Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Wingstop Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Please note that this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. On the call today are Michael Skipworth, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Alex Kaleida, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to turn the conference over to Alex. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to the Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call for Wingstop. Our results were published earlier this morning and are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.wingstop.com. Our discussion today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from what we currently expect. Our SEC filings describe various risks that could affect our future operating results and financial condition. We use certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. Presentation of such information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures are contained in our earnings release. Lastly, for the Q&A session, we ask that you please each keep to one question and a follow-up to allow as many participants as possible to ask a question. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Michael.

Thank you, Alex, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call. Our first quarter results showcase the continued strength and staying power of the strategies we are executing against, and further solidify Wingstop's 'category of one' positioning. Coming off of an industry-leading year in 2023, the momentum in our business continued into our first quarter as we delivered 21.6% same-store sales growth, which was almost entirely driven by transaction growth. We opened 65 net new restaurants, a 14% growth rate. Company-owned restaurant margins were 25.5%, highlighting the effectiveness of our supply chain strategy and our best-in-class unit economics. And we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $50.3 million, representing a 45% growth rate over the prior year. As a result of the strength in our business and the strong start to the year, we are increasing our 2024 comp guidance from mid-single digits to low double-digit same-store sales growth. I am extremely proud of our team members, brand partners, and supplier partners for delivering these results and truly humbled to be part of a brand that is experiencing such unprecedented growth. And yet, we believe we have so much more growth in front of us. It's hard to believe that just a little over 2 years ago, we hosted an Investor Day and outlined our path to grow average unit volumes to $2 million from roughly $1.5 million at the time. At that Investor Day, we shared our multiyear sales-driving strategy of scaling brand awareness, expanding our delivery channel, menu innovation, and leveraging our digital guest database to fuel data-driven marketing and digital transformation. Fast forward to today, 2 years later, and our AUVs are now over $1.9 million and quickly approaching our $2 million target. And while our execution against these strategies has delivered 2 years of domestic sales growth in Q1 alone in excess of 40%, we believe we have meaningful growth in each of these strategies as we look ahead. It's an incredibly exciting time at Wingstop. As we scale toward our vision of becoming a top 10 global restaurant brand, we remain anchored in the foundation of our strategy, our people, and our culture, what we refer to as the Wingstop way. The pillars of our strategy have not changed over the years: sustaining same-store sales growth, maintaining best-in-class returns, and accelerating growth. We are very pleased with our first quarter results and excited to be measuring record levels within our brand health metrics. Importantly, we continue to measure record levels in value and quality scores, as our brand partners and team members are focused on operational excellence and delivering a great guest experience. Our disciplined approach to menu pricing is paying dividends. The consumer continues to prioritize quality and value when deciding how to spend their discretionary dollars. We believe that the indulgent Wingstop occasion delivers upon both quality and value and has us uniquely positioned, which you can see in our first quarter results, where our 21.6% comp was almost entirely driven by transaction growth. We are making great progress in closing the gap in awareness to top QSRs, but our opportunity remains meaningful. During the quarter, system-wide sales grew by 37%, which delivers additional firepower in our advertising fund to invest meaningful dollars behind our opportunity to expand brand awareness. Our increased media investment is providing new opportunities such as advertising in the NFL playoffs and becoming the presenting sponsor for the NBA's Wednesday primetime matchup, just to highlight a couple of examples. Our highly effective media strategy focused on live sports, combined with the breakthrough creative, is driving brand awareness. We are making Wingstop more top of mind and filling the top of the funnel with new guests. It's especially evident with the expansion of our digital database, which has surged to more than 40 million users. In fact, Q1 marked our highest level of new guest acquisition on record. While we are seeing growth across all cohorts and income levels, these new guests we bring into the brand demonstrate a higher frequency than our traditional guests. Yet, I believe we are just scratching the surface on the opportunity to leverage our digital database. As our restaurant AUVs expand, digital sales also continued to increase, now accounting for 68% of sales in Q1. This record level of digital sales comes at a time when we are rolling out our proprietary tech stack, MyWingstop, which we believe is an enabler to our aspirational goal of digitizing every transaction. MyWingstop has created a great deal of excitement with our brand partners and restaurant team members. I'm excited to report our rollout is on track to be completed by the end of the second quarter and early results are encouraging. The investments we are making in technology allow us to leverage our growing database and create an entirely new level of personalization with our guests, one that we believe over time will drive conversion, retention rates, and frequency. We believe the brands that will win drive the most relevant and personalized message as well as create ease of accessibility for the consumer. The database we have amassed, combined with the investments we have made in technology, provide an incredible advantage for Wingstop. Our top line sales growth and AUV expansion have strengthened the Wingstop unit economics. Brand partner returns have also been bolstered by the progress we have made against our supply chain strategy, a strategy designed to minimize volatility in food costs and create greater predictability within restaurant margins. With an AUV of $1.9 million and a low upfront investment of around $500,000 on average, our brand partners are enjoying industry-leading, unlevered cash-on-cash returns of more than 70%, which has fueled significant demand for growth. Our brand partners recognize how unique these returns are and our focus on accelerating growth, which is showing up in our development pipeline. We had a record 1,400 restaurant commitments under development agreements at the start of 2024. Brand partners are eager to put more restaurants in the ground and reinvest back into Wingstop. Our vision is to scale Wingstop into a global brand. And I've shared in prior calls how we believe our international business is supercharged for growth. There is tremendous excitement across the globe as consumers have the opportunity to experience our flavor for the first time. Same-store sales trends resemble that of the U.S. business: double-digit growth stacked on top of double-digit growth in the prior year, primarily driven by transactions. Averaging across all markets outside of the U.S., we have nearly doubled our AUV since the start of 2022. In the U.K., AUVs now exceed $2.5 million, leading our U.K. brand partner to accelerate growth and expand to more than 40 units. Our newest markets, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Korea, are executing that U.K. playbook and achieving record sales weeks. We believe our new markets are scaling awareness on a curve that draws parallel to the success we are experiencing in the U.K. The strength we're having in our global development and visibility into our pipeline gives us the confidence to increase our 2024 outlook to a range of 275 to 295 net new restaurants. This implies a unit growth rate well above our 3- to 5-year target of 10% plus. The strength of the Wingstop business and our execution against our strategy that has proven staying power continues to position us on a path to achieve our vision of becoming a top 10 global restaurant brand. I truly believe at Wingstop we have the most talented team in the industry. I want to thank the entire Wingstop team, all of our team members in the restaurants and in our global support center, our supplier partners, and our brand partners for their dedication to serving the world flavor.

