Earnings Call Transcript - JACK Q3 2024

Operator, Operator

Thank you for waiting. My name is Liz and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Jack Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Webcast Call. All lines have been muted to avoid background noise. Following the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. I will now hand the call over to Chris Brandon, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Chris Brandon, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thanks, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining today's conference call highlighting results from our third quarter 2024. With me today are Chief Executive Officer, Darin Harris, and our Chief Financial Officer, Brian Scott. Following their prepared remarks, we will be happy to take questions from our covering sell-side analysts. Note that during both our discussion and Q&A, we may refer to non-GAAP items. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliations provided in the earnings release which is available on our Investor Relations website at jackinthebox.com. We will also be making forward-looking statements based on current information and judgments that reflect management's outlook for the future. However, actual results may differ materially from these expectations because of business risks. We therefore consider the safe harbor statement in the earnings release and the cautionary statements in our most recent 10-K to be part of our discussion. The material risk factors, as well as information relating to company operations, are detailed in our most recent 10-K, 10-Q, and other public documents filed with the SEC and are all available on our Investor Relations website. A quick note on conferences and events between now and our fourth quarter earnings, we plan to attend the Piper Sandler Conference on Tuesday, September 10, in Nashville. Hope to see many of you there. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Darin Harris.

Darin Harris, CEO

Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining today's call to discuss our third quarter 2024 performance. I want to start by thanking everyone within our organization for their efforts and continuing to manage through our challenging environment for our industry while driving meaningful progress on our key long-term ambitions of targeting top-tier AUVs, driving digital growth, delivering industry-leading restaurant-level economics, and building new restaurants with best-in-class returns for franchisees. Our industry is operating in an unusual consumer environment, and we are quickly responding with initiatives intended to drive transactions and win share. With an enhanced focus on reconnecting with the lower-income, value-oriented guest, we realize that what you get for what you pay is more important than ever and continue to feel confident in our barbell and hook-and-build strategies to achieve that for all guest segments. Innovation, variety, and value will continue to be an important part of our offering at both Jack in the Box and Del Taco, and we will pursue messaging that breaks through to our guests. The third quarter results reflect the combined effect of a tougher sales environment while lapping a high single-digit same-store sales comparison at Jack in the Box. We took action to address many of our guest needs with innovation and quickly adapting offers to be relevant with value. I'd like to highlight a few areas where we demonstrated a dual commitment to addressing both the current environment while remaining steadfast and driving towards our long-term ambitions. First, in partnership with franchise operators, we took action to enhance and highlight our value offerings with the launch of our Munchies Under $4 platform with two objectives. This offering provides a compelling price point and value offer to grow transactions, and it achieved pricing and menu consistency across our system for potential add-on items with the outcome of increasing items per check. To begin the fourth quarter, we have also brought back a $5 price point called Jack's Big Deal Meal as a relaunch of the Jack Pack. Our differentiated menu uniquely positions us to provide a wide range of value offers in the future, including our famous two Tacos Jack Wraps, $5 meals for Munchies Under $4, our $10 Fan Favs Boxes, and our late-night Munchie Meals. Speaking of late night, we successfully executed on our commitment to a day part where we win. We partnered with Ice Cube to develop a unique Munchie Meal featuring our late-night fan favorite, the Chicken Tater Melt. We certainly faced a tough comp from last year's Snoop Dogg promotion and the popular spicy chicken strips LTO. I am glad to say it met the challenge and performed above expectations with order volume for the Munchie Meal outperforming year-over-year. This result is a great example of offering significant value for the dollar, although the price point is higher than other meal combos. We continued pairing value offerings alongside our innovation capabilities, including the launch of wings, our continued success with Smash Jack, and now Mini Chimi, because of the success of Smash Jack, which mixed above 5% in the quarter. Two of our fan-favorite premium burgers just got even better. The Classic and Bacon Swiss Buttery Jack have rolled out featuring the Smash Patty, now available system-wide. We are excited to deliver it as an upgrade to our already existing strong duo of buttery burgers, and it is only the beginning of our ability to keep innovating around the Smash line. The launch of Wings debuting in the third quarter through digital and social channels was very well received while providing solid operations knowledge for larger campaigns and future promotions. After simplifying our breakfast menu last year and impacting the top line, we wanted to enhance our breakfast offering by making French Toast Sticks, a fan-favorite LTO, permanent on the menu and part of our breakfast platters. Plus, we will incorporate breakfast value promotions into each marketing window, like we did during the third quarter, while adding innovative options like our recent introduction of chicken and waffle sticks. As part of our ambition to drive digital growth from 14% to 20% of sales, we made progress in first-party, which increased 80% versus last year. First-party enables us to build our loyalty membership and directly engage with our guests. At the start of next month, we will be releasing a redesigned version of our Jack app, which will provide an enhanced experience for our guests, setting the foundation for personalization and targeted loyalty offerings. As we continue to enhance our marketing and restaurant technology stack, it's important that I provide an update on the progress of our new point of sale rollout at Jack, with nearly 100 restaurants completed and a plan to be