Earnings Call Transcript - CBRL Q4 2020

Operator, Operator

Good morning and welcome to Cracker Barrel’s fourth quarter fiscal 2020 conference call and webcast. This morning we issued a press release announcing our fourth quarter and full year results. In this press release and on this call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures for the fourth quarter and 12 months ended July 31, 2020. The fourth quarter non-GAAP financial measures are adjusted to exclude the fees related to sale-leaseback transactions and noncash gains on the sale of assets related to the sale-leaseback transactions that occurred during the fourth quarter, noncash impairment charges related to store assets and their related tax impact. The full fiscal year non-GAAP financial measures are adjusted for the items listed above as well as expenses related to COVID-19 and impairment charges related to our equity investment in Punch Bowl Social and the related tax impact of these items. The company believes that excluding these items from its financial results provides investors with an enhanced understanding of the company's financial performance. This information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for net income or earnings per share information prepared in accordance with GAAP. The last page of the press release includes the reconciliation and non-GAAP information to the GAAP financials. On the call with me this morning are Cracker Barrel’s President and CEO, Sandra Cochran; Senior Vice President and CFO, Jill Golder; and Vice President of Finance, Jeff Wilson. Sandy will begin with a review of the business, and Jill will review the financials and outlook. We will then open up the call for questions for Sandy, Jill, and Jeff. On this call, statements may be made by management regarding their beliefs and expectations regarding the company's future operating results or expected future performance. These are known as forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties that in many cases are beyond management's control and may cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations. We caution our listeners and readers to consider forward-looking statements and information carefully. Many of the factors that could affect results are summarized in the cautionary description of risks and uncertainties found at the end of the press release and are described in detail in our reports that we filed with or furnished to the SEC. Finally, the information shared on this call is valid as of today's date and the company undertakes no obligation to update it except as may be required under applicable law. I’ll now turn the call over to Cracker Barrel’s President and CEO, Sandy Cochran. Sandy?