Thank you, Michael. As you just heard, our first quarter results showcase the incredible momentum of the Wingstop brand, and the continued strength and focus we have in executing our strategy. We delivered 36.8% growth in system-wide sales in the first quarter, resulting in our first $1 billion quarter. Our AUV is now above $1.9 million, and we have a clear line of sight to moving past our target of $2 million. System-wide sales growth is providing us with incredible fuel in our advertising fund to invest behind our proven strategy to sustain same-store sales growth. Total revenue increased 34.1% to $145.8 million versus the prior year. Royalty revenues, franchise fees, and other revenue increased by $18.9 million in Q1, driven primarily by 276 net franchise openings since the prior year comparable period and a 21.6% increase in domestic same-store sales, primarily driven by transaction growth. Company-owned restaurant sales totaled $28.5 million in Q1, an increase of $5.5 million, primarily due to a 6.2% increase in company-owned same-store sales, driven primarily by transaction growth and 7 net new restaurants versus the prior year comparable period. Included in our company-owned restaurant portfolio is the original Wingstop, an almost 30-year-old restaurant that is one of the highest volume restaurants in the system and is comping similarly to the rest of our company-owned portfolio, a testament to the fact we haven't found a ceiling yet. Central to our strategy is maintaining our best-in-class returns. We are encouraged by the progress we have made in our supply chain strategy. As you have heard us say over the past few calls, creating predictability and minimizing volatility in our core commodity—bone-in wings—we believe this can create a flywheel for development. Working with our strategic supplier partners, we have been able to move the majority of our buy away from the spot market to provide our brand partners with more predictable food costs. Our target remains in the mid-30% food cost range, which translates to those industry-leading, unlevered cash-on-cash returns of more than 70% that Michael referenced earlier. Q1 results in company-owned restaurants showcased the effectiveness of our strategy. In an environment where the bone-in wing market increased 92% versus the prior year comparable period, company-owned restaurant food costs were in line with our target. Now moving on to SG&A. In the first quarter, SG&A increased by $1.5 million versus the prior year comparable period to a total of $25.2 million, driven by investments to support the long-term growth of the business, and an increase in performance-based stock compensation, which were partially offset by nonrecurring consulting fees in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was $50.3 million during the quarter, an increase of 45.3% versus the prior year. This was on top of the quarter in 2023 that grew by nearly 60% in the prior year. Adjusting for nonrecurring items, we delivered adjusted earnings per diluted share, a non-GAAP measure, of $0.98, a 66% increase versus the prior year. Another core tenet of our strategy is to enhance shareholder returns. Our highly franchised, asset-light model continues to deliver strong free cash flows. We are maintaining a strong cash balance that stands at over $100 million. Since our IPO, we have delivered a total shareholder return of nearly 2,500%, which clearly demonstrates our commitment to our strategy and our Category 1 position. Following the completion of our $125 million accelerated share repurchase program in the second half of 2023, we remain committed to enhancing shareholder returns through a combination of our remaining $125 million share repurchase authorization and our regular quarterly dividend program. On April 30, our Board of Directors approved a dividend of $0.22 per share of common stock, demonstrating the strength of our model. This dividend totaling approximately $6.5 million will be paid on June 7, 2024, to stockholders of record as of May 17, 2024. Now shifting to our outlook for 2024. Based on the strong start to the year, we are providing the following updates to our outlook: Domestic same-store sales growth of low double digits for fiscal year 2024, previously mid-single-digit same-store sales growth; net new restaurants between 275 and 295, previously approximately 270 net new restaurants. For modeling purposes, we also want to highlight that we anticipate our pace of openings to be weighted more towards the second half of the year based on the visibility into our pipeline at this point in the year. SG&A guidance is estimated to be approximately $111 million, previously $108 million, including an approximately $20 million of stock-based compensation expense, which was previously $19 million. Our Q1 results are a testament to the resiliency of our strategies and the focus we have to execute against our long-term vision. These results would not have been possible without the extraordinary efforts by our global support center team members, restaurant team members, brand partners, and supplier partners. We are excited by the start to the year and results that demonstrate the Category 1 we believe we operate in.