at approximately 450 by the end of 2024 and fully deployed in 2025. This POS system includes kiosk capability and will support seamless loyalty experience while unlocking future operational innovation, including enhanced inventory and labor management, along with automation AI to reduce costs and improve speed. I want to say thank you for the outstanding effort of our IT and operations teams as well as our franchise technology committee for their tireless efforts to launch this program. We will continue to update you on the progress of this rollout, and as always, we are showing our commitment to cultural relevance and putting our Challenger brand in the bright lights in unique ways. Our promotional partnership with the biggest movie of the summer, Deadpool and Wolverine, is underway with two new products and is exactly the type of brand partnership that continues to make Jack in the Box relevant and high profile. I'm encouraged by these areas of commitment and our improving momentum heading into the fourth quarter, with a high-profile partnership, continued innovation emphasis on value, and easing comparisons. Our goal is to improve transactions and demonstrate sales growth led by strategic, fundamental approaches rather than short-term actions or temporary discounting. Turning to restaurant-level economics, our restaurant-level margin declined as expected this quarter with the increased California wages from AB 1228. Over time, we will regain this margin and more through improved sales and our ongoing equipment technology and financial fundamentals initiatives. We have a solid line of sight to these margin enhancement opportunities, which in Q3 included increased adoption for a new oil management process, hydro rents, and labor tools. The addition of our second Fryer automation test restaurant in Dallas, and our latest restaurant training programs focused on food and labor management that have the potential to drive meaningful cost savings. The team continues to work with urgency to roll these out to our entire system to maximize both our franchisee four-wall EBITDA and our company-owned restaurant margins. As it relates to restaurant growth, interest to develop from both existing and new franchisees is being driven in part from our strong new market performance. We opened our second restaurant in Mexico during Q3, and our five Salt Lake City restaurants continue to collectively achieve over $100,000 in weekly AUVs. With now an average of 40 weeks open between the five locations, our two Louisville restaurants are averaging nearly $70K in weekly AUVs, with performance sustaining nicely during the nine months since we entered the market. Overall, our new market restaurants continue to thrive, demonstrating that this brand is craved by customers across the country and south of the border as well. I'm also thrilled about our exciting news related to Chicago. We plan to rapidly enter this key market with a plan to open up to 10 company locations in fiscal year 2025, with an eye on partnering with franchisees to continue to expand in the market with significant growth potential. This, in addition to our entry into Florida in 2025, sets us up for an exciting year for the brand, and our team is ready to make it happen. I also want to provide an update on our re-image program, which has been enthusiastically received by our franchisees. As a reminder, Jack in the Box has committed $50 million towards this multi-year program. We ultimately receive request to remodel over 1,000 restaurants, and we believe we can support approximately 25% to 30% of these with incentives. Our franchisees are now prioritizing which restaurants to re-image and gearing up for executing on the approved remodels at a more accelerated pace. This program will yield meaningful same-store sales growth and enhance the overall brand image. Shifting to Del Taco, we were disappointed with the third quarter same-store sales and margin results, but are recently seeing some early signs of improved sales performance. The new leadership team is making good progress on multiple fronts to optimize our marketing, media, and menu strategy, along with implementing operational changes to improve margins and speed of service. The Del team is moving quickly on these efforts while adeptly dealing with the recent changes in consumer buying behavior and wage increases in California. I've been part of many brand transformation projects in my career, and similar to the changes we have been making at Jack in the Box, it takes time. I'm confident that we have the right team in place, and I'm encouraged by their progress in executing a strategy to improve sales and profitability at a brand that stands for incredible quality and value. As an early example, we are encouraged by Del's new menu simplification test, which has received very favorable guest feedback and has shown increased sales speed of service and margins. We’re expanding this test in Q4 to a few markets to validate the results and gain additional learnings, with a plan for a full system-wide rollout next year. Another example is Del's testing of kiosks, which are producing increased ticket and labor savings, and guest adoption has been even higher than expected. We will utilize the best practice knowledge we've gained at Del as we introduce kiosks to both brands, and Jack isn't the only brand demonstrating successful new openings. In fact, our most recent three Del Taco restaurant openings in Tallahassee and Port Orange, Florida, as well as Chesapeake, Virginia, each set new records for first-week sales. As we set at the time of the acquisition, development and new market entry are initiatives where both brands can combine resources, share best practices, and use similar proven strategies from Jack in the market playbook to provide early performance momentum for our new Del restaurants. I look forward to updating you on Del Taco's strategy execution, notably top line sales, RLM improvements, results of our menu simplification, as well as more new restaurant success stories as we take the brand into untapped territories. I believe strongly, particularly as we close in on being an asset-light model, in the brand's ability to deliver shareholder value in the long run and add to an even stronger growth story we are creating. In closing, we are pursuing the right initiatives with the right teams to manage through this unprecedented consumer environment for our industry. We have so much upside and opportunity within both of these brands, and we will stay focused on making the right investments, executing on the unique Jack and Del experience that our guests expect, and doing everything we can to navigate the short-term while never losing focus on supporting our ambition to create sustained long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you again, and I'll now turn the call over to Brian.

