Kura Sushi USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:KRUS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Kura Sushi USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:KRUS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 11, 2023

Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Kura Sushi USA, Inc. Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the lines will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. On the call today, we have Hajime Jimmy Uba, the President and Chief Executive Officer; Jeff Uttz, the Chief Financial Officer; and Benjamin Porten, SVP, Investor Relations and System Development. And now I’d like to turn the call over to Mr. Porten. Thank you, and you may proceed, sir.

Benjamin Porten: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you all for joining. By now, everyone should have access to our fiscal fourth quarter 2023 earnings release. It can be found at www.kurasushi.com in the Investor Relations section. A copy of the earnings release has also been included in the 8-K we submitted to the SEC. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements are also subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect.

We refer all of you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. Also during today’s call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation nor as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP, and the reconciliation to comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release. With that out of the way, I would like to turn the call over to Jimmy.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: Thanks, Ben, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. I’m very pleased to announce that we closed another record-breaking year with a great fiscal fourth quarter. Before we dive into discussing our most recent quarter, I would like to have a quick recap of what we have achieved over the full fiscal year. At the beginning of the year, we mentioned three major goals for fiscal 2023, maintaining excellent operations, continuing to rapidly grow our restaurant base and leveraging our G&A against our increasingly large restaurant base. I’m proud to report our success on all of these fronts as demonstrated by our full year restaurant-level operating profit margins improving 70 basis points year-over-year to 21.9%, a record 10 new unit openings and full year G&A leveraging of 80 basis points over the prior year.

Our AUVs have grown from $3.8 million in fiscal 2022 to $4.3 million in fiscal 2023, reflecting the incredible number of new unit openings we’ve had in recent years. These successes absolutely translated to improvement in profitability. Our adjusted EBITDA grew from $9.2 million in fiscal 2022 to $14.3 million in fiscal 2023, representing a growth rate of over 56% in a single year. Total sales for the fiscal fourth quarter were $54.9 million, representing comparable sales growth of 6.5%, with traffic growth being responsible for 5.6% of our total comp. In spite of ongoing concerns of a deteriorating macro environment, more guests are coming to Kura Sushi than ever before. Our traffic is absolutely outperforming pre-pandemic levels. We continue to be pleased with our sales performance as we enter the new fiscal year with branded comps for September and October of 2.7%, total revenue of approximately $34.3 million and the quality of traffic in both months.

Commodity costs have continued to improve. Our cost of goods sold as a percentage of sales of 29.5% is a 120 basis point improvement over the prior year quarter and a 50 basis point sequential improvement over the prior quarter. Labor costs as a percentage of sales have held steady at 28.8%, confirming the expectations we had shared during the previous earnings call. Restaurant-level operating profit margins reached to an all-time high of 24.4%, representing a 50 basis point improvement over the prior year quarter. During our fiscal fourth quarter, we opened 4 new restaurants, Long Island, New York, San Jose, California, and Framingham and Dorchester in Massachusetts, for a total of 10 unit openings in fiscal 2023. Our momentum on the development front is better than ever.

Since entering the new fiscal year, we’ve already opened four units, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Flushing, New York, Tampa, Florida, and Naperville, Illinois, with another seven units currently under construction. It’s been wonderful to see Kura continue to resonate in new markets as we expand across the country. Turning to new initiatives. I’m very happy to announce that we launched our new reward program app in mid-October and guest response through the new app has been uniformly positive. While our previous reward app has been very effective in growing traffic by encouraging repeat visits, the visual presentations app and its usability was lacking. In comparison, our new app is very highly rated on the App Store and the Google Play Store with many users commenting on the significant improvement the new app has delivered.

The response from existing users has been nothing short of great. But what’s really exciting is that since launching our new app, the number of weekly new user registrations has more than doubled. To be clear, these are not existing users that are migrating their accounts, but completely new guests that are joining our rewards program due to the improvements that we have made. I would encourage everyone on this call to download our new app as you’ll be able to immediately see the difference in quality. On top of the improvement to the guest experience, our new reward platform has unlocked completely new opportunities for our marketing team, such as customer segmentation, targeted marketing and new ways of rewarding and engaging with our guests.