Sandra Cochran, CEO

Thanks, Adam. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and I hope everyone continues to stay safe and healthy. Since we last spoke in early June, our business and the casual dining industry have unsurprisingly remained pressured due to the pandemic. But despite this, I am very pleased with the progress we've made on our recovery and on key initiatives in recent months. While we anticipate dealing with pandemic-related challenges for some time, I believe the decisive actions we've taken to strengthen our business model, bolster liquidity, and adapt our operations have us well-positioned to successfully navigate this environment. I am confident our fiscal 2021 business priorities and the corresponding plans will further strengthen our leadership position in casual dining and drive long-term value creation. I’ll discuss some fourth quarter highlights and speak to you about our priorities and plans for fiscal 2021, then Jill will review our fourth quarter financial results and our liquidity, and comment on our expectations for fiscal 2021 as well as our sales performance quarter-to-date. Before I go on, I want to comment on our restaffing and our commitment to ensuring a safe and healthy environment in our stores. I remain pleased with our effectiveness in restaffing our stores, which I believe has been facilitated by our strong culture and the actions we've taken to support our hourly store employees in recent months. Through the fourth quarter, approximately 80% of our workforce had returned to work. I'm also impressed with our operators' commitment to ensuring a safe environment for both our guests and our employees. I believe these factors have been and will continue to be important in the current environment. I am especially proud of how our store managers and hourly team members continue to deliver on our mission of pleasing people during these difficult times, and I want to express my gratitude to all of our employees for the excellent job they've done over the past several months. We were pleased with our sales trend and the sequential monthly improvements we saw in the fourth quarter. Comparable store restaurant sales decreased 39.2% in the quarter, improving from down 59% in May to down 28.2% in July. This improvement has continued into fiscal 2021. We believe this trend has been driven by our reopened dining rooms, sales improvements at stores with open dining rooms, increased demand, and the success of our off-premise and menu initiatives. Additionally, we believe these results reflect the strength of our brand, our strong everyday value, and the trust our loyal guests have in us to deliver a great, safe experience with genuine hospitality, even when that hospitality is delivered with a face mask on. We also believe we've benefited from summer travel. The demand for off-premise dining remains strong. In the fourth quarter, we leveraged successful initiatives such as third-party delivery and curbside pick-up, and our family meal baskets offering maintained its popularity with our guests. Supported by our work to further enhance our on-premise operations, these sales grew approximately 145% over the prior year quarter and represented approximately 35% of fourth quarter restaurant sales compared to approximately 8.6% in the prior year quarter. During the fourth quarter, we rolled out a new lunch and dinner menu that is part of our menu evolution initiative. The menu includes new craveable offerings such as chicken pot pie and maple bacon grilled chicken, which are available every day, as well as new daily specials like Saturday country fried pork chops and Sunday pot roast supper. Additionally, we believe the new simplified menu results in increased consistency and execution that better highlights our signature offerings, value, and variety. This is a significant initiative that we've been taking a phased approach to, and I continue to be pleased with the results. It began with the introduction of our signature fried chicken platform in fiscal 2019, and I look forward to the future and new innovations we have planned as part of this initiative in fiscal 2021. We continue to make progress on the addition of the beer and wine program. As a reminder, at the time of our last earnings call, this test was in approximately 20 stores. Currently, these offerings are available in approximately 100 stores. Based on favorable results, we will be introducing the beer and wine program to the majority of our system in fiscal 2021, expecting it to be in approximately 600 stores by the end of the fiscal year. I remain excited about this initiative, which we believe will support the guest experience by providing additional variety. The performance of this initiative has met our expectations. While it is mostly targeted toward enhancing the dinner day part, our mimosas have proven to be quite popular in the breakfast and lunch day parts. I was also pleased with our retail performance this quarter, especially considering the headwinds our retail business is facing due to our dining room closures and capacity restrictions. Our teams focused on managing inventories, and strong sales in categories such as furniture and accessories contributed to a retail performance that exceeded our internal expectations. We believe consumers are seeking affordable ways to improve and update their homes during the pandemic, and our offerings in this category strongly appealed to guests and provided a compelling price-value relationship. Fiscal 2020 was unlike any year we've ever experienced, and the challenges presented by the pandemic have persisted and will continue into our fiscal 2021. Fortunately, I believe our existing business priorities around menu innovation, growing off-premise, and enhancing the guest experience have positioned us well for navigating this crisis. Our fiscal 2021 priorities include the following: First and most importantly, ensuring the health and safety of our guests and employees. Second, driving restaurant sales by leveraging our new menu, introducing additional craveable offers, and further growing our off-premise business. Third, driving retail sales by increasing off-premise attachment and optimizing our floor space for the current reduced capacity environment. Fourth, enhancing our digital infrastructure and evolving