The first question today comes from David Tarantino with Baird.

Congratulations on such a strong start to the year. My question is on the brand adoption curve that you're seeing. It seems like you're attracting a very new audience to the brand with all the things that you're doing in advertising and otherwise. I just wanted to ask, Michael, if you could share some metrics on what types of new customers you are attracting, where the brand awareness is with that cohort versus maybe where it was when you began this journey, and how much room for improvement on the brand awareness do you still have relative to the top QSR brands you might have referenced earlier?

Thank you for the question. I think this is one of those really exciting components to our growth story and really what frames up the runway we have in front of us. This is a group we've talked about over the past few years when we started on this journey. This group represented roughly, say, 60% of all QSR occasions, and they had never heard of or tried Wingstop. We’ve made a lot of exciting progress with that group. They tend to be a little bit higher income, are mostly Gen Z millennials, are less likely to have kids at home, and prefer to engage with brands digitally. They actually over-index to boneless, which we really like, and they are demonstrating a higher level of frequency. We are pretty excited about this, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks; Q1 marked yet another record quarter of new guest acquisition. We have made great progress there. However, we have a huge runway still in front of us. When we look at just over the last year, the progress we've made in brand awareness, we're talking about moving a couple of percentage points. And if we compare ourselves to other more mature QSR brands out there, our runway or the gap or opportunity we have in front of us is double digits, high double digits. So it's a pretty meaningful opportunity that we have to continue to execute against, and we're excited about the progress we've made, the growth we’re seeing in system sales that fuel growth in our ad fund, allowing us to invest those dollars. We are seeing the frequency uptick a little bit. But yes, Wingstop still remains a pretty low frequency brand where we are averaging about three times a quarter, or once a month. We see a big opportunity to impact frequency over time.

