Okay. Welcome again, everyone. I'm Brian Harbour. I cover restaurants and food distributors here at Morgan Stanley. Thank you for joining us. Now we're joined by The Cheesecake Factory. David Gordon is President. Matt Clark is CFO. Thank you, guys, for being here.
Our pleasure.
Appreciate it. So, I'll always start with the bigger picture question, I guess. How would you sort of, you know, characterize the demand and operating environment right now as you see it? It, you know, is this sort of a new normal? And as you sit here today, do you think it can be better in 2025? We have seen sort of below-trend growth, I think, in 2024. And so, you know, what are the key drivers of that in 2025 as you see it now?
What was the question?
I think our thesis all along has been that 2024 would be the most normal year since the pandemic. I think that has played out, absolutely. I mean, our traffic at Cheesecake has been very consistent, right around flat all year. Business trends have been very predictable, very consistent. The input cost, the labor environment, it all feels pretty good, Brian, to be honest. I think some people have talked about, like, the middle of the year, there was maybe a little bit of decline in the environment in July. I think our thesis was that was a lot of optics, lapping a really tough comp. You have to take into consideration multi-year stacks. Really, since that point in time, I think it's been an upward trajectory.
Some of the inputs there would be that wage growth has outpaced inflation as inflation has come down and wages continue to be, you know, mid-single digits. And I think the consumer now can afford what they did last year or more, right? So going into 2025, I think that's a pretty positive backdrop, right? So we've seen really good trends in our own business. And I think that's augmented by the fact that consumers are probably in a slightly better spot than they have been in a while. And those are positive tailwinds.
Yeah. And I mean, you have given us some guidance into next year, right? So it's fair to say that you're sort of assuming recent trends continue, you know, as you think about both fourth quarter and then into 2025. Is that fair at this point?
I think that's a very safe assumption.
Okay. Sounds good. Maybe we talk about some of your sales drivers, specifically, and of course, so, you know, for Q, kind of continuing recent trends for the most part for Cheesecake. Anything around sort of, like, the holidays in your view that we should be mindful of? Maybe just sort of a near-term comment.
I think the holidays, generally, we're anticipating to continue to be very stable for us. There's not really that much of a shift other than New Year's Day moving into Q1 of next year that would have any impact. But that's already in our plan, for this year and for next year, so the stability we've seen coming into Q2, Q3, certainly we feel very positive about. Just to touch on some of the sales drivers that you asked about earlier, I think we're still continuing to be pleased with our rewards program, which is now, it's about a year, eight, 16 months in, fully rolled out across the country, and thus far, it seems to be very successful. As you know, it's not a traditional program. It's published and unpublished rewards. It's not a points-based program.
It's really published rewards driven around reservations, access to reservations at Cheesecake Factory. So some of what we believe our lift has been probably a little bit contributed to from the rewards program.
Yeah.
And our operators have just done a terrific job over the past 12 months with the stability we've seen in the labor market, our best-in-class retention. I think our restaurants are operating as well as they have historically, if not better even than 2019. And we're taking market share from, I think, the rest of casual dining and some of the independents as well.
Okay. As we go into next year for the Cheesecake brand specifically, do you, you know, what else are kind of the key drivers as you see it? Will rewards play more of a role? Is there anything sort of in store that you're particularly focused on as sort of a sales driver as we go into next year?
Great execution, wonderful hospitality, and delicious food has always been the hallmark of Cheesecake Factory. We're gonna continue to drive that level of focus for the operators, to ensure that the experiential dining that we offer is something that is craveable for the consumer and continues to exceed guest expectations. That's just the fundamentals for Cheesecake every day.
Yeah.
Rewards certainly will continue to be a big part of where we believe we can pull some levers in a one-to-one relationship with our guests. We now have acquired a lot of data about people. We know their behaviors. We hadn't known that historically. So if we wanna drive incrementality to a specific day part, we can do that now. We now know whether or not you've only come at dinner for the past 12 months. And if we wanna try and drive some activity from you at lunch, we can now promote to you lunch awareness. And perhaps if you don't decide to come, just based on the awareness, even a promotion. Could be a slice of cheesecake if you spend $30 or more type of promotion, that type of activity. So, having the data we have today, I think, is a lever that we haven't had historically.
