Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Dine Brands Global Conference Call to Discuss The Company's First quarter 2022 Financial Results. At this time, all participants have been placed in listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Eli Newbrun-Mintz, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead.
Operator?
Good morning, and welcome to Dine Brands First Quarter Conference Call. I'm joined by John Peyton, CEO, Vance Chang, CFO, Jay Johns, President of IHOP, and John Cywinski, President of Applebee's. Before I turn the call over to John, please remember our safe harbor regarding forward-looking information. During the call, management may discuss information that is forward-looking and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results to be different than those expressed or implied. Please evaluate the forward-looking information in the context of these factors, which are detailed in today's press release and 10-Q filing. The forward-looking statements are as of today and assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements. We may also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are described in our press release and also available on Dine Brands' investor relations website.
I would like to highlight that all references to same-restaurant comparable sales will be relevant to the prior- year. We will no longer disclose comp sales relative to 2019 or 2020. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.
Thanks, Ken, and good morning, everyone. On behalf of John, Jay, and Vance, thanks for joining us for our First Quarter Earnings Call. Q1 was a strong quarter with great results, and that's because our bold choices and smart investments are paying off. We're accomplishing so much, especially in this challenging environment. That's thanks to our focus on execution and innovation. I'm so glad many of you could attend our Investor Day in March, and based on the feedback we've heard, that you see strength in our growth plan and the way our leadership team is aligned. Now turning to Q1, this morning I'll cover our perspective on the macroeconomic environment, our results for the quarter, and our key initiatives for the rest of the year. We continue to operate in an environment of headwinds and tailwinds, as I described last quarter.
During the quarter, IHOP and Applebee's both posted positive comp sales and on-premise sales volume continues to recover. It appears for now that customer behavior remains a tailwind. We didn't see a significant decline in traffic or off-premise business due to inflation or gas prices last quarter. We continue to closely monitor the effect of the macroeconomic environment on customer behavior. We benefit from the fact that year-to-date average CPI inflation for food away from home continues to trail CPI inflation for food at home. In a world with many dining options, this is favorable for Applebee's and IHOP because both brands are strongly positioned in the value segment. Finally, understaffed hours due to challenges in recruiting labor remain an upside when all restaurants are able to return to 2019 hours of operations. At the same time, headwinds still persist.
Supply chain disruptions, food and fuel inflation, labor supply, all accelerated by the war in Ukraine. Nationwide, staffing remains at about 90% of full capacity. This prevents restaurants from achieving full hours of operations and can slow table turns. We're working with franchisees to test front and back of house technologies that address labor productivity while also enhancing the guest experience. Regarding the cost of food ingredients at the restaurant level, we expect inflation of about 13%-16% in 2022. That's why in this environment, our purchasing co-op's first priority is to secure supply and lock in pricing contracts whenever possible. We've assembled a cross-functional team, including the co-op, our suppliers and distributors, our culinary beverage and operations teams, and our franchisees to aggressively pursue ideas to mitigate the impact on costs.
This cross-functional team has already identified about 140 cost mitigation opportunities. Examples include to-go packaging, in-restaurant beer distribution systems, server tablets, high-efficiency ovens, and alternate supply sources and new product specs. At the same time, we're also closely monitoring the impact of U.S. energy prices. Energy costs make up about 2.5%-4% of a restaurant's cost, depending on the region. I can tell you that approximately 40%-50% of a restaurant's energy cost is gas. Many of our franchisees lock in one- to three-year utility contracts in deregulated states, so they're protected from price increases in the short- to medium- term. I'll transition now to our Q1 results. Our performance during the quarter reflects the continued improvement in our business and the stability of our asset-light model.
Average weekly sales for Applebee's and IHOP surpassed the comparable quarter for 2021 by 15% and 19% respectively. We delivered top line growth of approximately 13%, recognizing revenue of $230 million. Gross profit increased by 9% to approximately $93 million. Adjusted EBITDA improved by 12% to $65 million. Finally, we opened 11 new restaurants globally, demonstrating that our franchisees are healthy and have an appetite for development. John and Jay will provide more details on comp sales, unit growth, and new sources of revenue. Now I'll wrap up by highlighting three of our key focus areas for the rest of the year.
