision to keep full year same-store sales guidance despite 1Q strong result. And are you perhaps seeing something in September that gives you pause on the outlook for the balance of the year? I know restaurant investors have been keen that industry data seems to be taking a breather? Thanks.
Raj Vennam: Hey, Andrew. Thanks for the question. So let’s start with the guidance, right? So as you think about our first quarter performance that was actually from a top line perspective, it was pretty consistent with our plan. We were within 10 basis points of our same restaurant plan we had. So the year from a top line is playing out the way we expected. So as far as — and so that’s really the trust behind how — why we’re not changing the guidance for the year. And now look, we’re one quarter in, there’s a lot of uncertainty out there. There’s three quarters to go, and we had a range to begin with. And while we outperformed our expectations on the bottom line, we feel like it gives us a little bit of a head start, but it still puts – the point estimate is still within the range we provided at the beginning of the year.
Andrew Charles: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Brian Bittner with Oppenheimer & Co. Please proceed with your questions.
Brian Bittner: Thanks and congrats on strong results. I just want to follow-up with Andrew’s question a little bit. There is a lot of anxiety, I think, out there regarding how the evolving macro could impact industry sales trends moving forward, specifically for casual dining as the benefits of pricing normalize. Just based on all your insights, do you believe that the current health of the consumer remains strongly intact? And can you help us understand what weapons you do have to keep traffic within your full year guidance range of flat to down 1.5% if the macro does deteriorate relative to your original expectations?
Rick Cardenas: Hey, Brian. This is Rick. Overall, we think the consumers continues to be resilient, but there seems to be a little bit more selective. We are seeing a little softness versus last year with household incomes above $125,000 and that primarily affects our fine dining brands, but it does affect all of our brands. Now this could be because the increase in luxury travel, particularly international travel, which you’ve heard a lot of people talk about. But as I’ve said before, many times, there is attention to being what people want to pay and what they can afford, and they’re going to continue to seek value, not always about low price. They’re making trade-offs and food away from home is one of the most difficult things they can give up.
So again, what does that mean for our brands? We believe that operators deliver on their brand promise and value will continue to be with consumers. And so we’re going to keep doing that. We’re going to deliver our promise. We’re going to execute our brands and we’re going to keep doing that and deliver value to our guests. And I’m confident we’re well positioned for whatever we have to deal with. Thanks to the breadth of our portfolio and the outstanding team members in our restaurants who are committed to exceptional guest experiences. Our marketing programs, we told you what we’re going to do with marketing in the prepared remarks. It’s again at whatever we do is going to elevate brand equity. It’s not going to be a deep discount and it’s going to be simple to operate.
And if it means that our traffic is at the lower end of our guide and then it’s at the lower end of our guide. We’re not going to do things that are going to impact us in the long-term just for short-term.