our digital strategy to drive sales and improve the guest experience across all channels. Lastly, accelerating the growth of Maple Street Biscuit Company. I want to highlight some aspects of our fiscal 2021 business plans. Our first and top priority is ensuring the health and safety of our guests and employees. Our elevated health and safety measures remain in place, and our teams continue to execute these procedures diligently, adapting to a dynamic situation. We're committed to investing in health and safety over the long term, and we believe this emphasis has and will continue to strengthen the trust that both guests and employees have in our brand. Culinary plans are focused on driving frequency by leveraging our new menu and introducing new craveable offerings throughout the fiscal year. For example, our Q1 menu promotion highlights our new Chicken Pot Pie, which is supported by an integrated marketing campaign including national TV. Looking ahead, I'm excited about future menu innovations like the hand-breaded chicken tenders that we’ll be introducing to the core menu later in the year, as we build on the success of our signature Fried Chicken platform and the continued rollout of our beer and wine program to our stores. Regarding off-premise, we've been pleased with the growth of this business in recent years, which was further accelerated by the pandemic, and we anticipate that off-premise will remain elevated for some time. In fiscal 2021, we're focused on growing our various off-premise channels by building brand awareness and affinity, optimizing operations, and leveraging initiatives such as curbside pickup and third-party delivery. Additionally, we will test two new off-premise formats: Grab-and-Go and a dedicated catering kitchen. We believe Grab-and-Go will drive incremental to-go purchases from our dining guests and can foster off-premise behaviors among guests who may not frequently use the to-go channel. Our dedicated catering kitchen is designed to enhance our ability to meet demand in high-volume markets and drive growth in catering. These tests are launching this month, and we will share additional details and updates in the future. I continue to be impressed with the adaptability of our teams, and I'm pleased with how we've been able to quickly and successfully introduce initiatives such as front porch dining. This is currently available in approximately 350 stores and has helped mitigate the impacts of capacity restrictions. Additionally, in certain locations, we've also set up tables beneath tents in our parking lot. Our teams are focused on ensuring we deliver hospitality to our guests whether they're dining in our stores, on our front porch, or picking up an order to-go, and we continue to adjust our operations to enhance the guest experience for all of these occasions. In retail, we're currently focused on our core holiday business, which accounts for a significant portion of our annual retail sales. Our retail stores are presently set up with fall and holiday assortments. We are encouraged by the early performance of these assortments and believe our affordable and unique holiday décor and merchandise will resonate with guests in the current environment. Our teams continue to work on optimizing floor space in response to capacity restrictions. Additionally, we're focused on driving higher retail attachment for off-premise occasions, which will be a key priority for the team throughout the fiscal year as we evolve our assortment and the location of merchandise targeted for off-premise guests. In fiscal 2021, we will enhance our digital infrastructure and evolve our digital strategy to drive sales and improve the guest experience across all channels. In the coming weeks, we will launch our digital store system, which is a new digital platform that provides an integrated and improved user experience for guests ordering food and retail. It is foundational for future planned initiatives that we believe will further enhance the guest experience and empower guests by giving them more control over their journey. In addition to increasing convenience, we believe the digital store and these initiatives will allow us to extend our hospitality in new ways. The digital store is already live in approximately 150 stores, and the initial response has been positive, as we've seen strong user engagement. The digital store will also support sales-driven opportunities such as bundled restaurant and retail offerings, a loyalty program, and increased personalization and customization, as well as providing richer guest data and deeper analytical insights. Another technology initiative that will provide additional guest experience enhancements as well as cost savings opportunities is our new POS system, which we had suspended rollout due to the pandemic. I'm looking forward to resuming the implementation. Approximately 175 stores currently have the new POS, and we plan for approximately 500 stores to have it by the end of the fiscal year. I continue to be impressed with how the Maple Street team is navigating this difficult environment, and I'm excited about the brand's future. The resilience they’ve demonstrated during the pandemic has reinforced the attractiveness of the concept and their business model. We have a high degree of confidence in this brand, and we anticipate opening up to 15 new units this year. Alongside these new locations, the Maple Street team will focus on developing replicable processes and leadership development, staffing, and training to support the successful scaling of the brand as we accelerate its growth. Lastly, before turning it over to Jill, I'll update you on our capital allocation strategy. We continue to work closely with the board to ensure we have the appropriate capital allocation strategy. We believe we’re well-positioned from a liquidity standpoint and remain committed to our highly disciplined and balanced approach to capital allocation. Our top priority is investing in Cracker Barrel and Maple Street. Regarding the regular dividend, our board continues to evaluate the environment and intends to reinstate the dividend as soon as it’s prudent to do so. Lastly, we are evaluating our debt levels and will normalize our leverage by reducing debt and increasing EBITDA. With that, I’ll now turn it over to Jill.