Yeah.
That we will be able to strategically use throughout 2025.
Mm-hmm. Have you done any of that yet, or you're just at the stage where you're?
We're just at the stage now where we're just starting to do that.
Okay. Got it.
Just to add on, on that from David, though, like, if you think about the execution side, you know, NPS scores are at an all-time high for us. And for the rewards members, they're 10 points higher than that.
Mm-hmm.
That's a great leading indicator for us. So we tend to get a tail when we drive the execution, we drive guest satisfaction. So that is a real sales driver, and it tends to pay dividends in the future.
Yeah.
What's driven that primarily? Is it just labor stability, or this is something that, like, you've really focused on with your managers?
Labor stability certainly has been a benefit. You know, we're, our attrition rates are best in class historically.
Mm-hmm.
Right now, they're at all-time lows. Retention's at an all-time high, and that's at the hourly level and at the management level, so coming out of the pandemic, we sort of had a focus on back-to-basics restaurant, great operations. Our general managers' conference last year was really focused on getting those operators back to all the systems and processes that have been the hallmark of Cheesecake for so many years.
Mm-hmm.
I think we did that really well last year. The stability we've seen over the past 12 months has led to great execution. That's where those all-time high NPS scores are coming from.
Mm-hmm.
Great stability, great execution, higher productivity, lower overtime, lower training costs in the restaurants, all a product of that lower attrition.
Do you have any numbers you can throw at us in terms of, like, wait times, sort of, like, any of that that would help bring that to life?
We don't really share wait times. You're welcome to come in on Saturday and check them out.
I can measure it, actually.
Or you can join rewards and make a reservation. You won't have to wait at all. But I would just say that throughput is good as it's been.
Okay.
Productivity is really at sort of record highs.
Mm-hmm.
We have more people cross-trained today than we've had historically, so they can work on multiple stations on the line, which leads to better productivity.
Mm-hmm. Do you, do you think that the sort of the mix part, I know mix is partly, you know, channel mix shift, right? But it's also just sort of, like, customer behavior. Do you think that changes as much as we go into next year?
No. I mean, for us, it's kind of a unique story. For the Cheesecake brand, the mix really, over the past four years, went up and then came back down relative to party size. Parties of two buy about 20% more than a party of six or eight, and during the pandemic, we definitely saw smaller parties coming in, right? There was social distancing. If you think about attachment more traditionally and you compare it based on those cohorts, we're at or above 2019 levels for Cheesecake sales, for alcohol sales. It's been remarkably consistent and steady.
How is the pickup and delivery channel done? Is it sort of status quo at this point, or, you know, I mean, do you wanna lean into that? You of course just have DoorDash, right? And I think you've still been happy with that arrangement.
Yeah.
Talk about that.
We've been at a 21% off-premise sales mix now for quarter after quarter, probably six quarters in a row now.
Mm-hmm.
So it's very, very stable. Of that mix, about 40% of that 21% is delivery, which, to your point, is exclusive through DoorDash. That continues to be a very valuable relationship for us. It means that we only take about 2%-3% pricing on our delivery, which is a competitive advantage, certainly. We have great marketing through the DoorDash channel. DoorDash has fully integrated the rewards program, so you can redeem rewards or sign up for the program directly through DoorDash. So that channel's remained very, very consistent, partly, I think, because of the value proposition of Cheesecake Factory and off-premise, right? It's a very large portion. You can feed a family of four with two entrees and an appetizer, complimentary bread, and you're paying about $20 a person for your family.
And you know, to get a burrito these days with extra protein delivered is about $20. So the value is there, and it's great quality. So I would anticipate that level of off-premise is sustainable for the long term.