Brian Scott, CFO

Thanks, Darin, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start by reviewing our two brands individually, followed by details on our consolidated performance and capital allocation. Beginning with Jack in the Box, our third quarter system, same-store sales declined 2.2%, with franchise restaurant comps decreasing 2.4%, and company sales up 0.1%, while price continues to be positive. Both mix and transactions were negative, although transactions improved modestly from last quarter. As Darin mentioned, we continue to work on delivering the right mix of value, innovation, and compelling LTOs across our day parts to improve transactions and attachment rates. This was the first full quarter of operating under the increased minimum wage law in California, and we are proud of how our teams executed through this change using very strategic price increases to counter the higher labor costs. For example, for Jack in the Box company-owned restaurants, which are predominantly in California, same-store sales performance was better than all but one other market. I'll also note that Del Taco had a very similar result with California being one of their top markets in the quarter. Regarding product categories, notable sales contributions came from chicken and burgers. Promotional windows including wings and popcorn chicken drove the increased chicken sales, with Smash Jack driving our burger category. Smash Jack continues to perform very well, even as consumers are more discriminating in their purchasing decisions, demonstrating a willingness to pay for a high-quality item. As Darin noted, we continue to deliberately drive increases on our own channels of mobile and web, which is essential in our efforts to increase active loyalty program membership and create personalized targeted promotions to this high-value channel. We are excited by the early signs from our kiosk tests at both brands, which will ultimately help drive higher average ticket via upsell. We'll continue to make investments in technology and marketing as we work towards achieving our ambition of 20% of sales through digital channels. Turning to restaurant count, there were three Jack restaurants openings and three closures in the quarter. Year-to-date, Jack has opened 14 restaurants and is still expecting to open between 25 and 35 restaurants for the fiscal year. We are heading into 2025 with a strong development pipeline and two exciting new market openings on the way. Jack's restaurant-level margin percentage decreased year-over-year by 80 basis points to 21%. This decrease was driven primarily by higher costs for labor, partially offset by lower food and packaging costs. Food and packaging costs declined 220 basis points from prior year to 29.2%, with a 0.5% commodity deflation. Labor costs were 32.4% of company-owned sales, reflecting a 200 basis points increase from prior year due to wage increases to comply with California's new minimum wage law. Franchise-level margin was $74.6 million or 41.1% of franchise revenues compared to $75.3 million or 41.1% a year ago. The decrease in dollars was mainly driven by the sales decline and the resulting decrease of royalty and revenue. Turning now to Del Taco, system same-store sales declined 3.9%, with franchise sales decline of 4.1%, and a company-owned comp decrease of 3.5%. The lower sales was a result of the decline of transactions and a non-favorable mix, partially offset by price. As Darin noted earlier, transactions have been impacted by both external and internal factors, and we are executing several initiatives to reignite traffic for the brand. Del Taco restaurant-level margin was 13.4%, down 400 basis points from the prior year. The decrease was due mainly to increased costs for labor and utilities, partially offset by favorable commodity cost trends relative to price increases. Food and packaging as a percentage of sales decreased 210 basis points to 25.6%, with modest commodity inflation of 0.2%. Labor as a percentage of sales increased 460 basis points to 38.6%, with this increase also due to the new California minimum wage. Occupancy and other operating expenses increased 160 basis points, driven primarily by higher utility costs and an increase in technology support costs. Franchise-level margin was $5.8 million or 27.1% of franchise revenues compared to $5.5 million or 36.7% last year. The increase in FLM dollars was due to refranchising 58 restaurants since the third quarter last year, while the decrease in margin percentage was primarily driven by these refranchising efforts and the resulting impact of a direct pass-through of rent and marketing fees. Del Taco's restaurant count was 597, with five openings and three closures during the quarter. With 12 openings year to date, Del Taco expects to hit the higher end of our original guidance of opening 10 to 15 restaurants this fiscal year. Subsequent to quarter end, we refranchised 27 Del Taco restaurants to a strong Jack and Del operator, which included a development agreement for 25 additional restaurants. With this transaction, we have refranchised 40 restaurants this year, and Del Taco is now over 75% franchise-owned. We also have a seven-restaurant deal expected to close this quarter with continued strong buyer interest. Moving now to our consolidated results, SG&A for the third quarter was $29.6 million or 8% of revenues, as compared to $39.6 million or 10% a year ago. The decline was due primarily to a favorable workers' compensation and general liability reserve adjustment, lower incentive-based compensation, and gains on the cash surrender value of our company-owned life insurance policies. Excluding the net-coded gains along with company-owned marketing expenses, G&A was $24.5 million or 2% of total system-wide sales. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $78.9 million, down from $81.6 million in the prior year, due primarily to the impacts from Del Taco refranchising and the decrease in sales, partially offset by the lower SG&A. During the quarter, the company recorded a non-cash goodwill impairment of $162.6 million for the Del Taco reporting unit. This charge resulted from the lower current performance and other assumption updates impacting our long-term forecast and related cash flows. Despite this forecast reset, we continue to see significant opportunities to grow this brand due to market expansion and sales and margin increases. Due to the non-cash goodwill charge in the quarter, we reported a consolidated gap diluted loss per share of $6.26 compared to earnings per share of $1.41 in the prior year. Operating earnings per share, which included adjustments for certain items, was $1.65 for the quarter versus $1.45 in the prior year. The effective tax rate for the third quarter was a negative 0.1% compared to positive 32.6% for the same quarter a year ago. The effective tax rate for these periods was impacted by the impairment of non-deductible goodwill recorded this year and the disposal of non-deductible goodwill in conjunction with refranchising transactions last year. The adjusted tax rate used to calculate operating EPS this quarter was 26.2%. Cash flows from operations for the quarter were $45.3 million. On the investing front, our capital expenditures were $24.7 million for the quarter and included investments in our technology and digital initiatives, as well as development of new company restaurants and remodeling existing restaurants. During the quarter, we repurchased 272,000 shares of our common stock for $15 million. On August 2, our Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.44 per share to be paid on September 19. As of quarter end, we had available borrowing capacity of $175 million under our variable financing notes and credit facility. Our total debt outstanding at quarter end was $1.7 billion, and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 5.2x. Lastly, I would like to provide certain updates to our guidance for the current fiscal year. Based on our year-to-date performance and expectations for the fourth quarter, we are now anticipating full-year adjusted EBITDA of $320 million to $325 million and operating EPS of $6.10 to $6.25. Consolidated SG&A excluding COLI gains and losses is expected to be approximately $160 million. For our Jack in the Box segment, we are expecting fiscal year same-store sales of approximately -1%, and a company-owned restaurant level margin of approximately 22%. And for Del Taco, we are anticipating same-store sales of approximately -1.5% and a restaurant-level margin of approximately 14%. Before we take any questions, I want to take a moment to thank all of our restaurant and corporate team members, along with our franchise partners across both brands for bringing their A-game every day on behalf of our guests and each other. Thanks again for your time this afternoon. Operator, please feel free to open up the line for Q&A.