Jill Golder, CFO

Good morning and thank you, Sandy. Given the ongoing effects of COVID-19, I will focus on our fourth quarter financial performance and liquidity position. Then, I will share some thoughts on our outlook for fiscal 2021 and recent sales trends. I will start with our financial performance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. We reported total revenue of $495.1 million for the quarter, which is a 37.1% decline compared to the same quarter last year. Restaurant revenue fell 38.2% to $401.5 million, while retail revenue decreased 31.7% to $93.5 million. Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, we were encouraged by the improvements in our comparable store restaurant sales throughout the quarter. Comparable store restaurant sales decreased by 39.2% in the fourth quarter, but we saw sequential improvements from a 59% decline in May to a 28.2% decline in July. The enhancements during the quarter were widespread, geographically and by time of day, with dinner remaining our strongest segment and breakfast experiencing the most significant gains. We attribute our revenue results to various factors including summer travel, increased dining room capacity, our new lunch and dinner menu, some outdoor dining options, and the introduction of beer and wine in certain locations. Our retail performance also showed notable sequential improvements, with comparable retail sales down 32.3% for the quarter but only down 16.9% in July. Now regarding expenses, we were satisfied with our manageable cost structure this quarter and the cost savings achieved through our business model improvement initiatives. Total cost of goods sold was 30.5% of total revenue this quarter, up from 28.8% in the prior year. We maintained restaurant cost of goods sold at 24.7% of restaurant sales, relatively unchanged from last year. On a constant mix basis, our food commodity costs rose by about 40 basis points year-over-year, mainly due to increases in beef and eggs, which were somewhat offset by a decrease in pork. Our retail cost of goods sold was 55% of retail sales, compared to 48.7% in the prior year, with a 630 basis point increase driven mainly by employee discounts and markdowns while managing our inventories. I commend our retail team for their efforts to maintain appropriate inventory levels and enhance retail sales despite the tough conditions. Our operators effectively managed labor costs this quarter, with labor and related expenses totaling $187.8 million, or 37.9% of revenue, compared to $276.2 million, or 35.1% of revenue last year. Although we faced deleveraging from fixed expenses in the current sales climate, we offset some of this with approximately $7 million in cost savings from our field management restructuring initiatives. We are pleased with these results, attributed to our focus on better training and leveraging our key team members as leaders and mentors within our stores. Other operating expenses were $141.3 million, or 28.5% of revenue in the fourth quarter, compared to $164.5 million, or 20.9% of revenue a year ago. This increase was largely due to sales deleverage and the growth in our off-premise business, resulting in higher supply costs. General and administrative expenses remained relatively stable at $41 million for the fourth quarter, including about $5.7 million in fees from sale-leaseback transactions, partially offset by around $3 million in cost savings from our corporate restructuring initiative. GAAP operating income was $40.1 million, or 8.1% of revenue, while on an adjusted basis, we reported an operating loss of $20 million. Net interest expense for the quarter was $9.9 million, up from $3.9 million last year, mainly due to increased debt from our revolving credit facility to support liquidity. Our effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was 16.8%, compared to 13.9% the prior year, primarily driven by deferred taxes from the sale leaseback transaction in the fourth quarter. We reported GAAP earnings per diluted share of $1.05, with adjusted earnings per diluted share showing a loss of $0.85. Now, let's address our liquidity position. Since the pandemic started, we have prioritized ensuring the company is well-prepared financially in the long-term. We have actively managed our balance sheet and taken measures such as implementing cost-saving initiatives, utilizing our revolving credit facility, exercising our accordion feature, and completing a sale leaseback transaction. We believe these actions, along with our operations team’s strong performance, have solidified our financial position. I would like to discuss our two sale leaseback transactions. The first transaction closed in the fourth quarter, involving a group of 64 properties from a previous sale-leaseback set to expire in 2021. We entered a new lease agreement with better terms, which will save us approximately $30 million in cash rent over the 20-year agreement. The second transaction, closed in the first quarter of fiscal 2021, involved selling 62 properties for about $150 million. We feel the company's strong historical financial performance facilitated this transaction at an attractive long-term rate. In terms of financial impacts, the first sale-leaseback led to a non-cash gain of about $70 million. Our fourth quarter results also included $5.7 million in fees tied to the two sale-leaseback transactions. The adjusted fourth quarter operating