Okay. How about kind of your pricing philosophy as we go into next?
Long term, our pricing philosophy is really to offset inflation, right? We don't view it as a margin driver, but I think it's the balance. Like, we always talk about, you know, the Fed has a dual mandate on employment and inflation. For us, it's guest traffic and its margins, so we really look at being middle of the road. We do our own internal pricing analysis where we look at about two dozen national competitors, and now it's up to, like, 70 markets, and they run from fast casual to fine dining because The Cheesecake Factory has the no-veto, really wide demographic, and we typically target to be in the middle of that range, right? So I think as long as we maintain that position, then our value proposition that David was talking about is sustained.
Because keep in mind, too, it's not just what you do, it's what you don't do. And during the pandemic, we didn't take anything away from the guest. We kept the large portion sizes. We kept our incredibly large menu. We didn't take any labor out of the service equation of it, right? So we feel like we've probably actually extended that value proposition. I actually think some of your research recently maybe pointed to that as well. So we feel good about where that's at. And we'll continue with that disciplined approach on the pricing.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Makes sense. Do you skew higher-end than many of your peers, right? And I think actually sort of the aspirational customer, though, has been kind of, like, a weak spot for the industry. I mean, have you seen that as well where the lower-end customer has been a problem for you as well or not? Is sort of, like, the experience of it still a draw? And maybe talk about that a bit.
I think that steady state we talked about earlier is across all the cohorts, whether it's somebody who's coming one to two times a year, that more aspirational guest, or a best guest who's coming 10-12 times a year. People, when they think about where to celebrate, Cheesecake Factory's built for celebrations. We can handle large parties all over the restaurant, right? Parties up to 20-30 people. We're built to be able to execute that so when they do decide maybe that they wanna come out for that celebration, whether it's a birthday or an anniversary, and spend a little bit more, Cheesecake fits that need state really, really well, and we haven't really seen that guest or celebrations decline or that aspirational guest trail off at all.
Okay.
This is kind of a funny anecdote. My son worked at a Cheesecake Factory over the summer. I helped get him that job. But he was a host, and he would come home, and it would be funny, like, on a Friday or Saturday night, and he would talk about how many bar mitzvahs or quinceañeras and, you know, like, how the restaurant would, you know, work to fit them all in. And so it, I think we've definitely seen that component of it, really sustain, if not flourish.
Okay. Good. North Italia, where do you think comps sort of run there? And I guess, you know, you're also building a lot, right? So could you maybe talk about sort of the impact of new units as we look at top line for North Italia?
I think that's a great way to talk about it, Brian, actually, because part of it is that we know that most North Italia locations ramp over time, right? Whereas Cheesecake Factory typically opens at, like, 150% of steady state sales, North Italia would most of the time open about 70%, right? So what we saw kind of from the comp over the past year or two is that during the pandemic, we didn't open as many locations, and so you didn't have as many coming through that cycle and posting positive traffic. Mature locations are gonna be, you know, roughly flattish pricing, maybe slightly up, but the new locations do contribute to a comp.
As we continue to ramp that back up to our 20% target for the concept, we would expect comps to move over the next year or two back into the mid-single digits with a slight positive traffic combination with the pricing.
Okay. Yeah. Makes sense. What of the other brands, right? Which of those do you think sort of has the most growth potential? I mean, is it still your expectation that AUVs kind of the blended AUV comes down there? I think that's a reflection of just which brands you're building. It's not, you know, a statement about, like, same-store AUVs, but could you talk about that? How are the same-store sales there sort of similar to the other brands? I thought you said Flower Child was actually higher, but maybe we can talk about those other brands a bit.
Sure. So, we've just to start with North. You know, North, we've said that we believe there could be up to 200 North Italia's domestically. We opened up seven this year. And with the sort of the comp run rate that Matt had mentioned earlier. And those are in some infill markets and some new markets. So that ramp-up really is dependent on whether it's a new market or not.
Okay.
