Robert Verostek: Yeah, John. I’m happy to try to provide some additional color to that. With regard to we assess our kind of our the Denny’s system with regard to the kind of quintiles and our low – I can tell you that our lowest quintile in aggregate is actually above the $1.2 million. So it’s only a subset of that lowest quintile that we are really dealing with. The other the other piece that makes this a little bit harder to predict is that, it’s made up of – there’s many franchisees that have restaurants within there and they all have different motivations, right? So they – if it’s covering the least cost, but not necessarily profitable. It may be a restaurant that remains open in that scenario. So it’s hard to say of that subset of units of that subset of quintile how many are likely to close near it.
Overtime, right an elongated time frame you may be looking at have that quintile. But right now what we’re comfortable doing is to guide one year at a time with what we know. And really, really watch closely particularly as we move across this year and with the initiatives that we have in place to hopefully to grow out of it. I can tell you that of these quintiles, the three of the four of them actually grew volume over the course of the pandemic that the only one that did not was that lowest quintile. So if we can if we can get that moving also, it may put less of those at risk. Again another reason why we’re just trying to give that one year look right now is as opposed to looking out much further than that a lot of nuances that go into predicting how many of those will actually close in the in the near term.
John Tower : Thank you. And I guess on the flipside of that, it sounds encouraging with the new store openings on the Denny’s side, the first number is reaching 2017 levels. So I’m just curious maybe you can give us a little color on where these stores are? Are they more infill? Are they new markets? Are they new franchisees existing franchisees? Are they effectively relocations of existing stores? Just curious if you could provide some color.
Robert Verostek: Yeah happy to do that also. Generally not offsets not close. This Danny’s open this Getting so they’re not the not generally off. That’s 90% of the restaurant that closed are what we were just talking about these very, very low volume units. So it’s not that we’re not offsetting because of a property control issue. So not offsets. Every year we have new franchisees somewhere in the neighborhood of – let’s say four to six new franchisees. So there that will always be some new franchisees development, but generally the vast majority of these openings would be infill restaurants from existing franchisees. So that I think that’s probably the best way to look at it with. And now 1342 franchise domestic restaurants another 65 company.
We’re fairly penetrated into most markets. You can go find some particularly if you look east of the Mississippi, that that we could potentially build out. But in general these are infill into existing markets where we know that Denny’s has a lot of strength.
John Tower : Got it. And then just kind of thinking about California a little bit more detail, you know, do you have any specific plans to address value in that market given obviously the changes in pricing structure across the industry coming in April. I mean other any explicit plans that you might have to attack the value messaging whether it’s on building brand awareness with incremental marketing. Obviously, you’ve got a lot of innovation in the pipeline when it comes to product, but I am just curious how you plan on handling that market specifically in April forward?
Kelli Valade: It’s a great question and lots of conversations that we have. We’re working very closely with the California franchisees. In fact, we call it our situation room where we come to them and we partner with them both in them sharing kind of ideas that they might have many of them. All other brands many of them have QSR brands actually. So while we’re not in that same situation, of course being a full-service brand, we’re being very mindful of that. So what I can tell you is, you know, the value messaging there. So we’ve got a you know price point at $5.99 in many markets but in California $7.99 that’s competitive for their. That’s been working there fairly. Well with that we’ve been working really well they’re also so we’ll continue with that messaging the other thing that we have done.
We are re-implementing a reinstituting the co-op program and so we will to spend at the local level will spend more at the local level working in partnership with them. So we’ll do things we need to the market wherever possible we’re doing our match again for that co-op program for bringing that back after several years of not doing that. And we know that will help strengthen the market. And then finally really, really looking to strengthen that top line for them and as many ways as possible looking at I’ve mentioned this before, but looking at the virtual brands that things we’re testing in off-premise. So not only helping them with analytics and metrics to understand the effectiveness of their off-premise channels today, but also potentially bringing those virtual brands to them first.
Bringing those to enable as much revenue that we could possibly help them drive. So that’s really the focus for us is, it’s almost a triage approach with them and at the same time, making sure just were available to have the conversation. So we’re staying really close to it.
John Tower : Got it. Thanks for taking the questions.
Kelli Valade: Of Course.
Robert Verostek: Thanks Johnny.
Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of [Indiscernible] with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.
Unidentified Analyst: Hi, good afternoon. It’s great to hear about all the momentum with Keke’s development. But just on the franchise comp result for the quarter. Could you speak to what is behind the softness there? Is it specific to like the Florida consumer or is there a primary driver as you point at that?
Robert Verostek: Yeah, so that’s a really good question. Florida remains, it was – you must have been looking at some of the my teachings that we prepared. Florida is by far the weakest state that we’ve had. There’s actually some good strength throughout the Midwest when you look at New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, strength there, but the Florida still trails quite significantly with regard to that. And the reality is if you look at the pace of our same-store sales across the quarter October was weaker than November and November was weaker than December and December actually showed some mix significant strength as we got deep into our value messaging the $5.99, $7.99 original Grand Slam messaging. So, again, we were with regard to that we were pretty pleased on the way we finished out the year.
Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thanks for that. My second question is on 24/7. Now we are in 2024. I’m just hoping you could give us an update on what percent of the store base is back to 24/7? And what your expectations are for the return to 24/7 this year?
Robert Verostek: Yeah, again, really good question. That’s really stabilized when we’ve looked at it, it grew through about just the July, August time frame. We had a pretty concerted effort to get back the as many that as we could to 24/7. And it kind of leveled off at about the 75% level and the other piece that to note though is even if you’re not at 24/7 the vaster are already over 20 hours. So I think we’ve stabilized. I don’t think I don’t think you’ll see material growth from here nor do I think you’ll see a material slide from here. I think this is somewhat of the new norm.
Unidentified Analyst: I think the other reality acts – I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Kelli Valade: No, that’s okay. I was only going to add to what Robert mentioned in terms of just, we just came off the last question on the fact that AB1228 and the impact there in California. So, we’re just always mindful you know of the profitability of our franchisees, the health of those franchisees that we talked about. It’s about driving top line. It’s about just showing them every opportunity, but also just being the best partner possible. We still know given the percentage not only of Oak, those that are 24/7 at 75% and holding but also the amount of hours that we are open that as a full-service brand that you, we are we are back strong and as strong as many other players that used to be 24/7 and haven’t gotten even close to 75% back. So we feel good about it and yet, given the pressures in some of the states like California, we’re just mindful of that.
Unidentified Analyst: Thanks.
Kelli Valade: You’re welcome.
Operator: Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I’ll turn the call back over to Curt Nichols for closing remarks.
Curt Nichols: I’d like to thank everyone for joining us on today’s call. We look forward to our next earnings conference call in the spring when we will discuss our first quarter 2024 results. Thank you all and have a great evening.
Operator: Thank you, and this concludes today’s conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