Operator, Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Brian Bittner.

Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Darin, you announced you're entering the Chicago market with a bang in 2025, 10 company-owned units including utilizing conversions. How are you positioning the brand to succeed with this type of a rapidly scaled opening, which is a pretty unique strategy for a new market? So if you could touch on that. And Brian, your same-store sales guidance for Jack in the Box for the full year. It does give us an implied Q4 outlook, I guess of around a 1% same-store sales decline. Is the math in my model, is that the accurate way you want us thinking about the fourth quarter for Jack in the Box based on where you've put the full-year guide? Any updated thoughts on that would be helpful as well?

Brian Scott, CFO

Maybe I'll take your second question first and then we can talk about Chicago. In terms of the full-year guidance update and where we sit today, for the quarter to date, we are running slightly negative for Jack but definitely improved from where we were in the third quarter, which was not surprising to us. And so, the implied fourth quarter guidance, I'd say it's kind of flattish to slightly down. We do think there's some opportunity for the remainder of the quarter to improve from where we are today with some easier comps and then some of the carry through of some of the activities we had during the summer months here. But you're right in the right ballpark there.

Darin Harris, CEO

I'll take the second part of the question. Also, I'll talk Del continues to find improvement throughout the quarter from our low point last quarter, which we knew we were going to have a tough quarter in the third quarter due to some media lapse that we were making year-over-year. So we're seeing an improvement into the fourth quarter, and like Brian said, just slightly negative here at Jack with some improving trends, and we are enthused about. With that said, let's lean into development. And I think your question related to Chicago goes all the way back to our strategy that we shared on Investor Day, which is, we're continuing to invest in growth, and we have seen a tremendous increase in our pipeline of development agreements and sites, and Chicago is another one of the new markets we had targeted. And we went in aggressively by working through an opportunity to convert quite a few locations in a very short period of time. So we see we could open up to 10 locations, up to 10. We'll see how many we get open in 2025 in the Chicago market. It's a way for us to get quick penetration and then follow through with what we've done in other markets like Louisville and Salt Lake, where we surround that with additional franchisees and company builds to make sure we make an impact in the market very quickly.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Sara Senatore with Bank of America.

