Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Rick Cardenas: Yes. Andrew, this is Rick. I will say that if you think about our confidence returning a TSR of 10% to 15% in any one year, we’ve said many times that in any one year, it could be below that or above that. And remember that’s earnings growth and dividend yield. I will say, go back in our history since we’ve been a public company, we’ve never had a 10-year period that we have had less than a 10-year — 10% annualized total shareholder return. So, we feel confident over the long run that we’re going to get to 10% to 15%. We’re not going to talk about next year. But I would feel like we’re pretty confident we should be able to get there.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jon Tower with Citi.

Jon Tower: Awesome. Great. Thanks for taking the question. Hopefully, you can hear me okay. I was really — I was struck by the commentary about your own consumer survey suggesting that your customers are not trading down from limited service — excuse me, away from full-service into limited service. Frankly, it’s counter to what we’ve been hearing from a handful of operators in recent weeks. So I’m curious to hear from you, is that broadly speaking about just your — or is that speaking specifically about your brands, or is it more broadly about the full-service category? Number one. And then number two, can you talk about what these customers are telling you as to why they’re sticking with your brand versus trading down elsewhere? Are they using you differently now than, say, in years past, when thinking about their own budgeting for going out or eating away from home?

Rick Cardenas: Yes. Jon, this is Rick. What we said earlier is most customers aren’t. Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any customers shifting from full-service to limited service, but most aren’t. And we’re not really seeing that in our results. So, others might be, but what we have been doing is providing a great value. We’ve actually taken a lot less pricing than most of our competition. So, that might be a reason that others might be seeing that when we’re not. And we’re improving our guest experience. So, at the same time that we’ve taken pricing that was lower than inflation by Raj said, 400 or 500 basis points versus pre-COVID, we’ve been improving our experience. Our customer satisfaction is growing. We’ve had records at Cheddar’s and Yard House, as I mentioned already.

So, I think that’s what people will crave when environments get a little bit tougher. They crave things that provide them a great value. And that gives them a consistent experience. And we’ve been doing that, and we’ll continue to do that.

Jon Tower: Okay. So, you’re suggesting that this brand survey work you did is more specific to your brands than necessarily the whole full service category?

Rick Cardenas: No, I’m not suggesting that it’s only our brands. What I’m saying is that most consumers aren’t trading down. Some are, but most aren’t. And in prior big downturns or things like that, we had a lot — we had a lot more consumers trade down. We haven’t seen that. Now, when I talk about specifically to our brands, our satisfaction is up. Our value is better than it was before. So, there’s a little bit of both in my answer, industry and us.

Jon Tower: Got it. Okay. Just circling back to the marketing question. I know we hit on it a few times already, but I’m curious what the trigger might be. Are you going to be a little bit more reactionary in terms of waiting to see some slowdown or if there is one that comes before necessarily pulling that trigger? And I understand the context that you put around how you would go after increasing marketing by not necessarily offering deep discounts. But just curious to know what sort of triggers you’re looking for in the marketplace? Maybe it’s just the slippage in traffic, either relative or absolute before you start spending a little bit more on the marketing side?

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