I’m extremely excited for its potential and expect this to be a meaningful sales driver for us as we learn to unlock its potential. Development of the robotic dishwashers will continue to progress with the first in-restaurant implementation in Japan expected in spring of 2024. Following this pilot, we’ll be able to begin the certification process for implementing the robotic dishwashers in the U.S. While we do expect the dishwasher robots to have a meaningful impact on our labor model in future years, as we have stated in past earnings call, we do not expect implementation during this fiscal year, and we expect its impact to slowly ramp as these dishwasher robots will be limited to newly opened restaurants. Our current Jujutsu Kaisen IP collaboration has had a great guest response and our upcoming pipeline of brand collaborations is our strongest one yet.

I’m so excited to see what we can achieve in fiscal 2024, and I’m deeply grateful for the continuous hard work by our team members at our restaurants and at our corporate support center for setting us up for another amazing year. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Jeff to discuss our financial results and liquidity. Jeff?

Jeff Uttz: Thank you, Jimmy. For the fourth quarter, total sales were $54.9 million as compared to $42 million in the prior year period. Comparable restaurant sales performance as compared to the prior year period was positive 6.5% with regional comps of 12.1% in California and 3.3% in Texas. Turning now to costs. Food and beverage costs as a percentage of sales were 29.5% as compared to 30.7% in the prior year quarter, largely due to pricing and the stabilization of commodity inflation. Labor and related costs as a percentage of sales decreased to 28.8% from 28.9% in the prior year quarter. This decrease is due to incremental efficiencies created by the implementation of technological initiatives and sales leveraging from increased traffic and pricing, which was largely offset by wage increases.

Occupancy and related expenses as a percentage of sales were 6.6%, compared to the prior year quarter’s 6.5%. Other costs as a percentage of sales increased to 13.8% compared to 12.4% in the prior year quarter due to costs associated with a greater number of store openings as well as an increase in marketing costs and general cost inflation. General and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales decreased to 13.2% as compared to 13.3% in the prior year quarter. On a full-year comparison, G&A expenses as a percentage of sales decreased to 15% as compared to the prior year’s 15.8%. This represents an increase of G&A dollars of 25.8% for fiscal year 2023 as compared to sales growth of 32.8% over the same period. With the leveraging of G&A being one of our key goals for fiscal 2023, we are very pleased with these results and expect to achieve further leverage in the coming fiscal years.

Operating income was $2.2 million as compared to operating income of $1.9 million in the prior year quarter. Income tax expense was $167,000 compared to $61,000 in the prior year quarter. Net income was $2.9 million or $0.25 per diluted share, compared to net income of $1.9 million or $0.19 per diluted share in the prior year quarter. Restaurant-level operating profit as a percentage of sales was 24.4% compared to 23.9% in the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $6.3 million compared to $4.8 million in the prior year quarter. Turning now to our cash and liquidity. At the end of the fiscal fourth quarter, we had $69.7 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt. And lastly, I’d like to provide the following guidance for fiscal year 2024.

We expect total sales to be between $238 million and $243 million. We expect to open between 11 and 13 units, with average net capital expenditures per unit of approximately $2.5 million. And we expect general and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales to be approximately 14.5%. In addition, as we have communicated over the last year, beginning with our next earnings call, we will no longer quantify quarter-to-date performance. And with that, I’d like to turn the call back over to Jimmy.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: Thanks, Jeff. This concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to answer any questions you have. Operator, please open the line for questions. As a reminder, during the Q&A session, I may answer in Japanese before my response is translated into English. Thank you for your attention.

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Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Joshua Long from Stephens. Please proceed with your question, Joshua. Joshua, you may proceed with your question. If your line is muted, please unmute your line, so that you can post your questions.

