Rick Cardenas: Brian, I’ll start with how we manage labor and productivity, and then I’ll let Raj answer the question on the pricing. So if you think about what we’ve been doing over the years, we’ve been improving our technology on guest count forecasting by using machine learning and AI tools to help the brands write better schedules and manage their business better and we’re able to react quicker to impacts that we see in our restaurants, but we’re also continuing to find ways to improve productivity. And one of the ways and the benefit that we had this quarter is continued improvement in turnover. And so we’ve had less training expense for new team members. And we’ve got better retention, team members know how to do their job better.
In the turnover ranks, where we are today across Darden, our turnover went down by about 20 basis point — 20 percentage points versus last year and almost 30 percentage points better than the industry. And now our turnover is much closer to pre-COVID levels, except for Yard House and Cheddar’s, which actually we believe are at a level lower than they’ve ever had in their history. So those things help with labor and food costs and other parts of the P&L. And I’ll let Raj answer the other part about inflation.
Raj Vennam: Yes, Brian, for Q4, we’re still expecting that gap to be in the 100 to 150. So overall inflation is expected to be in the mid-3s for us and the pricing is probably going to be in the 2 to 2.5. So we still expect underprice inflation by — in that range of 100 to 150 in Q4.
Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Dennis Geiger from UBS. Your line is now live.
Dennis Geiger: Great, thanks guys. Wondering if you could speak to what you’re seeing from a customer average check standpoint? Anything with respect to alcohol or other mix contributions that you saw in the quarter or that have changed relative to prior quarters?
Raj Vennam: Yes. We’re actually — for the check for the third quarter, we actually saw the mix moderate the levels we saw — in terms of what we saw in Q2. So if you look at our casual brands, the negative mix was around 40 basis points. In Q2, it was closer to 60 basis points. And then from the Fine Dining, we saw a huge improvement. I think Fine Dining in the second quarter was north of 200 basis points negative mix. We’re now seeing in the low 100 basis points negative mix. So that’s almost half. So we are seeing some improvement in terms of check mix. And part of that could be a wrap, but also the holidays were pretty strong. And so that — on that front, we’re actually seeing a positive momentum, I guess, quarter-to-quarter.
Dennis Geiger: That’s great. Thanks, just one other quick one. Just as it relates to off-premise, anything to call out there in the quarter? What you’re seeing, how your strategy has been effective despite some of the consumer pressures out there on the off-premise side of things? Thanks, guys.
Raj Vennam: Yes. From an off-premise perspective, our sales as a percent of sales was slightly below last year, but not a lot. This is typically a high season for Olive Garden off-premise. So Q3 was closer to 26%. Last year was also in that range. We were probably 40, 50 basis points lower, but not a lot. And LongHorn was around 13%, which was also about 40 or 30 basis points lower. But overall, I think it goes back to the execution. Our focus has been staying on just ensuring that we executed the highest levels for off-premise, and that’s helped contribute to maintaining the stability.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Jon Tower from Citigroup. Your line is now live.
Jon Tower: Great, thanks, I appreciate that. I guess the first one is — and I understand you, guys, want to stay true to the operating philosophy. But how do you keep your brands top of mind and visible in front of consumers when the industry is getting more aggressive with getting in front of them by spending a lot more dollars than they have in the past several years on marketing?
Rick Cardenas: Hey Jon, if you think about the amount we spend, even with the spending that we had this quarter, Olive Garden in most of the weeks were in the top three in share of voice. And so we’re still in front of our consumer. We have other ways to get in front of the consumer with our eClub and with other digital spend. But at the end of the day, the best way to get people to come into our restaurants is to have guests recommend us to others. And so that’s what we’re continuing to focus on. We will continue to use marketing with our filters to talk about our core equities and to continue to drive results in the long-term. And we do have great everyday value. And what — as we think about what we want to do in the future, I don’t want to get into the details, but we have levers to pull. And if we pull them, you’ll know after we pull them.
Jon Tower: Okay. I appreciate that. And then just on the ’25 outlook for the unit growth, I was surprised it was lower than at least this year from a gross opening or a planned opening perspective. Can you speak to why as of right now, you’re expecting kind of 45 to 50 versus what we’ve been seeing in the past several years?
Rick Cardenas: Yes, Jon, you said it, the new restaurant projection we have for next year, it is within our long-term framework but it’s lower than we’d like it to be. We’re going to keep working on getting to the high end of that framework over time, but it will take a little bit of time. I would say construction costs were quite a bit higher than pre-COVID levels. And we have walked away from some deals, because of the construction costs and they’ve come back to us after we walked away. And so we’re willing to slow it down a little bit to get a better result in the long-term. And — but the good news is, at least the construction cost has stabilized. The other thing is it’s still taking longer to get construction starts than it was four years ago.
