Ark Restaurants Corp Q2 FY2026 Earnings Call

Greetings. And welcome to the Arc Restaurants Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Anthony J. Sirica, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Hold on. I am going to—Chris has to read the safe harbor.

Sorry. Hello, everyone. My name is Christopher Love. I am the secretary. With me on the call today are Michael Weinstein, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Anthony J. Sirica, our President and Chief Financial Officer. For those of you who have not yet obtained a copy of our press release, it was issued over the newswires yesterday and is available on our website. To review the full text of that press release along with the associated financial tables, please go to our homepage at www.arkrestaurants.com. Before we begin, however, I would like to read the safe harbor statement. I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion this morning will include forward-looking statements and that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. Therefore, undue reliance should not be placed on them. We refer everyone to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the risks that may have a direct bearing on our operating results, performance and financial condition. I will now turn the call over to Anthony.

Good morning, everybody. As always, Michael will discuss the business and the Bryant Park and the Meadowlands situation. As far as the balance sheet goes, we did draw down $5 million before the end of the quarter to finance our leasehold improvements in Las Vegas. Our cash at the end of the quarter was $11.05 million, and our debt was $7.6 million. Other than that, the balance sheet remains very stable and in good shape. That is really pretty uneventful as far as the balance sheet goes.

This is Michael. I will just do a brief review of what is going on. It is sort of a repeat of the last quarter and the quarter before that. We have not increased prices by any measurable amount. There are certain increases on certain items, but the menu pricing remains pretty much stable. We are challenged with sales everywhere. Essentially, the check averages remain pretty much the same, but we are losing what we consider the bottom end of our business—people who are being challenged by their own home expenses and rising prices at grocery stores and gas prices, etc. It is pretty much across the board. The Vegas sales are down about 11%, which is sort of in line with Las Vegas overall in terms of visitation. However, our cash flow there has actually improved as we have gotten better at managing payroll expenses and certain other expenses. We are really very well managed there. In Florida, everything's down 10%. We checked with other operators and vendors and they are pretty much in line with all restaurants. Washington, D.C., same situation—down 5% in sales. But, again, we have new management there. We are operating more efficiently with less payroll, so we are actually running a little bit ahead of last year in terms of not having the losses we had last year. New York, Roger is doing very well. We are challenged with events at Bryant Park because of litigation that we are going through. We are still very profitable, but our litigation expenses offset a good portion of that profitability. So all in all, not much different from the last quarter. It is just a sales problem. I would say to you that overall, we are very pleased with the product we are putting out—service, food. We are hopeful that we will be opening our new restaurant in Las Vegas in early July. We think that is going to help us dramatically. We think we are turning what is basically a restaurant that services customers of the hotel into what should be a sought-after destination. In terms of Bryant Park litigation, it is ongoing. I suggest everyone who is interested go to the court website to see all of the filings. So far, there is nothing to indicate that this litigation is going to end soon. The trial will probably take place somewhere in very late this year or early next year. I am sure whoever wins that trial will be faced with an appeal from the other side, which will take another one to one-and-a-half years. Meadowlands: we are at the point where we are hopeful that a referendum will be proposed by the legislature to be put up for a vote in November. There is strong opposition, as always, from the Atlantic City legislators, and there is a strong push forward to get this done by the northern legislators. We should know more in the next month or so whether or not that referendum will be put on the ballot. The polling from the public is fairly positive: there are three polls that have been done. All of them are in favor; one of them is very close, 51%–49% in favor, but the two others show anywhere from 62% to 66% in favor. So I think the polling should be persuasive, but again, this is Jersey politics, and we are just hopeful we get on the ballot. With that, any questions?

We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. There are no questions at this time. I would like to hand the floor back over to Michael Weinstein for any closing remarks. See you next quarter.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.