Flower Child, we haven't thrown out a national number yet, but certainly could surpass that 200 number.
Mm-hmm.
And it has worked incredibly well in every new market that it's moved into. Just opened in Utah for the first time, some of the highest sales in their opening weeks of any opening that we've had thus far. And the AUVs there, roughly around $4.2 million-$4.4 million. So for fast casual, pretty, pretty strong in a 3,000-3,500 sq ft box. After that, we're still testing out Culinary Dropout as maybe the next potential vehicle that could have up to 100 units domestically. We're slowly moving into some new markets. We'll open in California for the first time.
Okay.
Next year, which will be an important test to see how well we can do in California. Next year, the openings for FRC are really centered around Culinary Dropout and The Henry, which is a concept. There, there's six of them today. We'll open a few more next year, see how well that travels. It's also a casual sit-down, sort of American brasserie type of, type of restaurant. So we really wanna test them out, decide which one we think could be a national concept before we say we're ready to launch those the way that we said we're ready to launch North and Flower Child.
Right.
Brian, just on kind of that mixed AUV you talked about, and that's true, I think, optically, like, you will see the aggregate company come down because ultimately, we will grow many more Flower Childs from here forward.
Yeah.
Than a Cheesecake Factory, right? But I think important for investors to understand is our focus is really on the unit economics.
Right.
And we believe that we can be accretive, whether it's with a Flower Child that could be 30% plus cash on cash or a North Italia at 25% plus, right? We're adding value as a total portfolio company rather than thinking about it independently because of the synergies that we're creating from the size and the scale that we have, whether it's in supply chain or people or the back office. And so we have sufficient capital to grow each one of those so long as they're developing and providing the returns for our investors.
Right. Have you said what the AUVs are for those other couple brands you just mentioned?
We haven't.
Okay.
No.
Maybe at some point. Okay. I think that,
It's Culinary Dropout. We have said, you know, roughly around $10 million AUVs.
We have, right?
Yeah.
Okay. Are some of those co-located with other brands that are already there so you sort of know the site well, at least?
They can be. Really just depends on the site. You know, our strategy is always a site-dependent strategy where we're only gonna look for the best sites. Some of those may be where there is a Cheesecake Factory already in North Italia. It could be a new project. I think when you think about the development pipeline, one of the reasons we feel strong that it continues to be very positive is that landlords are excited about all of the brands under the entire portfolio and that you could have a new build somewhere that has a Flower Child, a North Italia, and a Cheesecake Factory in it, or a Culinary Dropout, a Henry and a Flower Child. So, I think that's part of our strength of the development pipeline is being able to have such a strong portfolio of unique experiential dining.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Maybe let's talk about the margin side a little bit. So, you know, I mean, you, you were able to show good store margin upside this year, right? And, and certainly, a lot of that was food, but, what else do you think kind of helped with that, right? Waste, I think, was mentioned. You did, you said, you know, productivity, but what were sort of, you know, the key drivers of that?
I think it starts and ends with people, right? We've definitely seen, I think as we've talked about, retention is at an all-time best. It really started to improve actually about five or six quarters ago, and it sequentially improved every single quarter since the middle of 2023, and we're actually better than pre-pandemic, right? That drives a lot of a virtuous cycle within a very complex, big restaurant, right? We're talking about lower overtime costs, lower training costs, better productivity, lower waste, in addition to the better service and hospitality that our guests are getting. Certainly, you know, we originally guided to, I think, 50-75 basis points on the four-wall. We're probably gonna be north of 100 this year. The delta is primarily in that later category.
Mm-hmm.
and I think that provides a good tailwind for next year as we think about lapping over. If we just hold where we're at today, we're gonna reap some of those benefits in the first three quarters of next year 'cause we're in a better spot than we were this year.
Yeah. Okay. As you think about sort of further upside in 2025, I mean, how, you know, how conservative do you feel that is based on what you're expecting for inflation, you know, what other initiatives sort of help there?