Joshua Long: Great. Thank you for taking my question. Curious if we could talk through the trends that you saw through before your fiscal fourth quarter that we had previously talked about in June and kind of the almost 15% range. But curious how that trended in July and August? And then as you think about kind of the early trends here in 1Q ’24, can you remind us kind of what we’re lapping over and/or how you think about some of the brand awareness initiatives that you’ve been working on in terms of the traffic driving tool? Thank you so much.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: Sure. Thank you, Josh, for your first question. Please allow me to answer in Japanese. Ben, you can translate. [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Regarding — Josh, this is Ben. Regarding the June comps, we were very pleased. And as we mentioned in the prior earnings call, July and August were among most difficult comparisons, if not the most difficult comparison that we’ve been up against since going public. We were — we had the Demon Slayer campaign. We had the benefit of the full rollout of the 3 initiatives for the first time in Q4. And we also had different operating conditions in 2022, which made — I’m sorry, in 2021, making comparison for 2022 a little easier. And so the costs for Q4 of 2022 were 28%.

For us to have hit 6.5% and in fact to have comped 5.6% in positive traffic over that 14% or so positive traffic from last year, we think is quite an achievement. And so we’re very pleased with these results. Josh, did you have — did we answer your whole question? Or were there any — anything that I didn’t address?

Joshua Long: I appreciate that. And then just thinking forward, I mean, you’ve done a great job in terms of broadening the awareness of the brand with some of your brand partner collaborations. Curious how those are performing and kind of any sort of early read or additional context you could offer for 2024?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] And so as you mentioned before, for us to have lapped that 28% comps with positive traffic, we’re very pleased. And certainly, the IP collaborations that we’ve been working with has been a big part of it. In the last earnings call, we mentioned just how strong We Bare Bears was, and that was certainly a lift from a traffic perspective. Right now, our current collaboration is with Jujutsu Kaisen, which is a very popular anime that’s going very well. And while I can’t disclose the full pipeline for the remainder of the year, we do have, I would say, the most exciting brands ever to have collaborated with Kura coming up. And so I’m extremely excited to give you updates on that as we get further into the quarter — or I’m sorry, the fiscal year.

Joshua Long: Thank you.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: Thanks, Josh.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Jeffrey Bernstein from Barclays. Please proceed with your question, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey Bernstein: Great. Thank you very much. Two questions. First, I just wanted to follow-up on the comp trend. Totally appreciate lapping a 28% comp is extremely difficult. But in order to flush out the comparisons that I think you said got more difficult as the quarter went along, perhaps you can share on a two or three year basis, however you look at it, because it does seem like the comp if you’re running close to 15% in the first five weeks and you did a six and change for the full quarter that it was pretty flattish in the back nine weeks. I’m just trying to gauge whether you think it was a sequential slowdown at all or whether on a multiyear basis, it was actually fairly stable? Just trying to get a sense for the trend throughout the quarter, flushing out the comparisons.

Benjamin Porten: Yes. On a multiyear basis, I would say that it’s stable. Last year was really exceptional. July and August, in particular, had the Demon Slayer collaboration, which really brought unprecedented traffic for us.

Jeffrey Bernstein: Can you share them — just to be able to figure out kind of how that was in terms of two and three year, can you share the monthly numbers last year so we can kind of gauge?

Benjamin Porten: I don’t have them in front of me, but I believe if you go to our past earnings calls, you’ll be able to see them in the archives.

Jeffrey Bernstein: Okay. And then my second question was looking forward from a restaurant margin perspective, I appreciate that you gave top line guidance in terms of revenues and units and whatnot. But as we think about the margins and the flow-through to earnings, any thoughts you can give in terms of fiscal ’24? I mean the commodity and labor basket inflation, I presume, just wondering what you’re thinking for each of those and whether you have an ability or desire to hold the margins flat? Maybe how much pricing you’re anticipating in fiscal ’24? Any color on the key line items on the pricing to offset ultimately leading to restaurant margin would be great.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So we’ll let Jeff handle commodities. But just to discuss labor, in past earnings call, we’ve been mentioning that we’ve been seeing about double-digit year-over-year labor inflation. We’re very pleased to be able to say that that’s moderated down to mid-single-digits, which really is sort of reflected in our pricing decision that we made in July. As you know we lapped 7%, we only took 2% to offset that. And the relatively modest price increase really reflects the bullishness that we have on the overall labor environment. As we’ve mentioned in the past earnings calls, anything about 20% is an exceptional restaurant-level operating profit margin. We’re very pleased to actually grow that substantially this year with 80 basis points year-over-year. But anything over 20% is something that we’re very pleased with.

