First Watch Restaurant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:FWRG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

John McNamara: Appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. And the next question comes from Andrew Charles of TD Cowen.

Unidentified Analyst: Thank you. This is [Zack Ajzenman] (ph) on for Andrew. I’ve got two questions on labor. The first one is that, in the 10-Q you called out labor inflation is expected to remain in that 8% to 10% range, but sequentially are you seeing that get better?

Christopher Tomasso: On an inflationary basis, not really. I mean a lot of our labor inflation is attributed to regulatory increases in minimum wage in different states and so it’s fairly — fairly reliable.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay, thank you. And then, the second question is that, are you at the right level staffing now or should we include the incremental staffing in our models.

Christopher Tomasso: Yes, we’re at the right — we’re at the right level now.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And this concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call to Chris Tomasso for any closing comments.

Christopher Tomasso: Thank you for your thoughtful questions this morning, we appreciate it. We look forward to finishing the year strong with our continued focus on serving more demand and making days brighter for every First Watch customer. I hope you all have a joyful and restful holiday season. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation and you may now disconnect your lines.