Not a huge number, but it’s not — it’s a red number now, not a number going up. So we’re happy. And I’m confident that, that trend is going to continue. We’ve got some — we’ve made some promotions in our supply chain department, some really good people and the negotiating has gone really well, and we’ll continue pushing forward on that. So I’m very bullish on what we’re going to see on our COGS line as we move forward through this fiscal year.
Jeffrey Bernstein: Got it. And just lastly, if I could just clarify from a unit opening perspective. I know you’re talking about 11 to 13 units. I’m just wondering if you can share maybe the openings — well, you did four already in the first quarter, but your openings by quarter and how you think about those in new versus existing markets?
Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So in terms of the opening cadence, this isn’t something that we typically discuss in the Q4 earnings calls, but just given that we’ve already opened four stores, we sort of need to comment on it. We don’t expect further openings in Q1. The seven units that we have under construction, the majority are in the early stages of construction. So I think you can sort of back out the cadence from that relative to our guidance. In terms of the new versus existing, about 20%, 25% of our units from fiscal ’24 pipeline are slotted for new markets and the remainder will be in existing markets. This represents a shift from the historical 50-50 split. Just given that we’re in 15 states now, there are fewer new markets for us to enter.
Jeff Uttz: And one further thing about opening more stores up in existing markets is that’s really going to help us even further on the G&A line. And our regional G&A make it much more efficient for our area managers, not having to travel so far and have restaurants that are in geographical areas where they are not on the road as much and not spending as much money doing that. So we’re excited to be able to see some potential leverage on the regional G&A side of things versus the corporate G&A side as well.
Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Just to close out sort of the unit growth discussion. Relative to — you might have been surprised by our guidance being 11 to 13 units when we’ve already opened four and we’ve got seven under construction. You might — people on the call might be wondering why are we getting more aggressive with our growth. And really, this is just a reflection of the operating environment that we’ve been in the last 12 years. Construction itself — the construction period is very stable, but we’ve seen unexpected hurdles pop up in the last — the final stages, which have delayed openings from anywhere from weeks to months. And so the 11 to 13 reflects just uncertainty in terms of especially permitting. But we do believe that shifting to be smoother. There’s ample opportunity for upside, and we’re very excited to hopefully provide updates and upgrades in subsequent earnings calls.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Jon Tower from Citigroup. Please proceed with your questions, Jon.
Jon Tower: Great, thanks. First, a clarification and then a question. Just curious, I think, Jimmy, you mentioned September, October running comps in the plus 2.7% range. Maybe I misheard that, but wanted to clarify. And if so, I’m curious to gain your perspectives on the slowdown on a one-year basis that you’re experiencing. And I think on a multiyear basis, that would also be a bit of a slowdown as well.
Jeff Uttz: Yes, Jon, good to talk to you. This is Jeff. In terms of the comps that we’ve seen, what we’re really most excited about, what we want to focus on is the traffic. And what we believe is that getting people in the door and getting traffic to increase is a huge part of the battle when it comes to comps. And we feel we’re winning that battle. And you and all of us have all listened to the conference calls from other companies that have been going on over the last several weeks. And we’re proud of the fact that we’re one of the few concepts that is showing a positive traffic number. We can’t control certain things like somebody may be not ordering a soda or ordering a tea or having a side item, which you might expect in an economy like we’re having.
But what we do expect is that the people will continue to keep coming back and they do. And people, when they go out are choosing Kura. And we believe that’s going to continue. And we’re going to continue to push so that people come in that door. And if they do make some changes to their dining habits, hopefully, we believe that will be offset by having more people come through the door. So that’s what we’re going to continue to push is that traffic number.
Jon Tower: Got it. So it is you are seeing a little bit of check management from consumers that are coming back, albeit more frequently than before, but the check management is occurring in the business right now.
Jeff Uttz: A little bit. And it’s like small add-on things. So our sushi plates for guests is not changing dramatically. So like I said, somebody may have a water instead of a coke or not have a tea or maybe they won’t have a small dessert at the end of their meal or something like that, which, like I said, is to be expected in an economy like we’re in. But people are still coming through the door. We’re happy with that.
Jon Tower: Got it. Cool. And then just talking about the development side again, I know that there’s been some discussion, not with you yet, but others in the industry about having some problems on the development side. I know you hit on kind of slower permitting time lines than what you had historically seen. But are you actually seeing any problems with developers not actually opening units, especially in first-generation locations? And if so, can you give us maybe an idea of how much of your portfolio is kind of exposed or potentially exposed to those developers that are at risk of potentially cutting new locations short and therefore, potentially putting some of your new stores at risk or potentially…
Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Yes. So just to be clear, the uncertainty that we were referring to was really more on permitting as opposed to anything on the developer side. We’re fortunate to be able to say that this really — it’s a problem that’s entirely foreign to us. We’ve seen maybe one or two LOIs go sideways because of interest rates and developers pulling out, but certainly nothing in our fiscal ’24 pipeline, certainly nothing under construction. And so yes, it really — this hasn’t been an issue for us. Yes. One odd kind of wrinkle that we’ve been seeing is, and this is a new issue for us, is that very late in construction, we had the permitting officials come by after they’ve approved the blueprint months in advance, saying — after we built the restaurant, actually, I got a problem with the blueprint and you need to make these major changes, which obviously adds many weeks to the openings.
And so that’s been frustrating. You think maybe it’s part of unfortunately just sort of turnover and the personnel that are managing this as a result of the pandemic, there were probably layoffs of some new employees and maybe they’re still getting their sea legs. But it’s — yes, so that’s the uncertainty that we’ve been seeing, not anything from the developer’s end. And oftentimes, our approved plans, which are always to code, when they come in and want us to do additional things, things that are way above and beyond what code is and things that we’ve never really seen before. So those are the — we’re not sure why they’re doing this, but we’re running into that from time to time. And the human element is sort of gone where before these things could be talked through, whereas now we really have no recourse, just online portals are really the only way to get in contact with people and online portal is not open to discuss it.