Jeff Uttz: Yes. Jeff, it’s Jeff. I’ll just add to what Jimmy and Ben said as well. When we think about restaurant-level operating profit, the 20% number is great. We’ve never historically taken price to chase margin. What we’ve done is we’ve taken price in response to minimum wage increases and other outside forces that are increasing the cost of us doing business. And that’s what we’re going to continue to do going forward. In terms of what we’ve seen on the COGS line, it has been really very encouraging. In the last two or three calls, I’ve said we’ve seen the really high increases slowdown and even out. And I’m really happy to report that in this past quarter, we saw not only sequential quarter-to-quarter but also year-over-year very slight deflation in our basket.

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.

And so yes, that’s been a change. But like we said earlier, we do expect a very strong development year. Even the midpoint of the 11 to 13 is 24% unit growth. And we do very much hope to be able to give you updates and upgrades on that…

Jeff Uttz: Our pipeline is really strong, Jon. And Jimmy talked about the seven under construction and beyond that, we’re not talking any further about that other than the guidance that we’ve given, the 11 to 13, but the pipeline is very strong. And we have no concerns about being able to meet our guidance. And like Ben said, potentially, hopefully, raise it in a future call.

Jon Tower: Got it. I appreciate it. And then just — sorry, I guess, mechanically, thinking through the rewards revamp, are you anticipating — and I’m uncertain as to how this is going to impact. But in terms of redemption, are you anticipating any bit of a comp headwind from the rewards revamp that you’ve added in mid-October?

Benjamin Porten: No. It should not be a comp headwind. If anything, it will be a comp tailwind. I mean that’s why we’ve been focused on it.

Jon Tower: Cool. And then just the last piece, I know the robotic dishwasher that’s encouraging. Glad to hear that it’s going to be making its way here at some point in ’24 and into future windows. Can you maybe give us an idea of like what sort of incremental costs that might be, at least from a CapEx standpoint? And then perhaps if you could frame any sort of labor savings you’re expecting from this over time?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So we’re still — it’s still the pilot model. And so there are probably going to be material changes and changes in the materials for the robots between the pilot model versus the mass production model. But the ROI, I mean, it’s an extremely low bar for us to clear. It’s really going to be a slam dunk and we’re really excited about it.

Jeff Uttz: Two important things to remember, though, on the robotic dishwashers is that we don’t expect any labor impact this year because it won’t be — it will be fiscal ’25 or beyond. And then the second thing to take note is it’s going to be started in the new units only because our existing units for the most part are very efficient in terms of space in the kitchen. So these dishwashers most likely not be able to be retrofitted into our existing kitchens. So we’ll start doing new construction to start.

Benjamin Porten: And to provide additional color on the labor impact. Right now, in most of our restaurants, we have two full-time employees working as dishwashers. This would reduce our labor needs to one full-time employee and the burden for that employee would be lessened as well, which helps with retention. And so all around, it’s very exciting. We’ve mentioned in the past earnings calls that we think the overall impact is going to be greater than those three initiatives that we rolled out in fiscal ’22 combined, and we still believe that.

Jon Tower: Great, thanks. I’ll pass it along.

Jeff Uttz: Thanks, Jon.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: Thank you, Jon.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Jeremy Hamblin from Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your questions, Jermey.