The next question comes from Jeffrey Bernstein with Barclays.

You guys raised your full year '24 guidance for the comp from mid-single to low double digits. It seems like a big increase into what many have noted as a slowing macro. So I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about your level of confidence. I'm assuming, first and foremost, that's acknowledging that you've sustained momentum into April, and you haven't really seen a change in trajectory. But as long as that's the case, I'm just wondering, within your business and the metrics you track, I mean what are you looking for as a leading indicator of any kind of slowdown, whether it's mix shift changes or frequency of visitation? Just trying to assess how you would anticipate a potential slowdown? And then I had one follow-up.

We have a lot of confidence in the strength of the business. And I think we have a lot of unique, very brand-specific growth drivers that we're executing against. I mentioned the one around brand awareness, but there are several other elements to that strategy that we highlighted in our prepared remarks where we have meaningful runway against those opportunities in front of us. We feel confident in our ability to continue to execute our strategy and drive outsized growth. Q1 really is a testament to that, where you saw us deliver a pretty outsized comp to the rest of the industry that's talking about consumer pullback and a lot of concern. We delivered a 21.6% same-store sales growth that was almost entirely driven by transaction growth, which just speaks to the underlying health of the brand and the effectiveness of the strategy. As it relates to our outlook for the balance of the year, we are confident in our ability to deliver on that. Obviously, we have considered in that guide the macro backdrop and what you've heard a lot of other brands talk about regarding a cautious consumer. So we have contemplated that in our guide.

Understood. And then just as a follow-up, in terms of investing in the business, with your current 20-plus percent comp growth and a lot of that flowing through earnings and cash flow, it seems like now is the time to double down on investments to strengthen the system for many years to come. I’m just wondering if you could maybe prioritize what you think are the best returning investment priorities, whether it's the tech stack still or further supply chain investments or AI or whatnot. What would you say are the top priorities in terms of incremental investments you should be making when the cash flow is so strong?

Yes. No, thank you. And Jeff, I would say it's a little bit of yes, yes, and yes. We think those are all areas that we have a meaningful opportunity to invest. Technology, one, we feel like we're quite a bit ahead of many others. It's more than just the investments we've made in our proprietary tech stack, MyWingstop, that we're currently rolling out. But we've invested over the years in our data; in enriching our data, we believe, gives us a competitive advantage for how we place media, how we market, and lean into hyper-personalization, which MyWingstop will enable. You will see us continue to invest there. As it relates to the rest of the business, that’s a little of the beauty of our model. We have been a brand when we see an opportunity to invest; we'll put our foot on the gas and position this brand for both the long term and growth. The reality is we are an asset-light model that's generating a lot of cash flow that puts us in a position to deliver outsized shareholder returns.

The next question comes from Jim Salera with Stephens.

Congrats on the nice quarter. We noticed on the app, at least in my area, a $0.70 boneless wing special to join kind of the boneless meal deal in the all-in bundles. At a time when QSR competitors seem to be leaning more into value, can you just talk a little bit more about the strategy there? And particularly on the boneless awareness, is that promotional way to help improve the boneless mix and get it closer to kind of that 50-50 parity?

Jim, I would say our $0.70 boneless promotion that you called out on Monday and Tuesday is something that's been around for, I think, as long as I've been with the brand, which is at least 10 years, so it's not necessarily anything new. That's a day where we can promote boneless wings, and it's been successful for us over the years. However, it's not a high mix promotion by any means. I think you really hit on a point that highlights the uniqueness of Wingstop in our 'category of one' positioning: the combination of quality and operating excellence that we deliver within the four walls of the restaurant; just the attention and detail that goes into the cook-to-order, made-from-scratch nature of our products, along with our disciplined approach to pricing, has led us to see record levels in our quality and value scores quarter-after-quarter. This positions us uniquely in this environment. Consumers are choosing Wingstop when they decide to spend some of those discretionary dollars on dining out. We will continue to lean in and execute on quality and value.