First is our investments in technology to enhance the guest experience before, during, and after the meal, whether on-premise or off-premise. This includes paying at your table in our restaurants, using our apps to customize and order your meal for curbside pickup, or having our delicious food delivered through an aggregator partner. A tangible outcome of our tech investments is IHOP's new one-of-a-kind and fast-growing loyalty program, the International Bank of Pancakes. The program is enabled by Dine's investment in technology that supports both brands and is a great example of the benefits of our scale. Second, we're continuing to introduce new restaurant formats. Flip'd, a fast casual version of IHOP, order ahead pickup windows for Applebee's, and the new Applebee's prototype are all examples of how our teams are working with our franchisees to evolve our restaurants to meet changes in consumer behavior while continuing to optimize unit economics.
Third, we're investing in disruptive new growth channels such as virtual brands and ghost kitchens. The key idea here is that we can drive substantial incremental revenue with low commitments of capital. Ghost kitchens, for example, allow us to serve new markets or trade areas where the cost to build is prohibitive. For example, Applebee's and IHOP opened a total of 10 new international ghost kitchens in Q1, including our 29th overall ghost kitchen, which opened in the Philippines. We also recently announced our new partnership with Just Kitchen in the Taiwan market. Virtual brands enable us to lean into specific day parts. In addition to Cosmic Wings, IHOP is testing two virtual brands, Thrilled Cheese and Super Mega Dilla, which are now available in 280 restaurants, up from approximately 80 in February, and both are available in 13 markets.
Today, I'm bullish that our long-term strategy of bold choices and smart investments is working. Because while we protected our financial health as well as the health of our franchisees, we remain focused, nimble, and steadfast in the execution of our plans. The successful execution of our strategy is delivering tangible results as we enter 2022 stronger than ever and poised to own the upswing. With that, I'll turn it over to Vance to discuss the details of our financial performance.
Thank you, John. Well, the execution of our long-term strategy and guest-focused actions continued to deliver solid results for the first quarter. On the top line, consolidated revenues rose 13% in Q1 versus the prior- year, driven by strong franchise revenues, which grew 14% to $161.2 million compared to $141 million for the same quarter of 2021. The improvement was due to a strong comp sales growth at both brands. Excluding advertising revenues, franchise revenues increased 13%. Rental segment revenues for the first quarter of 2022 improved by 10% to $28.8 million compared to $26.1 million for the same quarter of 2021. The favorable variance was mostly the result of franchisees' higher retail sales, which drove higher percentage rental income for the quarter.
For our company restaurant operations, sales increased approximately 10% to $39.4 million for the first quarter, compared to $35.9 million for the same period of last year. This was mainly due to an increase in customer traffic from changes in operating capacity of the restaurants during the quarter. G&A for the first quarter of 2022 was $41.5 million, compared to $39.9 million for the same quarter of last year. The variance was primarily due to increases in travel expenses, personnel-related costs, and professional services as we return to normal franchisee supporting activities. We anticipate our investment in G&A to further increase in Q2 through Q4 of this year as we continue to execute our strategy to unlock and support long-term sustainable growth.
As an update, we are tracking in line with our full- year G&A guidance range of between $188 million - $198 million, including non-cash stock-based comp and depreciation of approximately $30 million. For the first quarter of 2022, consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $65.2 million, compared to $58.1 million for the same quarter of 2021. The increase was primarily due to the gross profit improvement in our business, as I just discussed. Finally, adjusted EPS for the first quarter was $1.54 compared to adjusted EPS of $1.75 for the same period of 2021.