income and adjusted EPS results I mentioned earlier exclude this gain and these fees, as well as non-cash impairment charges related to store assets, and also exclude the tax impact from these items. We expect the second sale-leaseback to result in a non-cash gain of approximately $218 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. For fiscal 2021, we anticipate that these two transactions combined will raise our total rent expense by roughly $25 million compared to last year, which includes amortization of the right to use asset tied to sale leaseback gains. Our cash rent will increase by $8.9 million versus the prior year, due to the improved terms from the first transaction and the increased cash rent for the second group of leased stores. Now, let's review our cash flow from the end of the third quarter through the end of August. We had $363 million in cash at the end of the third quarter. At the start of the fourth quarter, we increased our borrowings by about $40 million. During the fourth quarter, we generated approximately $64 million in operating cash flow, mainly due to a rise in comparable store sales. Some of this cash was used to invest in key initiatives like enhancing our digital guest experience, expanding our new POS system, and implementing our beer and wine program. We ended the fourth quarter with $437 million in cash, and the sale-leaseback transaction completed in August boosted our cash to around $565 million at the end of August. We believe our strong liquidity enhances our flexibility for navigating the current environment and managing capital allocation going forward. Our board continues to review the situation and our debt levels and intends to maintain a balanced capital allocation approach, considering our cash position when making decisions about investing in our business, returning cash to shareholders, and reducing debt. Before we move on to our outlook, I’d like to touch on Maple Street. We are pleased with their performance and resilience during the pandemic, as all stores remain open with limited dining service. We believe they have strong unit economics, targeting average unit volumes over $1 million, store-level EBITDA above 17%, and build-out costs below $750,000. We are excited to accelerate Maple Street’s growth and expect to open up to 15 stores in fiscal 2021, which we think will significantly impact our results in the coming years. Now moving to our outlook. Please keep in mind the risks and uncertainties connected to this outlook, as outlined in today’s earnings release and our SEC filings. Due to pandemic uncertainties, we are not providing annual guidance. For fiscal 2021, we plan to open three Cracker Barrel stores that were delayed from fiscal 2020. We expect capital expenditures of around $100 million for the fiscal year, with roughly half supporting strategic initiatives and new unit growth, and the remainder for existing store maintenance. We aim to realize the remaining balance of our $50 million cost savings target in fiscal 2021, anticipating approximately $12 million to $13 million of cost savings in each of the first three quarters. We expect half of these savings to come from labor, with most of the rest from G&A, though we anticipate these savings may be partially balanced by inflationary pressures and investments. With our investments intended to drive sales and margin improvement long-term, we are closely monitoring our restaurant supply chain and regularly communicating with our suppliers. To date, we have not encountered significant supply chain disruptions and do not foresee major issues in fiscal 2021, assuming severe COVID-19 outbreaks do not affect our suppliers. We expect commodity inflation of roughly 1.5% to 2% in fiscal 2021. We were pleased with our sales improvements in the fourth quarter, and that positive trend has continued into the new fiscal year. In the first six weeks of fiscal 2021, our sales trend has improved, with comparable store restaurant sales declining by about 20% and comparable retail sales down approximately 15% compared to last year. We continue to enjoy strong off-premise sales growth in stores that have reopened dining rooms, with those stores maintaining about 75% of their elevated year-over-year off-premise growth compared to those operating only off-premise. Although we are optimistic about our trends, our overall outlook remains cautious for several reasons. First is the potential for further COVID outbreaks. Second, even with improving sales trends, there is still uncertainty regarding consumer willingness to return to full-service dining and our ability to sustain outdoor dining during the fall and winter months. Third, general uncertainty surrounding the economic impacts of the pandemic persists. Despite these challenges, we are confident that our strategies and initiatives for fiscal 2021 will enhance our performance and create long-term value. We believe we will benefit from several factors, including our status as a trusted brand with loyal customers, a strong value proposition, and prime interstate locations that appeal to families traveling by car for holidays or vacations. Finally, we expect initiatives like our new lunch and dinner menu, our beer and wine offerings, and our investments in enhancing the digital guest experience will help us maintain momentum and improve performance. I’ll now open the floor for questions and turn it back to Sandy.