Sara Senatore, Analyst

I wanted to ask about Darin's comment that the improving momentum heading into fourth quarter, and you talked about how just now that is better than 3Q. I guess, can you sort of help me understand, like when you talk about improving momentum, what is it in particular? Is it the value piece? Is it the advertising? And I guess in that context, how confident are you in the momentum given? I think 3Q started a little bit stronger, and then it decelerated through the quarter. So just trying to understand kind of the underlying demand and also how you're thinking about your ability to respond to it given that I think you have to be kind of reactive.

Darin Harris, CEO

I think, what we've been doing with the balance of our barbell strategy, when we rolled out Munchies Under $4, what we saw is it increased our ticket. It didn't drive as much of the traffic as we wanted, so it increased the ticket to over $14. It also, we saw a higher unit per transaction. We know the Munchies Under $4 is working, it just hasn't moved enough of the traffic we needed to comp positive. In addition to that, we also have the $5 Big Meal Deal in the fourth quarter. So we have a good value strategy. You add those two things together, you add that along with what we're doing on our $5 or our $10 Fan Faves Box, we have enough value options in our digital offers to really focus on that part of the barbell. And then we roll out things like we've done with this promotion with Deadpool and Wolverine where we've done the Mini Chimi and a popular fan favorite with our chicken strips. And so, we have both ends of the barbell, so we feel confident in the fourth quarter calendar along with what we're doing. We also know that we had softer comps at this time last year. So we feel good about the back end of the quarter.

Brian Scott, CFO

This is Brian. Just to add, we've had obviously several weeks now into this quarter and we've seen pretty consistent, better trend than we had in the third quarter. So it really doesn't take much of a change from what we're currently running to still end up with a better performance than we had in the third quarter and getting near to that flattish that we talked about a while ago here. So, and I think the comps, the comps get progressively easier each period in this last quarter.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Silverman from Deutsche Bank.

Lauren Silverman, Analyst

A follow-up on the comp side, can you talk about the cadence of comp as you moved through the quarter, any discernible changes in consumer behavior? And then a big peer of yours launched a $5 Meal Deal in July. Did you see any impact on your trends from that? It sounds like perhaps not, but just trying to think about breaking through the noise, as the industry presumably gets more aggressive.

Darin Harris, CEO

Yes, I don't think that we saw a major impact related to just one competitor. I think it's all of the competitors combined trying to shout value is tougher to break through. But overall, nothing that I would say is demonstrable that we've seen dramatic change as a result of any of the competitive pressure. It's more overall the competitive pressure on the consumer is what we're feeling in the lower income guest. And then, Brian, you want to take the question?

Brian Scott, CFO

Yes, I mean, as it relates to the comps, I don't think there was anything significant to point out in terms of the comps. They were a little bit tougher in the second half of the third quarter, but we were relatively consistent. We had a little bit weaker in the very last part of the quarter, but then we kind of expected that just from what we were lapping. And then we turned as we were exiting the third quarter into the fourth quarter and this trend that we've talked about more recently.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jon Tower with Citi.

Jon Tower, Analyst

Maybe just a quick clarification and then a question. The clarification just, I know you've talked about gross units for the year at Jack in the Box, sustaining at the same level you had previously, too, but are you still anticipating net unit growth this year and perhaps what you think for next year? And then I can ask my question after.

Darin Harris, CEO

Yes, we definitely are continuing to believe that we will come in within our guide and also be net unit positive. So we feel good about the numbers we put in from a development standpoint as we've talked about both at Del and Jack. Del, I think, will be closer to our high end of our guide on gross openings. And then also, we feel good about net openings together on both brands.

Jon Tower, Analyst

And then just on the value side, you, Darin had highlighted earlier in the call just, I think the $5 price point, the Jack's Big Deal LTO. And then I think you talked about relaunching Jack Pack and then a few different others. You've got the $4 Munchie platform and the famous Two Tacos Jack Wraps. And I guess my broad question is, does this get a little too confusing for consumers? I mean, you've got a lot of different platforms, different price points. And like what have you guys picked up that suggests that's what should work with consumers rather than sticking with a $5 price point for a year or whatever it might be?

Darin Harris, CEO

Yes, I think the key differentiation for us is LTO value versus everyday value. And so think of Munchies under $4 as everyday value. Think of the $5 Big Meal Deal as more of a promoted value. And then we utilize some of these other ideas such as, our digital offers to also drive transactions and be a discount play to really drive motivation on a particular day to drive traffic via digital means. So it's really about LTO versus everyday value.

Brian Scott, CFO

I believe that some of the improvements we've made to our menu with the munchies, by consolidating them into a single section, make it easier for our guests to find value. They now know where to look for value options on the menu, and we have also clarified our various menu items. Guests are aware of the value available, especially when they see promotions at the restaurant. However, we are still encouraging them to trade up to more premium items.

Darin Harris, CEO

With what Brian said, our promoted value on the LTO is to drive people off the couch and get them to trade up into something else on our menu. And that's been our strategy with the hook and build.

Operator, Operator

And then just the last one for me. In terms of California, you spoke to at least the company stores having some pretty good success there. Just curious, is there any way, how did your share in California hold up during the fiscal third quarter?