The variance was primarily due to a $10 million delta in income tax expense between the two quarters as we return to a normal effective tax rate in Q1 of 2022 versus the significant tax benefit that we received during the same quarter of last year, partially offset by a $7.5 million increase in gross profit. Turning to the statement of cash flows. We had adjusted free cash outflow of $10.1 million for the first quarter of 2022, compared to inflow of $30.7 million for the same quarter of last year, driven primarily by cash from operations. Cash used from operations for the first quarter of 2022 was $7.8 million compared to cash provided from operations of $30.6 million for the same period of 2021.
The variance in cash flow was primarily due to a change in working capital. In Q1 of 2021, our cash flow benefited from the one-time collection of franchisee deferral fees, which we had granted during the initial phase of the pandemic. In Q1 of 2022, our cash flow reflected payments for a larger performance incentive compensation earned in 2021 versus the year prior, as well as larger marketing expenses incurred in Q4, but paid in Q1. CapEx for the first quarter of 2022 was $5.3 million compared to $2.4 million for the same quarter of 2021. We also repurchased common stock of $41.6 million and paid dividends of $14.6 million for the quarter, which I will touch on in more details later.
We finished the first quarter with total unrestricted cash of $294.7 million. This compares to unrestricted cash of $361.4 million at the end of the fourth quarter. With our current levels of cash on the balance sheet and the borrowing capacity available under our credit facility, we're confident in our ability to maintain our financial flexibility and ample liquidity. Even with returning $56 million back to shareholders during the quarter, our leverage ratio continues to stay healthy. As of Q1, it was 4.05 x compared to 3.86 x in Q4. Now I'll provide a summary of our capital allocation for the first quarter.
We remain committed to returning cash to shareholders, as evidenced by a 15% increase in our first quarter cash dividend of $0.46 per share, which was paid on April 1. Additionally, we purchased 588,108 shares for approximately $41 million in the first quarter of 2022 at a weighted average price of $70.45 per share. We will continue to use share repurchases as a key part of our overall strategy to deploy excess cash and increase total shareholder return over time. Lastly, I will confirm that we're still tracking to our previously announced financial performance guidance in G&A, CapEx, development and EBITDA for 2022. To close, Q1 was a great start to 2022.
Building from our very strong finish to 2021, we're confident that our bold choices and disciplined investments will support long-term growth. With that, I'll turn it over to John Cywinski, who will share more on the Applebee's business. John.
Thank you, Vance, and good morning, everyone. Applebee's business momentum continued in Q1 with a 14.3% increase versus Q1 of last year and a 26.2% two-year increase versus Q1 of 2020, representing our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year comp sales growth. In the face of Omicron, January comp sales were up 17.6% versus 2021, February sales were up 25.1%, and to close out the quarter, March comp sales were up 5.5% versus Applebee's very strong March of 2021. From a Q1 black box perspective, we slightly trailed the CDR category on comp sales versus last year, but this requires additional context given Applebee's substantial overperformance in 2021 and very favorable two-year and three-year comp sales results.
Given the inter-quarter COVID mismatches from both this year and last year, it may be helpful to focus on absolute dollar volumes for a true indication of brand performance. Let's start with last year's record-setting volumes of $50,500 per week as a baseline. Given Omicron's impact to start the year, weekly sales dropped to $46,800 in January. Volumes then accelerated to $54,800 in February and $57,600 in March, driven by organic demand as well as peak seasonality. It's worth noting that March represents Applebee's highest weekly sales volumes on record under Dine ownership. Additionally, this momentum continues to be reflected among key brand attributes where Applebee's leads the category on affordability, menu variety, convenience, to-go awareness, delivery awareness, and overall brand awareness, according to our proprietary third-party tracker.
In reviewing Applebee's Q1 sales mix, 72% of our business was dine-in, 14% car-side to-go, and 14% delivery, with total off-premise sales averaging between $14,000 - $15,000 per week. Applebee's off-premise business is not only a core competency, but in 2021 it became a $1.2 billion convenience-driven business and a genuine consideration within QSR and fast casual occasions. I should also note that approximately 70% of our car-side to-go business is now digital, a combination of online orders and call center orders, which come to our restaurants digitally through our point-of-sale system. Our goal is to approach 100% digital orders by year-end, which means no more over-the-phone order taking by restaurant team members. On the delivery front, we completed Cosmic Wings virtual brand expansion to DoorDash, and we're now in the process of activating Grubhub.