Jeremy Hamblin: Thank you and congrats on a strong year. I want to come back to the sales guidance for the year. And just to make sure I understood in terms of that range that you provided, what’s the implied same-store sales embedded within that? Is it kind of like in the 3% to 5% range?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So we don’t provide comp guidance. And so we can’t really get into it right now. But the revenue guidance that we provide contemplates the 11 to 13 units as well as what our internal comp expectations are. And as we mentioned before, there’s ample opportunity for the number of stores that we’re opening to go beyond that 11 to 13 that we’re saying, which would have a concurrent impact on our revenue guidance as well. And so we’ve got a lot of things to look forward for this year. Just as a closing note, though, the 9.5% full-year comps that we had for fiscal ’23, we aren’t expecting the same thing for fiscal ’24.

Jeremy Hamblin: Got it. And then I wanted to ask a question here on margins. So you had preopening costs for over $700,000 in the August quarter. And in terms of — I want to understand what kind of the average preopening cost per new location was. And then number two, do all those preopening costs fall in the other operating cost line item? Or are they sprinkled in between, let’s say, your labor, occupancy and other operating costs?

Jeff Uttz: Yes, they are sprinkled between them. So for instance, we opened 1 store on August 31, the very last day of our fiscal year. And so we’ve had employees trading for that restaurant for a month or so, maybe longer, and that’s a lot of that — that falls directly on the labor line. Otherwise, the majority of the costs would be noncash rent that we start booking upon receipt of the premises. And so that’s typically 150 days before opening. And so yes, the elevated preopening costs, that makes total sense. We opened four restaurants in Q4, we opened four restaurants in Q1, and so the preopening costs for Q1 are falling on Q4, et cetera. And we do expect to leverage those preopening costs, too, as we continue to open restaurants in areas where there’s already other restaurants.

Then our new employees can drive over to the restaurant that’s right there to be trained rather than having to travel further to be trained. And same with our — the managers as well for their training, won’t have to fly all over the country to have their training, they can do it locally.

Jeremy Hamblin: Okay. Got it. And then just I want to come back here to restaurant-level margins. In terms of what your expectations, it sounds like you feel pretty good about where your food costs are for the year. It sounds like you feel like labor is — hourly wage rates are more under control, although your menu pricing is down pretty significantly from where it was in June. Is it something where you’re expecting your restaurant-level margins? Let me ask the question in a different way. What would your — what do you think that your comp needs to be for restaurant-level margins to be flat or up slightly in FY ’24?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So in terms of the cost, as we mentioned earlier, we can’t really provide numerical guidance as to what our expectations are. But we’ve maintained this 20% restaurant-level operating profit margins for years, and we’re very, very happy to be able to grow that. In terms of maintaining or growing that further pricing to be an element, certainly, there’s — it’s a sensitive decision for us given the ongoing macro environment. And for us to potentially sacrifice the traffic advantage that we have is maybe something that we have to very seriously think about. For us to have such a significant traffic lead, I think really sets us up for the next several years and not just on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

In terms of serious impacts to restaurant-level operating profit margins, we do — the dishwasher really does have the opportunity to move the needle. But as we mentioned before, that’s going to be not in fiscal ’24, and it’s going to be limited to the new store basis. And so it’s going to be a slow ramp, but that’s something that is very concrete that we’re excited for.

Jeff Uttz: And also, as you know, the prime costs are the biggest piece of restaurant-level margin and the initiatives that we’re putting in place like the dishwashers, that will have impacts. But at the same time also, we can’t compromise food quality and we can’t compromise service quality, and there becomes a point where we really think the leverage that we’re going to get on the margin will come from increasing sales, and we’ll get the leverage on some of the fixed costs that we have in the operating cost line. But we really need to be careful, like I said, to — when you get to a point under 30% on food costs, you really don’t want to play too much with the quality there.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Yes. So Jeff makes a really good point. I mean we could be very aggressive and try to achieve 25% restaurant-level operating profit margins and certainly that would have an impact on traffic. Our strategic preference is to grow traffic and use that to leverage our fixed cost and grow restaurant-level operating profit margin more organically.

Jeremy Hamblin: Got it. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. Best wishes this year.

Jeff Uttz: Thanks, Jeremy.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: Thank you, Jeremy.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Sharon Zackfia from William Blair. Please proceed with your question, Sharon.