Great. That's super helpful. And then if I can ask just a follow-up on some of the throughput. Given that the average unit volume has scaled so rapidly, can you just talk about what's required from kind of a back-of-the-house perspective to support that growth? And should we think about some of the stronger units as having some additional back-of-the-house investments to get to that above $2 million, $3 million AUV?

Yes, Jim, I think you just need more chicken. The reality is we haven't found the ceiling. We don't have a throughput issue within our brand, which is pretty incredible. Alex called out in his prepared remarks that the oldest restaurant in the system, which is one of the highest volume restaurants in the system and is in our company-owned portfolio, is continuing to grow transactions and comps. This highlights the capacity we have within that efficient box. The strength of our model with that low occupancy cost and small footprint means you can only fit so many bodies in the back of the house. At some point, you start to gain some nice leverage on the labor line, which I think you're seeing show up in the strength of our unit economics and the level of demand we have for brand partners for more growth.

The next question comes from Danilo Gargiulo with Bernstein.

I wanted to double down exactly on this topic of throughput. Most of your peers are focusing on expediting the service, increasing the speed of service and improving the throughput. So I'm wondering, what is the average service time today at a typical Wingstop? And what kind of levers do you think you can pull to potentially increase the speed of service without compromising on the quality of your wings?

Thank you for the question. It's actually an area that we see as an opportunity for Wingstop over the long-term. You are right; we can get faster. There are some opportunities. We have focused much of our technology investments over the years on the digital ordering experience, the consumer-facing experience. We see an opportunity to leverage technology in the back of the house over time to improve speed. However, with our low-frequency indulgent occasion, consumers are okay with the speed of service we offer today. As we look out longer-term, with these new guests coming into the brand, we do see an opportunity to work on getting faster, which we believe could help impact frequency over time, which is a big opportunity as well. Our focus right now is consistency, and we are extremely focused on operating excellence within the restaurant to deliver a great guest experience.

And a quick follow-up on the same vein. Another opportunity that you didn't mention today, but it was mentioned earlier, is expanding the relevance of tenders. How are you planning to do so? Is it a different combination of sauces, more on the consistency of the tenders, or is it about awareness? What are the specific plans you have in mind to expand the relevance of tenders?

Yes. I think tenders are a lot like chicken sandwiches, where we believe we have a unique value proposition. We can deliver an incredible product cook-to-order, but do it at a great price, which I believe will continue to differentiate us. That's the success we've had with chicken sandwiches since its launch. You're right; tenders are an opportunity for us down the road. It’s one of those levers that we can lean into and pull when the time is right, when we feel it's the right thing for the business. This does feed into our supply chain strategy as we continue to use more of the bird. As we get closer to execution around driving tender mix, which today is low single digits, there's a meaningful opportunity for us. Obviously, we'll talk about that when the time is right.

The next question comes from Sara Senatore with Bank of America.

I have a quick follow-up on an earlier question from Jeff and then a question of my own, if I may. The first is I just want to take the other side of the low double-digit comp side because I think it basically implies a sort of high single-digit run rate for the indiscernible. So again, is that more just caution? Or is it something you're seeing? I know you mentioned being cognizant of the consumer. But I just wanted to kind of understand a little bit further the dynamics there. And then I'll have a question about advertising, please.

Sara, good morning. I think our guide, I mentioned it to Jeff earlier, we remain confident in our strategy. Obviously, that had a lot to do with the guide that we issued. We are one of the few brands that's increasing their outlook for the year, much less increasing it to low double digits. However, we have been cautious and considered the macro backdrop. You can layer on top of that uncertainty around the election later this year; we have contemplated all of that and we feel really good about our ability to deliver on what we guided to. Quite frankly, when you stack it on our results from 2023, it's something we’re pretty proud of.

Got it. And then I wanted to ask about advertising. There's a sort of perception that, not only have you quantitatively seen a much bigger ad spend as your system grows, but qualitatively you talked about being in the NFL playoffs and lead sponsor of NBA primetime. It feels like this is a step change in visibility and you may have to lap them. So I guess, is that the right interpretation? Or do you feel like you still have the opportunity to have further step changes?