Darin Harris, CEO

California fared better than our system, and I think we're continuing to see price offset some of the transaction declines. So we definitely saw California fare substantially better than we thought. I think it's franchisees worked with us when we rolled out our plan for AB 1228, where we looked at pricing by menu item across every market by every store. We took specific surgical pricing on individual items, and we did it in a timely fashion. So I think we made the right moves in California.

Jon Tower, Analyst

And the same would be true, as we mentioned in the prepared remarks with Del Taco. Again, with taking some incremental price there, some impact on traffic negative impact, but the net was a better performance for Del overall in California. It just speaks to the brands being really well regarded here, but I think also the team's working really surgically to price appropriately to manage against too much traffic decline.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris O'Cull with Stifel.

Chris O'Cull, Analyst

Given the geographic concentration of the company-owned stores, it's difficult to use them as a proxy for franchisee profitability. So could you give us an update on where you think the average franchisee profits are relative to last year for the brand year-to-date?

Darin Harris, CEO

I think in our last quarterly data, we're a quarter behind, we saw profitability up year-over-year and trailing 12 months for franchisees by about 2 points. Now we know that information doesn't have AB 1228, and what I would say with AB 1228, we think there's somewhere between 1% and 2% that probably has impacted some of the P&L from a labor standpoint. But we've had offsets against that with pricing. So definitely, it's probably somewhere in the 1% to 2% range that franchisees have felt, and we've already seen that improve into Q4.

Brian Scott, CFO

If you look back to the period before COVID and compare it to where we are today, our franchisees are generally more profitable than they have been in the past. We do face some short-term challenges, but we also have numerous initiatives underway beyond just growing sales, which is an opportunity for us. These initiatives are aimed at enhancing operational efficiency, starting with our new point-of-sale system that will include kiosks. Additionally, we have technology-driven efforts to improve labor management, inventory management, and increase automation in our restaurants. We have previously discussed the potential for margin enhancement in these areas. Many of these initiatives are currently in progress. As our sales stabilize and we implement more of these improvements, our franchisees are in a strong position and are optimistic about their future prospects.

Chris O'Cull, Analyst

And then, does the decline in Del Taco sales and store-level cash flows change your timing or maybe any of the economics of reach franchising the remaining 70 or so units?

Darin Harris, CEO

No. We will continue. We've got many deals in the pipeline that we anticipate closing. We just post quarter closed on a transaction with Del Taco from a refranchising standpoint for 27 locations with a development agreement for 25. And then we have other LOIs that we're working through closing in the back of the quarter. So our plan is to continue on the refranchising program and we have plenty of demand.

Brian Scott, CFO

Yes, as I mentioned, we have another seven-unit deal that's very close to closing that will put us just right below 80% franchise at that point. And the largest percentage of the remaining restaurants are still in California. As we mentioned, the performance has been better there. And I think there's a lot, again, of optimism about not only the brand here but also the opportunities to grow sales and margins at Del Taco as well. So that's the interest has remained strong; we'll do it at our pace. We think it's appropriate with the right partners, but in terms of our ability to do it, we still see a lot of opportunity.

Darin Harris, CEO

We have recently experienced some of the most successful openings in our history at both Jack and Del. We are still signing new development agreements because there is a recognized opportunity for growth, and people understand that this is a temporary cycle with same-store sales. We believe that as our pipeline continues to expand, our interest in refranchising will also increase.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Mullan with Piper Sandler.

Brian Mullan, Analyst

Just a question on your remodel and refresh initiatives that you have going on with the Jack in the Box franchisees. Can you just talk about the uptake you're seeing for some of the programs you're offering and if the current environment has any influence on the demand for that, maybe for some, maybe capital is tight in this environment but maybe others want to invest in an environment like this. So just any color you could offer would be great.

Darin Harris, CEO

When we introduced the industrial remodel program about a year and a half ago, we completed nine locations, have eight more under construction, and 72 are in the design and permitting phase. We're progressing well. After launching the crave initiative, we received significant interest from the system for the craved image, which has been very encouraging along with the performance outcomes. We circulated this back to the system for nominations to re-image, resulting in over 600 submissions expressing interest in refreshing their restaurants. The enthusiasm from our franchisees highlights the opportunity and the incentive program we've created to support these re-imaging efforts. We're currently prioritizing which locations among those 600 will qualify for the incentive, reflecting a strong demand for re-imaging Jack in the Box locations. Additionally, we've observed an increase in sales of approximately 15% to 16% at locations that have completed the industrial re-image over the past couple of years.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Slagle with Jefferies.

Alex Slagle, Analyst

I wanted to ask on the Jack new market performance and curious if you could offer a few more highlights, kind of what you've seen now that you've had these new markets open, some of them in the ground six, 12 months but what you're learning in terms of how to effectively drive the sustained frequency and the excitement and then operationally drive speed and throughput execution. Just any other dynamics you're seeing there that help inform the playbook.