Sharon Zackfia: Hey, good afternoon. I’m just going to beat the dead horse of the quarter-to-date comp. I do have in my notes that last year, comps were, I think, up like 11.5% in September and 6.3% in October. And we’ve heard a lot of companies talk about kind of more normal seasonality, and I’m not sure you saw that in 2022. So I guess my question is, have you seen what others have seen, which was kind of slower traffic trends in September, followed by more of a rebound in October as we’re comparing a little bit of an apple and an orange maybe year-over-year?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So as Jeff mentioned earlier, as everybody has seen in the restaurant industry, September and October has been deeply influenced by macro factors. And considering that, we’re extremely pleased to have been able to grow traffic the way that we did. So there are a couple of factors for October. One would just be that we had more weekend days in the year prior October versus 2023. But considering those, October was a little favorable relative to September. I’m sorry, October was — yes, so we didn’t really see the same thing that the others did. Our performance was not that different between September and October. Yes. And then the timing of Halloween certainly didn’t work in our favor, didn’t work in anybody’s favor. But if you control for everything, yes, it’s pretty much flat or October is a little bit favorable, but not a big difference between the two months.

Sharon Zackfia: Okay. And then it was good to hear about labor inflation moderating. But I’m highly aware of your concentration to some extent in California that remains. And I know you’re not directly impacted by the FAST Act, but we’ve had some other full-service operators say that they still expect that to be an impact for wage rates in California just more broadly outside of limited service. So curious what your perspective is on what you may or may not need to do next spring in California? And how — if you need to raise wages, how you would approach pricing in that environment?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So thank you for asking us. We were hoping to have an opportunity to address this. But we really — we believe the impact from the FAST Act is going to be minimal or in fact, a tailwind for us. And so we love to go through the reasons why we’re — we think this is actually going to be a benefit. So the first two factors would be — as you know, the FAST Act doesn’t directly apply to us. And considering the comments that our peers have made about the knock-on effects even at a $20 minimum wage for California employees or you’re making competitive wages relative to that. And so it’s not like we’re going to have to raise wages to $20. And so that’s — it’s really not a consideration for us.

Another thing is that we are very unique in — we’re so tech driven that we have these initiatives to reduce headcount, which is specific to Kura, not really something that anybody else could emulate. And so I think this makes us — this is a competitive advantage for us. And lastly, as QSRs need to catch up from the $16 or so they’re currently paying out $20 minimum wage, they’ll have to aggressively raise prices. And so as the price between a QSR meal and a Kura meal shrinks, the appeal and value of Kura only grows. And so we think this could ultimately be a traffic catalyst for us as well.

Sharon Zackfia: Okay, thank you.

Jeff Uttz: Thanks, Sharon.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Mark Smith from Lake Street. Please proceed with your questions, Mark.

Alex Sturnieks: Hi, guys. This is Alex Sturnieks on the line for Mark today. Just firstly, and you might have touched on it already, but could you walk us through the menu price increases that are built into the comp? And any new increases or increases that you anniversary this quarter?

Benjamin Porten: Yes. So the effective price was in — was about 10.7% for Q4. As of July, 7% fell off and we offset that by 2%. And so June was 14% and then September — I’m sorry, July, August were about 9%, and there’s been no change since.

Jeff Uttz: So Q1 will be all 9%. And we’ll lap 7% on the first week of December. So starting — at the beginning of December, we’ll only have 2% pricing in our top.

Benjamin Porten: Right. And we touched on this earlier, but the fact that we only took 2% to offset that 7% coming off is really just a reflection of our bullishness on the labor environment as well as the actual inflation that we’re seeing on the commodity front.

Alex Sturnieks: Yes. Perfect. That’s good there. And then just my last question. You guys have to collapse the updated app, your tech initiatives with the automated dishwashers, but are you guys looking at any other areas of the customer experience, you guys could improve anything to leverage there?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Yes, there are billion things. But a couple of low-hanging fruit that come to mind. The first is that we haven’t really communicated the impact, the upgrade to the wait list to our guests yet. And so they’re benefiting from it, but they’re not changing their behavior based off of that. And so that’s what I aim for. The other is that we have this technology. I don’t know if you’ve been to one of our restaurants, but if there are four people at your table, it could be hard to reach the conveyor belt if you’re on the outside of the table. And we have this technology that allows you to directly place orders from your cellphone, so you don’t have to reach over your friend to hit the order panel.