Yes, Sara, that's a great question. We had the exciting opportunity to show up for the first time as a brand in the NFL playoffs, which was a big deal for us. We get a lot of feedback about how many people see our spots, and they see us everywhere, which is great. However, in a weekend with four playoff games, we had one spot on two of them, with two spots that weekend. So there’s still a ton of runway for us, particularly around brand awareness. We are a long way from some point of saturation as it relates to our presence on live sports. A lot of the commentary you see is around the fact that our creative is breakthrough; it’s getting people's attention, and we are being rewarded for that, which is shown in the results.

The next question comes from Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley.

Michael, you mentioned you're sort of encouraged by the MyWingstop tech stack rollout. What's encouraged you? I mean, has it gone faster than you expected? Or are you seeing some tangible benefits of that so far? I was just curious about that.

Yes, I would say it's a few things, Brian. The excitement within our brand partner community, within the team members in the restaurant around the tool, and the functionality it provides them has far exceeded our expectations. It’s encouraging to hear. And while it's early days in the launch, it's on schedule. We're executing our plan at a very high level. However, we are seeing early results around things like conversion that are exciting for us. We believe as I mentioned earlier, this, combined with the investments we've made in our data, is an enabler for us to continue to drive our digital business and can, over time, impact frequency. So we’re pretty excited.

Okay, makes sense. What’s your development outlook for this year? Is that mainly U.S.? Or is there any part of that international or any kind of new markets that we should look forward to?

Yes. The true and honest answer is it's everywhere. I would consider a similar ratio between international and U.S. as we had in 2023.

Next question comes from Andrew Charles with TD Cowen.

My first question just to follow up on MyWingstop platform. It's been a month since the start of the launch. Michael, you mentioned that with the improved CRM efforts, it’s something that can drive greater guest frequency. I imagine it can help ticket, too, as you can mention to people things they can add to their basket. I’m curious what just needs to happen to drive guest frequency? What's the nuts and bolts of what needs to happen before realizing those check and frequency benefits?

Andrew, I would say the main thing is, once we complete the rollout of the engine, if you will, that will allow us to launch the guest ordering app and mobile web experience. That’s a big catalyst for optimizing the MyWingstop experience.

For the better-than-expected same-store sales and net restaurant growth performance in 1Q as well as the outlook for this year, this is undoubtedly going to help you lead to an ad fund surplus versus what you had budgeted at the end of the year. Is the plan to deploy this surplus in 2024? Or would you rather hold off this deploying to '25 to help you lap just another robust year?

Yes. I don’t think we have any plans around building a surplus. As I mentioned earlier to Sara, there’s just a ton of opportunity and headroom for us to continue to lean into a strategy that's working. That’s exactly what you'll see us do. We believe we have a ton of momentum in the brand and to take these ad dollars and use them to continue to expand AUVs and enhance brand partner unit economics will further fuel the flywheel we’re creating here.

The last question today comes from Chris O'Cull with Stifel.

I had a question about international markets. Are there any international markets where development has slowed or you've run into issues? Also, have current events altered the progress of signing new agreements? If you could talk a little bit about the commitments, I know you mentioned the overall commitments from franchisees, but what about the commitments in the pipeline for international development?

Chris, I would actually say it's quite the opposite. Raj and I had dinner a few weeks ago with our partner for Canada, just to highlight an example. That conversation over dinner centered around how happy they were with the returns and how the brand was resonating. We discussed how we could go faster, moving beyond their current development agreement of approximately 100 restaurants, as Canada is a much larger opportunity than that. We’re encouraged by how the brand is resonating globally. I wouldn’t say any geopolitical or unrest around the globe is impacting our progress or interest from parties looking to grow with the brand. We actually believe we’ll have a few new deals to talk about in the coming quarters that we're pretty excited about. This could further grow and strengthen our pipeline of commitments.

Will these deals be direct franchise to franchise relationships with you, or are you looking at master arrangements?

Yes, I would say, generally speaking, Chris, they're all direct. I think using the U.K. as a great example, we have AUVs north of $2.5 million. There’s no need for us to dilute our economics on that, and so we’re looking to just be direct.

This concludes our question-and-answer session and concludes the conference call today. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.