Applebee's on-premise business continued its strong and steady recovery, with Q1 attaining 90% of our pre-pandemic dine-in sales volumes. I also expect an eventual dine-in tailwind from both our late-night business as well as our older guests as they gradually return to dining out this year. It's not surprising that we've become a bit younger over the past two years, and certainly younger than our CDR peers, with Gen Z, millennial, and Gen X now accounting for 80% of Applebee's guests, with millennials representing our largest segment at 34%. We really love this demographic profile, which is much more similar to QSR than it is CDR, and we view Applebee's age, family, and ethnic diversity as core strengths relative to other casual dining brands.
Now, from an absolute pricing perspective, Applebee's franchisees increased menu prices between 5%-6% in Q1. As you might expect, we continue to monitor these actions closely and believe the brand is very well positioned to navigate this inflationary environment, given our supply chain scale, our average check at the very low end of the CDR continuum and ongoing guest perceptions of Applebee's as the clear affordability leader. We talk often about this subject and our relative position in the marketplace with our franchise partners. Keep in mind, these are 31 smart and strategic leaders who fundamentally understand the delicate balance of margin protection, guest affordability and business momentum, and they continue to view this year as a meaningful market share opportunity for the Applebee's brand. On the development front, we expect to open approximately six traditional restaurants this year, as well as six ghost kitchen restaurants.
In addition, we plan to close less than 15 restaurants this year, marking a meaningful inflection point for Applebee's with the fewest number of closures in 10 years and putting us on track to deliver net new unit growth in 2023. I'm also pleased to report that we recently opened our fourth drive-thru pickup window in Virginia with approximately 15 drive-thru planned conversions by year-end. In closing, we improved Applebee's average unit volume from $2.2 million in 2017 to $2.6 million in 2021. Looking forward, Applebee's remains exceedingly well positioned to accelerate this growth. And coming off our recent spring franchise conference, where we shared our balance of year innovation plan, our confidence, optimism, and partnership with our franchisees could not be higher. With that, I'll turn it to Jay for an overview of the IHOP brand.
Thanks, John. I'm sure you're proud of everything that you and your franchisees have accomplished this quarter. I'm equally pleased with IHOP's achievements. Good morning, everyone. As we rolled over the start of our recovery last year, IHOP delivered an impressive first quarter based on several metrics. Comp sales increased by 18.1%, driven by positive comps across all day parts, particularly late night and breakfast. Despite the Omicron wave, January comp sales were up 24.9% versus 2021, February up 28%, and March up 7.5%, despite rolling over the strongest month in the quarter of last year. Average weekly sales for the first quarter were approximately $36,000, an increase of 19% compared to the same period of 2021.
Notably, average weekly sales volumes reached a weekly high for the quarter of approximately 41,000 in March 2022, exceeding every week in March 2021, which included the third round of stimulus payments from the IRS. On the off-premise front, our to-go business remained strong, accounting for 24.6% of sales, comprised of 15.3% in delivery sales and 9.3% in takeout sales. Importantly, off-premise average weekly sales volumes were approximately $8,900, still more than double pre-pandemic levels and highly incremental as our dine-in business continues to gradually improve. Dine-in accounted for 75.4% of sales for the first quarter. While we're enthusiastic about our results this quarter, we're doing more to build on our success.
We've improved our marketing strategy and capabilities after completing the most comprehensive research the brand has ever done to discover what it is that people love about IHOP. Ultimately, our brand is a destination for joy. We're taking a three-prong approach to our marketing strategy by first positioning our brand in a relevant way, by focusing on the quality of our made-to-order food and the joyful atmosphere that IHOP provides. Second, we're taking an omni-channel approach to meet our guests in the channels they frequent and trust. Our plan is designed to engage our guests, both new and old, through online, mobile, social media, traditional TV, and more. Lastly, enhancing our one-to-one relationships with our guests with the recent launch of our unique loyalty program.