Darin Harris, CEO

Yes, I believe that the latest developments related to our playbook have been successful. We have introduced our new market playbook, which includes strategies for selecting real estate, collaborating with franchisees on market development, establishing our brand image, generating demand before launch, running awareness campaigns, and managing our standard menu and digital strategy after opening. Currently, all these strategies are proving effective, as we are seeing successful outcomes that we are replicating at Del Taco. In Salt Lake City, we have seen an average opening over 40 weeks for the five locations, with each averaging around $100,000 in sales. This is a significant success for us. We plan to open six more locations by the end of 2024 and a total of 17 through 2025. We are optimistic about the developments in Salt Lake City, as we have many potential sites underway, although it remains to be seen when all will open. In Louisville, we anticipate eight locations by 2025, with the two current sites averaging between $60,000 and $70,000 after nine months in the market. Mexico has two successfully operating locations as well. Overall, we are witnessing positive performance across all new markets, having signed 18 new franchise agreements with Jack in the Box, which accounts for 156 restaurant commitments. There is a clear interest in entering the market, evidenced by Florida having 31 agreements to build new locations. Chicago is also a new market for us. We are confident in the effectiveness of our playbook, supported by sustained sales. Del Taco is now adopting the same approach, and we are signing more franchise agreements for it than ever before. Our recent openings in Florida and Virginia have set first-week sales records. While we need more time to evaluate these new locations, early signs indicate that our playbook is on the right track. The teams are motivated, and we are attracting investment from new franchisees. We feel optimistic about the growth trajectory at Jack, and we are managing the current challenges in the same-store sales environment with various strategies to drive the business forward.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Charles with TD Cowen.

Andrew Charles, Analyst

I want to take the flip side of the California outperformance. We're for both brands, we're seeing the underperformance. Is this in any of the new markets? Or perhaps not, just given that they're not yet in the comp base, at least from markets that didn't take as much price. You're just kind of curious about where the underperformance in the store base is?

Darin Harris, CEO

Yes, I think geographically at Jack, we're seeing mostly underperformance, a little heavier weighted to Texas and the Northwest, whereas we see California and the Midwest performing better at Jack. So I think that's the key at Jack in the Box. Texas, I think, is a little bit from a price standpoint a lot more aggressive from a pricing standpoint and the same in the Northwest.

Brian Scott, CFO

Yes, I think because they probably took some price earlier in those markets and they're holding price more now. So, they're doing some of that industry traffic decline. It's not just for us. And so they're not really seeing much of an opportunity to offset with price because to make sure we have good discipline there. And so you've seen a little more of that traffic impact hitting their overall performance. I think as we kind of work through that near-term, I think we're taking, again, good discipline on pricing. And as we with our menu and some of the changes we've made, we think that'll, as any traffic and improves will drop straight through to better sales performance.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Tarantino with Baird.

David Tarantino, Analyst

Darin, I have a question on Jack in the Box value proposition. I was wondering if you could frame up how you're tracking the value proposition of the brand. I know the brand, you and your franchisees have taken a lot of pricing as have others in the industry. I'm not sure you're disconnected from what others are doing, but I'm just wondering if the absolute level of pricing is changing the value perceptions of the brand in a way that might make you think about an action plan related to your kind of structural pricing going forward.

Darin Harris, CEO

We constantly analyze market data to determine the right pricing strategy. We utilize similar tools as our competitors to evaluate our standing and maintain our pricing discipline across each product in every market. Our current approach enables us to adjust prices as needed for specific markets, locations, and items. Our focus is now on enhancing everyday value and increasing transactions while also boosting our limited-time offer value. We believe we have successfully positioned our premium offerings, and our next goal is to drive transactions with lower-income customers through initiatives like the $5 Big Meal Deal, encouraging them to upgrade their orders. Additionally, we have menu items like Munchies Under $4 that can complement other offerings. The industry is grappling with challenges, particularly in attachment rates, which is crucial for increasing sales of additional drinks. We need to strategize on improving these attachment rates and how to position offers like Munchies Under $4 as valuable add-ons. The goal of introducing the $5 Big Meal Deal alongside our limited-time offers is to entice customers to visit and consider upgrading their choices.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dennis Geiger with UBS.

Dennis Geiger, Analyst

Encouraging to see the continued Jack gains on the development agreement side of things and the solid initial performance in those newer markets. But Darin, just kind of building on some of your comments, anything more to share on where franchisee sentiment broadly is with respect to development timelines? Any of the macro pressures that we spoke to, is any of that impacting timelines at all, or for the most part? Is it folks are on track, and it's all systems go broadly as we think about the development trajectory?