Yeah. I mean, I think we've tried to take a conservative bent overall with expectations given that the environment this year wasn't superlative, right? And so I think that's been a good course of action for us. And certainly, it depends on whether we see the labor environment remain as stable as it has been and a continued flight to quality. But I think we feel like we're really in control of the business, and we'll be able to pivot if need be, right? So overall, I think we have a range of opportunities, and we're trying to exceed them.
You did also specify sort of low to mid-single digit inflation overall. I mean, could you talk about some of the different pieces of that, what you see as more pressure and what could be more?
Yeah. I mean, commodities might be a tick higher for us specifically going into next year, particularly around the dairy and the cocoa.
Mm-hmm.
You know, certainly, we sell a lot of chocolate cheesecakes, right? And so that's a unique contribution to it, but it's still manageable. Like, we're talking about this year being one to two, and maybe next year is two to three, right? So within that range, and as long as that we're able to contract sufficiently as we have been in the past, it's not something that we're concerned about. We're just adjusting for it. I think labor, on the other hand, could be slightly less than this year and maybe an offset, right? And I think to cap it off, we've finally gotten to the point where that other OpEx line is steady and predictable, right? We may not get leverage in it, but at least it's where we want it to be.
And, you know, the trades have settled down a little bit for the time being in the R&M category. And so again, I kinda go back to, you know, every week we open up the pro forma, and it looks equal or better than we thought. So the business is really in control.
Okay. How did new units play into that, mix of new units or 'cause Cheesecake does run at higher margins, obviously, but how does that sort of affect next year?
As we open more, it's not incrementally too much more, so I think that the ramp-up is sort of already incorporated in that. But certainly, if you think about, like, actually Flower Child margins are better than Cheesecake's today.
Yeah.
So it's a balance and pretty neutral overall, to us. And we also hope to continue working towards that balance cadence of the new unit openings that we were able to achieve this year. So if we can get more of them opened in the first half, then certainly that will help as well, right? 'Cause we'll get more productive months out of those units in the back half of the year. So overall, right now, we feel it's pretty neutral.
I, I guess broadly, what's kind of the biggest opportunity versus where you think you should be, right? And thinking about some of the other brands too, is it, you know, labor efficiency or what's sort of, like, out of whack there versus what you think is sort of the eventual margin opportunity?
I wouldn't say anything's out of whack. I think that there's an opportunity in people practices at all of the other concepts, and improved retention at all the other concepts that could be meaningful to them because they too would then have the ability to be reducing overtime, be more productive.
Yeah.
You know, historically, at Cheesecake Factory, our people development skills and our ability to retain staff and managers above industry averages have always benefited us. These other concepts haven't had that.
Yeah.
So the more that we put some of those practices in place, an example of that would be at Cheesecake Factory. We have something called Cheesecake Factory Institute.
Mm-hmm.
Where we bring about 100 managers a few times a year to our corporate office and do learning modules with them, help them understand what our operating standards are, talk about our culture. We're doing that for the first time with north this year, in about a week. So the more of those type of practices we put in place, they'll also help us with the ramp-up of being able to be prepared with the right type of leadership for all the new restaurant openings that are coming up, whether that's for Flower Child or for north. So I think that's probably a big area of opportunity. Supply chain will continue to be something that we will explore. And we've made good progress at Flower Child with supply chain and at north. I think the rest of the FRC concepts can benefit from our supply chain scale as well.
and our teams are doing a terrific job of slowly incorporating what we think are the right type of products into some of those concepts without taking anything away from what the concept traditionally has been.
Right. And certainly, if the environment continues like it is now on, on more of a slightly upward trajectory for the consumer, mix normalizes, traffic is flat, all of our concepts get another one, two, or three points of comp, that's the best leverage you can get, right? And so you've got things internally that are running right. And so if we continue with the external component in the way that it's at, I think that there's a lot of good opportunity.