Sandra Cochran, CEO

One final point before we head into Q&A. We recognize the importance of maintaining a strong independent board that serves the best interests of our shareholders, employees, and guests, with the expertise and experience critical to our business. Our board regularly reviews its capabilities and is committed to an ongoing refreshment process. As part of that process, we’ve recently added two outstanding directors to our board following a rigorous search process; Gilbert Dávila and Gisel Ruiz. Gilbert joined our board in July, and we announced Gisel’s addition yesterday. Both of these candidates are tremendous additions who enhance the diversity and skill set of an already outstanding board, with Gilbert bringing substantial marketing, market segmentation, and digital expertise, and Gisel bringing a wealth of talent having led complex operational and human resources functions for the country's largest company, Walmart. We're excited about what they will bring to our boardroom as we continue executing a clearly defined strategy to accelerate the growth of the company and enhance value for all shareholders. Now, Jason, we will open it up to Q&A.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. We will now start the question-and-answer session. The first question comes from Todd Brooks from C.L. King. Please proceed.

Todd Brooks, Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I appreciate it. You spoke about being cautious on watching going forward. I wonder if you could reconcile the down 20% restaurant same-store sales that we've seen quarter-to-date. How much of that is supported by the porch front and the tent-based outdoor dining that we may lose in some locations as we approach the winter season? Also, when you look at optimal performance given the capacity restraints you're operating under, is down 20% at the restaurant level pretty much the best the concept can do in the current capacity environment?

Jill Golder, CFO

Good morning, Todd. This is Jill, and thank you for your question. It's a great question, and a tough one to answer, so let me walk you through some things as we're looking at the impact of capacity constraints on our sales versus demand. From a demand standpoint, guests are focused on their health and safety, so there may be some reduced demand because consumers are reluctant to eat in a dining room. Others might be cutting back on their away-from-home dining occasions just given the uncertain environment from an unemployment or economic standpoint. As we mentioned, as the dining rooms have reopened, we've seen increased demand. If we look at the demand progression, it's increased across all three day parts. The most improvement has occurred during breakfast, but dinner remains our strongest day part. There is demand out there from the consumer. On the capacity constraints, we benefit in general from having a large open dining room, and the operators have done a nice job maintaining capacity restrictions and managing through that, at approximately 50% to 60% restrictions. However, we run into capacity limitations on weekends, particularly during weekend dinners as well as on Sundays. As we said, we introduced front porch dining in approximately 350 stores to help increase our overall capacity. This front porch dining adds anywhere from five to six tables, with each table seating four guests. That piece will likely be curtailed as we head into the cooler months. So to your point, can we do better than down 20%? We believe we have the ability to support increased demand. The team has done a nice job, but we can't directly state how much better we can perform at these capacity levels. Hopefully that provides you with some clarification.

Todd Brooks, Analyst

That’s helpful, thank you, Jill. Just a follow-up on that and one more question. For the store base that has front porch dining set up — given it skews more across the southern tier, do you believe you should be able to maintain a decent amount of that through not necessarily the heart of winter but let's say the fall shoulder period and if necessary, the early spring shoulder period?

Jill Golder, CFO

Yes. That’s correct. Our store base is located in many of the states that allowed us to transition to on-premise dining some of the earliest. We're hopeful that our geography will allow us to extend outdoor dining capabilities as much as possible.

Jeff Farmer, Analyst

Thanks. A couple of questions. I wanted to drill down on the summer travel season. What was the same-store sales performance like for highway locations versus non-highway locations, and what was the mix of local versus travel customers that you saw in the summer?

Jill Golder, CFO

Jeff, that's a great question. We did not see a huge differentiation between the stores that are off-highway versus more local. In the northeast, we've seen more improvements as capacity restrictions have been lifted. That's the biggest trend change we've observed.

Jeff Farmer, Analyst

Okay. And then, can you provide a breakdown of the 20% same-store sales decline over the first six weeks of the quarter? What did it look like at the beginning of that period, the middle, and how did it progress near the end of that six-week period?

Jill Golder, CFO

Six weeks is not a long timeframe to discuss too specifically. Overall, we were pleased with our sales at all levels. We are pleased with breakfast, lunch, and dinner sales, and we have managed to retain a significant portion of off-premise sales as dining in grows.

Jeff Farmer, Analyst

That’s helpful. If I could just sneak one more in, regarding the $50 million cost control you discussed last quarter, can you clarify if you still expect to achieve that target compared to the previous cost-saving initiatives?