Darin Harris, CEO

From quarter to quarter, we continue to approve more sites. We're now at 103 sites that are in permitting and construction at Jack in the Box. So we just approved a substantial number a couple weeks ago. So we're still seeing people fill the pipeline, and we'll continue to add development agreements and sites. And so we haven't seen across the systems both at Jack or Del a decline in interest. Yes, there's natural time on some of the back end of the development agreements that may be pushed out a bit, but for the coming 18 to 24 months, we feel really, really good about the pipeline and how rapidly it's building.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Logan Reich with RBC Capital Markets.

Logan Reich, Analyst

Just sort of a follow-up on the prior question, you guys have, it looks like over or close to 400 Jack in the Box restaurants in the pipeline. I guess my question is, sort of given everything that's been happening in the macro pressures, how much visibility do you have on the next 18 to 24 months? And any sort of guidance relative to the sort of long-term guide you guys gave at the analyst day in terms of unit growth per Jack in the Box? And then separately, so that's on the franchise side, and then separately on the company-owned side, any sort of guidance you guys could give on your expected openings for next year, just given all the new markets? Just any sort of update there would be great.

Darin Harris, CEO

We will provide guidance at the next quarter for next year, but for now we remain committed to our 2027 objectives, and our long-term forecast on unit growth is still on track for the 2% we mentioned earlier. We feel even more confident based on the number of sites being submitted at both brands.

Brian Scott, CFO

Yes, I just add, at the same, just reiterating that if you look at the Investor Day presentation, we did give our roadmap to ‘27, and if you look at the fiscal ‘25 expectations between the two brands, we feel confident that we're on track to fall within that range. As we have line of sight into the following year with the number of development agreements, we feel like we're heading in the right direction for ‘26 as well. So I'd say nothing's really changed.

Darin Harris, CEO

And beyond that, just to add onto what Brian said is we're signing more development agreements every day. So we signed three new development agreements at Jack during the quarter for 28 more restaurants. Del Taco, we signed one for three restaurants, but post the quarter we've signed, I think, four for 33 more. So we continue to add development agreements, which builds the top of the funnel, which then has our team focused on then how do we get sites in process and then eventually get these locations open. And so the key here is how do we continue to drive leads, sites, and into the process so we can eventually get these restaurants open.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nick Setyan with Wedbush Securities.

Nick Setyan, Analyst

I think earlier in the year and even going into this year, there were some conversations around a more wholesale approach to value at Jack in the Box, potentially taking some learnings from Del Taco, etc. Where do you think you are now? Do you think that maybe the menu today is appropriate or do you think there's some more sort of holistic permanent change coming in the near future?

Darin Harris, CEO

We are continually seeking to innovate and find new ways to enhance both sales and profitability at the restaurant level. At both brands, we have implemented a menu simplification test, which includes aspects such as design, selection of menu items, their arrangement, and how they are paired with other items. We are receiving positive feedback from our guests. In our initial evaluations of the menu tests at Del, we are observing improvements in both sales and margins, along with significant enhancements in service speed. Therefore, we are encouraged by these trends. For Del, we are currently testing this menu simplification in three markets, and if the positive results continue, we plan to expand it in 2025, as we are seeing enough improvement in margins and sales. As for Jack in the Box, it is still too early to draw definite conclusions, but initial indications suggest we are seeing similar improvements in sales and margins with the menu simplifications we have been testing.

Operator, Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Christine Cho with Goldman Sachs.

Christine Cho, Analyst

So there were a number of big launches in new products over the last few months, as you've called out in the prepared remarks, but would you be able to share any color around the reception of these products, as well as the impact on market share in different day parts, such as late night and breakfast, as well as any color on different income cohort spending?

Darin Harris, CEO

So we definitely saw good movement. Our Smashed Jack burger platform continues to do well, mixes it over 5% of sales and is adding incremental margin, so it's really performing well. It gives us the opportunity to use it as a platform to innovate around into other items, and so we intend to do that in the next year. So we'll go on the offense with our Smashed Jack burger that is getting just rave reviews from our consumers. The late-night Cube Meal actually sold more volume than our Snoop Meal last year because it was lower. So from a tier standpoint, we had positive transactions at late night up 13.6%. So, some of these tools are working that we've rolled out. It's really the lower-income cohort that we haven't driven enough of to offset the positive things we're doing or to balance the positive things we're doing. So the Wings drove material check increases of over where our check with Wings had over $20, and we're going to run it again in the near future because it performed so well. It wasn't enough to drive us to the positive territory because, again, the low-income cohort or our breakfast, but these things that we're doing are the right things to actually move momentum. From a breakfast standpoint, we'll go permanent on our French toast sticks, and then we're also now rolling over this quarter Q4. I think this week is the first week where we will roll over the items that we eliminated from the breakfast menu, and I think that had about a 170 basis point impact on Q3 on same-store sales. Going forward, we will feature a breakfast item in all marketing windows, and then we'll continue to look for what is everyday value at breakfast. So those are the big rocks, but overall, we felt that the initiatives that we had were resonating. It's more now about how we continue to drive value in a way that the lower-income cohort will continue to visit us more frequently.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.