Okay. Makes sense. We talked a little bit about new store development, but, maybe we can focus on that. I mean, you'll, you, can probably get to your 7% unit growth target next year, right? You're a little bit short of that this year, but, but can hopefully accelerate. And is that sort of, you know, you're very confident in that going forward? Would you surpass it if you start to sort of, I don't know what your development team's capacity is for that, but, if you, if you start to lean into some of these other brands more?
I think the people part of it is really crucial.
Yeah.
So we can find the sites, and we have the capital to build them, but you have to have the right leadership in place to be able to execute. So that's sort of why we put our own internal limiter of about 20% unit growth on any individual concept.
Mm-hmm.
You know, they're complex businesses. The full-service restaurants at North Italia, we're making everything fresh from scratch. It's not a simple concept to operate, it's certainly not a Cheesecake Factory, but it's still relatively complex, and Flower Child, for a fast casual, is definitely more complex than your traditional assembly line bowl type of concept.
Right.
Having the right type of leader, general manager, executive chef in those restaurants is really important.
Mm-hmm.
So the development stuff I talked about earlier is part of making sure that we have that right type of leadership in place. And over time, if that continues to develop well, could we accelerate from 7%? Possibly. That's certainly not in the near term.
Right. With those other brands, what do you sort of like reach a certain threshold and you say, "Okay, this is working really well. We're gonna lean into it," versus do some of them get sold off, for example, if you don't think that they're or close down if you don't think that they kinda have broader growth potential?
I think in the longer term, I think that's potential, right? I mean, right now, today, the ecosystem is working really, really well. You know, obviously, we're not gonna be operating restaurants that don't provide positive cash flow. So that's just a non-starter. If the lease comes up and it's not, we would just close it down as we have in recent history, and I think if you extend it out over the next three to five years, you're gonna have some winners that do present themselves. We will lean into those more, and the others will either support that or could go away.
Yeah.
And that would be fine, right? I mean, and think about the 7%, right? That's in today's environment, but as North Italia, Flower Child, maybe a Culinary Dropout progress and become bigger and can open at 20% unit rates, that number could go up, right?
Yeah.
It could accelerate the unit growth rate.
Makes sense. Is the mix of brands likely similar next year to what you saw this year?
Yeah, very similar. Three to five Cheesecake Factory.
Yeah.
Seven to eight Flower Child, same for North Italia, and the rest comprised of FRC.
Do you think the unit potential for North Italia and Flower Child, you said it was 200 each?
200 for North. We haven't said for Flower Child.
Yeah.
But certainly could exceed that 200.
That or more, yeah. And, have you said it recently for Cheesecake? I mean, you still build a few a year, right?
We do.
I don't know if you said.
We said 300 domestically.
Right.
For Cheesecake. We're at 216.
Yeah.
So still plenty of runway. And, if we had more great sites for Cheesecake, we certainly could open more than three to five a year. And as those sites come about, we just evaluate that annually.
Yeah. Okay. Matt, you said you sort of answered this, but what, like, returns on some of the other brands, where are those today and, like, new store productivity on those other brands?
Yeah. So Flower is 30% or north of that for the cash-on-cash. The, as I said, the margins are actually ahead of Cheesecake, and we target about two-to-one sales to investment. So it's in a really good spot. North is about 25% cash-on-cash compared to Cheesecake being at 20%, so it's still accretive. And again, we're looking at that at the three-year, you know, mature level for those. And so all in all, we feel like we're creating value on an incremental ROIC basis. And, you know, it, it's really about making sure that we keep all of the things that have kind of come together at this point moving forward in a positive way.
Yeah. Okay. Any other closures that you would expect 'cause you did have one or two this year, I believe, on the chain?
Yeah. A couple that were sort of, I mean, very unique, but I, what I have been saying is, you know, you should expect at least one or so, particularly where Cheesecake is at. We do have leases that come up, and if the trade area has moved and things like that, we will consider that, but that's kind of in the ballpark. It's not gonna be a lot, but it could be one or two a year.