Jill Golder, CFO

We're going to continue to manage the P&L based on business performance and cash generation. We expect to generate cash from sales performance, benefit from cost savings initiatives, and anticipate taking approximately 2% pricing, possibly a little less. We do expect wage inflation around 2% and commodity inflation approximately 1.5% which may offset some of our savings.

Brett Levy, Analyst

Great, thank you and good morning. Following up on Jeff's question, could you provide more detail on the technology front and how you're spreading the cost and the potential operating or sales disruptions? Additionally, can you provide insights into how your new menu items are performing, particularly with the beer and wine test?

Sandra Cochran, CEO

Of course, Brett. Let's talk about technology first. We're excited about our new POS systems, and we plan to roll out to about 500 stores by the end of the year. This will facilitate foundational technologies that's essential for improving guest and employee experiences. It will streamline operations and improve guest interactions, and allow us to extend hospitality in new ways, such as enabling a server to take payment at a table through a tablet. We have received positive feedback regarding our initial menu relaunch, which highlights new offerings and reminds guests of our signature items. We believe it's making it easier for our operators and generating positive feedback from guests.

Jill Golder, CFO

To clarify the investment portion, the largest expenditure is for the POS system. We're planning to spend about $100 million in fiscal 2021, with about 20% allocated for new store growth and 30% for strategic initiatives—primarily the POS system.

Jon Tower, Analyst

Thanks for taking the question. Can you clarify the $50 million cost savings? Was that in addition to the earlier discussed $11 million?

Jill Golder, CFO

Yes, the $50 million represents new cost-saving measures. However, some of these were already being contemplated prior but are being accelerated.

Gregory Francfort, Analyst

Hey, thank you for the question. I have a clarification and two questions. Regarding the $25 million rent mention, is that a gross number not excluding what you're rolling off? Just to clarify that.

Sandra Cochran, CEO

It’s a net number—$25 million in incremental rent. So that includes all transactions. Of that, $8.9 million is cash rent. Most of it pertains to amortization.

Gregory Francfort, Analyst

Okay, great. Regarding margins, if you achieve 100% AUV recovery, where do you think margins will go? Will it be higher due to the alcohol program or due to the efficiencies found in the menu, or could possible incremental costs around safety impact this?

Sandra Cochran, CEO

That's an excellent question, and there are multiple factors. We'll likely see more normalized expenses returning in addition to accelerated cost savings. Margin performance will depend on where sales originate, as off-premise sales generally have lower flow-through due to higher supply costs.

Jake Bartlett, Analyst

Can you provide some color on the alcohol test, particularly its performance, and what the longer-term outlook looks like?

Sandra Cochran, CEO

We've tested the alcohol program in about 100 stores, primarily in Florida, Kentucky, and a portion of Tennessee. We expect to roll it out to about 600 stores this fiscal year, but the timing depends on local licensing. Performance has been promising, especially in markets where we’ve had it the longest. Mimosas have proven to be especially popular. We will analyze impact in future calls.

Robert Derrington, Analyst

Can you give us clarity on the digital store rollout? Is it an upgraded app or a new service capability?

Sandra Cochran, CEO

Yes, it’s an upgraded app that offers a better integrated user experience for ordering food and retail, allowing for seamless guest interactions. Guests in stores will see that reflected initially through a better navigation experience.

Alton Stump, Analyst

Can you comment on how the pandemic has impacted the typical fall travel season and how it could affect sales moving forward?

Sandra Cochran, CEO

Certainly, we are monitoring the seasonal impacts of the pandemic closely. Football weekends are likely not going to be the same this year. However, we hope that families will opt for longer drives for weekend getaways and we can leverage that potential traffic.

Operator, Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Sandy Cochran, CEO, for any closing remarks.

Sandra Cochran, CEO

The last several months have presented significant disruptions and unprecedented challenges, which we are likely to be facing for some time. That said, I have great confidence in our brand and in our company's future. Cracker Barrel remains a trusted and differentiated brand with loyal guests. We believe we have a strong value proposition that appeals in any economic environment, and we're confident that we have the right business priorities and plans in place to further strengthen our brand and our business model to drive long-term value creation. Thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate your interest and support.

Operator, Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.