Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Absolutely, having great new restaurants that open above your target helps, undeniably, that helps. But there’s a lot of like heavy lifting behind the scenes that goes into maintaining those kind of margins, and our team across the board is doing a great job of protecting our shareholders and funding our growth.

Brian Harbour: Thank you.

Michelle Hook: Thanks, Brian.

Operator: Our next — sorry, our next question comes from Brian Mullan with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, good morning. This is [Ashlyn] on for Brian. I’m just wondering if you could comment on mix. It looks like it was still negative in the quarter, but it’s improved sequentially. I know this negative mix dynamic is not unique to Portillo’s, but just wondering if there’s been any changes as to what’s driving this and what it could look like as we progress into 2024? Thanks.

Michelle Hook: Yeah, no problem. Yeah, absolutely we did see improvements to your point in the mix going from negative 2.7% in Q2 to about negative 1.8% in Q3. I think answering to Michael’s point, in Q4 we’re seeing improvements on both transactions and mix. So, we’re seeing some improvements of that into Q4. I’d say nothing’s change underlying that in terms of we’re still seeing the lower attachment, the less items per transaction, that’s the main component of that mix change. So, nothing I would call out that’s changed from what we previously discussed on that line item.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thank you.

Michelle Hook: Yeah.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. So, this concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at that time. Thank you for your participation.