Okay. Makes sense. Let me just talk about your balance sheet a little bit. What, where any changes to your debt structure you'd expect, kind of like leverage target. I think you've also talked a little bit about, you know, using the convert market. Is that still sort of your intention going forward?
Yeah. When the board has had the conversations and we've talked to investors, I think both of those have come together to say, you know, about one-time funded debt is kind of the comfort level and the optimal capital structure. And we think about that, obviously, on a cash basis with it excludes the equity comp and some of those pieces. And so next year, we think we'll be pretty close to that, right? So that seems good. And we have liked the convert. I think the economics are attractive for us. So the board is currently considering rolling that in the middle of next year, let's say, if the opportunity in the market continues to be positive.
And if we kind of bundle that together with what's currently sitting on the revolver, we actually think it could be neutral to slightly positive, from an EPS perspective. So, good opportunity to be in a good spot with the cash flow we're generating. We're actually very attractive to those investors today, and sort of a unique unicorn in that space. And so that's likely to be our path.
Okay. For your capital budget next year, I mean, obviously, building new units is what it is. Any other specific projects in there or sort of like increases that you'd expect?
We have a little bit in there for the third bakery that we've started. We did close on the purchase. We don't expect doing significant amounts of work, so it's not material at this point in time. And certainly, we'll provide more perspective once we get a little farther into that project. And of course, if we think about sort of the totality of capital allocation, you know, we really focus on accretive new unit growth as being the priority and then obviously maintaining the dividend.
Mm-hmm.
And then, you know, we want to at least offset the equity comp with share repurchases. And like I said, if we combined, I think that the debt piece of it, rather than pay it down materially, we would get a benefit just by creating synergies between a new convert and the existing revolver.
Okay. Was your expectation that if, you know, you had, obviously, you got the dividend, you have your capital budget, and then just sort of increased buybacks would be the rest of it next year?
Yeah. For sure. I mean, we're bullish on our stock. We've been buyers of it, over time, and as we continue to expand our margins, we'll have more opportunity to do that.
Yeah. Okay. But I mean, are there any U.S. policy issues that you're particularly engaged on or care about at this point or that affect your planning, you know, for the next couple of years?
I think we care about all of them. You know, we always have. I don't know that there's anything in the near term that we haven't been through before. So I guess I would start with that, right? So whether it's a tariff outlook or what might happen with minimum wage somewhere, those are all things in our 45-plus year history that we've been through before. We know how to react to if we have to.
Yeah.
And are certainly part of our ongoing conversations all of the time. So we'll wait and see and what happens. Sometimes what's said is not what actually materializes over time.
Yeah.
So we'll see what the next few months bring.
We have a saying, "We like to control, we control in the four walls," right? And we've been through many, many administrations, good times and bad times. And, I think David said it right. We know how to operate in any conditions.
Right. Okay. Great. Maybe let's finish with the lightning round questions quickly that I've asked of everyone. Just thinking about demand backdrop for the year ahead relative to recent trends, would you expect it to accelerate, hold, decelerate?
I think it will accelerate, given the wage and inflation dynamic that we talked about and the job market continues to be robust and interest rates have come down. I mean, all of those are all positive signals, and I think we've seen, you know, most of the Restaurant Index data that came out for October says the same thing.
In margins for the year ahead, up, down, neutral?
I think we'll have better margins, for us specifically. I think all of the, the tailwinds from the work that we've been doing combined with that better consumer environment, is an optimal scenario for continued margin expansion.
Okay. And then, we talked about this bit, but capital allocation prioritization between CapEx, buybacks, dividend, debt paydown, any of those moving up or down and important?
We're gonna open more restaurants, so we're definitely leaning into value creation through accretive unit growth, and so we'll continue to put CapEx to work, to build long-term EBITDA growth, which we think creates value for our shareholders, but we will also pursue those other opportunities I mentioned with the balance sheet, which I think will also be accretive to our current shareholders.
Okay. Great. I think that's all I've got. So, David, Matt, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Brian. It's a pleasure.
Thank you very much.