And that’s ready to go. It’s just a matter of rollout. And so those would be two things that I can talk about right now, and I’m sure that I will have many more things that I’ll be able to share with you as we progress throughout the year.

Alex Sturnieks: Thanks for answering my question. Appreciate it.

Jeff Uttz: Thanks, Alex.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from JP Wollam from ROTH Capital Partners. Please proceed with your questions, JP.

JP Wollam: Great. Thanks everyone for taking my questions. First, if we could just start maybe — a lot of new openings, call it, the last six months or so. Can you maybe just talk about — in terms of openings, are there any differences you’ve seen with kind of the latest cohort of openings? I know we’ve really talked a lot about the development. But maybe just kind of on customer reception and anything new you’re seeing or any new trends you’re seeing when these units open?

Hajime Jimmy Uba: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] So over the last six months, we’ve been fortunate, very fortunate to be able to say that pretty much all the openings have in fact been really great. I’d say rather than noticing an anything new, what it’s really been is just a confirmation that our strategy was correct. In past earnings calls, we’ve discussed how we’ve taken a non-continuous growth approach across the United States. Fort Lee was our first New Jersey location, our first East Coast location. And on the strength of that, we’ve really filled out that market when we’re talking about Philadelphia, New York, Boston, DC. The entire Northeast has been great to us. And so that’s been — it’s just really great to be indicated and see that strategy pan out.

And obviously, with our other markets, such as Bellevue, having not been built in yet, that makes us that much more excited about the Pacific Northwest once we start to build out those markets. And in past calls, we mentioned Aventura being slow to recover from the pandemic and not really performing to the expectations we have prior to its opening. But subsequently, we’ve opened two more units, one in Bylan, which is in Orlando, and one in Tampa and both of them are doing spectacular. So it’s really — it’s great to see that the issue is not with Florida as a market, but really just that one specific site. We think Florida is a huge growth opportunity for us.

JP Wollam: Great. Yes, that’s very helpful. And then maybe one follow-up, if I could turn to Jeff. I just kind of want to ask, with the guidance of the 14.5% G&A as a percent of revenue, could you maybe just help give us a sense of kind of from where you started when you first joined Kura and kind of where that guidance is, how are you feeling about your ability to either kind of optimize some of the costs or take some costs out of the business? And how do you feel, as we go forward, whether there’s even more opportunity or whether you’ve really kind of pushed as far as you could on that regard?

Jeff Uttz: There is more opportunity. Absolutely. So we — it was 80 bps from fiscal ’22 to fiscal ’23 for our year — full year G&A leverage. And I’m very proud of that. That exceeded my expectations and my goals for the company when I came in. And leveraging G&A was in the top 3 things that Jimmy asked me to work on. And I’m very happy with what we’ve done. This year, we’re projecting more, as you can see based on our guidance. It was a lot in the first year. I’m really proud of our team. I’m proud of all the department heads really stepped up and did what they could to either push back hires and reduce expenses, do what they could become more efficient. And that’s what I’ve asked everybody to do and they’ve answered the bell.

And we’re going to continue to see that this year. One slight headwind on G&A that we have this year is this will be our first year of 404(b) compliance. So making sure we’re fully ready for that is increasing our public company cost a little bit. But even with that, we’re going to have future leverage this year, as you can see by our guidance. And then in fiscal ’25 and beyond, we’re going to continue to see leverage. And at some point, I don’t know, still with the company, we get it down into the single digits at some point. And I know we will. I have no time line on that, but we’re working on it.

JP Wollam: Got it. That makes sense. Thank you and best of luck on forward.

Jeff Uttz: You’re welcome. Thank you.

Hajime Jimmy Uba: Thanks, JP.

Operator: Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. This does conclude today’s conference. Thank you very much for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.