Jeremy Hamblin: Thanks and congrats on the strong results. I wanted to just come back because there’s a little bit of breakup in the audio and some of the commentary around menu pricing, as well as same-store sales color. Apologies for going back over some of this, but wanted to make sure that I understood, a, kind of the cadence of comps color that you shared throughout FQ1. And then two, I think what I heard on the menu pricing was that you’re carrying 3% overall in FQ2 and then kind of the comp on the West Coast versus the other regions or in the Southwest region, if we could start with that, that would be great.
Benjamin Porten: Yeah. The pricing that we ran, Jeremy, in Q1 was 9%. We did take the 1 — we lapped a 7% pricing in December, and then we took the 1% at the beginning of January. So we’re currently at 3% pricing. We’re very, very happy with where the comp never came out. And what we really want to point everybody back to is that traffic number. The traffic of 3.3% that we saw in Q1, and as you know, listening to conference calls still throughout the year, very few concepts, have been able to have positive traffic. And we looked at that number, and as long as we can keep people coming back in the door and keep our existing guests coming back, we’re going to be very happy. That’s one of the things that we can control through great service and great food quality.
We continue to do that. We believe that our guests are going to keep coming through that door and keep that traffic positive. And if we can do that, we’re very positive that we can. It’s going to be a good year for us. And just add on the cadence given the audio broke up a little bit. We gave September and October comps last earnings call, it was 2.7% and — so you can assume that the comps for November were much stronger given that we came in at 3.8% for the full quarter, given that we didn’t take any price in that quarter, the acceleration was driven solely due to traffic. So back to Jeff’s earlier point, we’re very, very pleased to see that we’re operating, executing so well, but more guests than ever coming into our doors.
Jeremy Hamblin: Got it. I think there was, there was some commentary on the West Coast versus the Southwest market comps also just wanted to clarify.
Jeff Uttz: Yeah. Give me one second.
Benjamin Porten: I have the number here.
Jeff Uttz: Great.
Benjamin Porten: I remember. Top of my head. 9% in the West Coast and 1.3% in the Southwest markets.
Jeremy Hamblin: Got it. And so then just coming back to the comp overall, in terms of where the menu pricing was, traffic up really strong 3.3%. Are you still seeing a little bit of reduction then in average plate consumption? And do you have the [Multiple Speakers] go ahead.
Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Right. On a sequential basis from Q4 to Q1, plate consumption per person has actually gotten up. And on a year-over-year comparison, it’s about flat. And so we’re really happy with where plate consumption is.
Jeremy Hamblin: Got it. And then I wanted to shift gears to your labor costs. And you see that had some nice 30 basis points of leverage year-over-year. I think minimum wage in California on January 1 is up about 3.2%, but wanted to get an outlook of what you’re thinking about, Jeff, on kind of the labor market here in calendar ’24? As we’re moving forward, are you seeing a little bit less pressure? I think there’s also in April, the impact of the potential large scale fast food wage laws that are going into effect, the $20 wage, but just wanted to get a sense for what you were expecting. And again, pretty nice leverage that you got on a 3.8% comp.
Hajime Jimmy Uba: I’m happy to answer this question. Josh — Jeremy. [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So in past earnings calls, we’ve mentioned that about. I think that until about Q3 of last year, the year-over-year labor inflation was about 10%. It’s since moderated to mid-single digits. And that is including the annual minimum wage increases in California. With the 1%-ish pricing that we took as of January, we believe that that’s enough to offset the labor increases and really keep our margins flat year-over-year. You’d asked about AB 1228, previously known as the FAST Act, we’re very pleased to be — I think we’re pretty much the only concept that is saying that we see this as an opportunity. In terms of our California markets, our employees are already making wages that are competitive with the $20 that people are going to be making at QSR.
And so, obviously, QSRs need to take aggressive price to be able to offset that. And so we see this as a meaningful opportunity to grow market share as — up until now, the conversation has really been, do we go to Kura Sushi or do we go to other casual dining places? Now it’s, do we get a combo meal at the burger place, or do we get Kura Sushi? And that’s one of the reasons that we’re running 3% price is, we really want to demonstrate to the world at large, not just our existing guests, how great a valued Kura Sushi is.
Jeremy Hamblin: Got it. That’s a great point. Last one for me. Now hop out of the queue. Just wanted to ask about some of the recent collaborations, right? You’ve partnered with Peanuts and Snoopy in December here into January, and wanted to get a sense for how that promotion was performing. It seems to be generating a decent amount of buzz.
Jeff Uttz: Yeah. We’re really pleased with the December results, and Peanuts collaboration is certainly a big part of it. Our PR team gets better and better with every collaboration that we cycle through, and this time they did a really spectacular job with what we call the space collaboration, not just the toys or the animes, but we had photo ops where the restaurants were decked out like a Charlie Brown Christmas. We had little Snoopy figures on our Mr. Fresh domes, and those would go mysteriously missing. And so if guests were a part of that, you really can’t get higher praise than that. Certainly not encouraging guests to do that. But it was nice to see people were so that excited about it. And as Jimmy mentioned earlier, we’ve got SPY x FAMILY as our next collaboration, and then we’ve got two more after that for the remainder of the fiscal year.