To help us tie this all together, we announced the selection of our new ad agency of record, Pereira O'Dell, which we partnered with on our new campaign and tagline, "Let's put a smile on your plate." The inspiration for the campaign was based on the happiness guests feel when enjoying our great IHOP food. We believe this campaign will be a differentiator because it encapsulates the strategic new phase for the brand, which includes launching not only a new campaign, but also our new ihop.com website and mobile app and, of course, our new loyalty program, the International Bank of Pancakes. As I discussed with you at our Investor Day, this is a true earn and burn program designed to enhance our direct relationship with our guests and ultimately drive additional visits to IHOP. The program is a one of a kind and a first in our category.
To briefly recap, it allows our guests to collect what we're calling Pan Coins, which is our pancake currency. Three Pan Coins will get you one short stack at IHOP, for example. Pan Coins can be redeemed for menu items and other non-food items in the future. We began marketing the program in mid-April through social media, in-restaurant signage, national TV, and digital. Switching gears to an update on operations. Labor supply continues to be impacted by factors primarily outside of our control. At the end of the first quarter, IHOP was approximately 90% staffed nationally based on input received from our franchisees. I'd like to highlight that there is a degree of variability, though, with some areas doing better than others.
Regarding SOP hours, the percentage of our domestic restaurants that are open for standard operating hours or greater improved approximately 91% from approximately 86% last quarter. We continue to expect potential upside to sales as additional progress is made. On our to-go business, we made operational improvements to our off-premise platform. We recently completed the implementation of Fly-By, which enhances our curbside pickup and delivery platforms and reduces guest friction. Fly-By provides our guests with the ability to alert us through the IHOP app that they've arrived in the parking lot for their to-go orders. Turning to development. Our franchisees opened 10 new restaurants globally in the first quarter, of which eight were domestic openings. I'm optimistic about our development outlook due to the multiple formats we can offer franchisees and the overall health of the brand.
In addition to our brick-and-mortar footprint, we also expanded our presence through virtual brands. We recently announced the test of our first virtual brands through our partnership with Nextbite, Super Mega Dilla and Thrilled Cheese. As of today, our virtual brands are available through 280 restaurants, up from 80 at the end of Q1. We're still on track for about 1,000 restaurants to activate virtual brands over the next several months. To wrap up, we've accomplished a great deal in early 2022. As we continue to transition to the next phase of the brand, I'm very enthusiastic about our road ahead. I'll now turn the call back over to John Peyton for his closing comments. John?
Thanks, Vance and John and Jay. Your comments made it super clear that we're laser-focused on the three levers of growth for Dine. We're focused on comp sales, we're focused on unit growth, and we're focused on developing new sources of revenue. The work that you and your teams did led to a terrific quarter, and thank you for that. Operator, we're now ready to open the call for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just to clarify, I would like to clarify that this is the Dine Brands Global First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. We'll now open the call for questions. If you have a question or comment at this time, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. Again, if you have a question at this time, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. In order to facilitate as many participants as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, if you need to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. Our first question or comment comes from the line of Eric Gonzalez from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks for the question. You know, I just have a maybe a macro question here. Based on what you know about the consumer and, you know, potential macro pressures in the future, what does your gut tell you about your ability to sustain the really strong sales momentum later this year and into 2023, and how important will value be as you balance that against the low to mid-teens inflation outlook?
Hey, Eric, this is John from Applebee's. Confidence is high on ability to sustain none of our metrics here. I may have been muted. Eric, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear.
None of our metrics at Applebee's suggest anything other than robust growth. Average unit volumes accelerated throughout the quarter. As I referenced, attributes are at all-time highs. Our consumer, we believe, given our average check, is loyal, and our franchisees are really bullish. Your second question, value is essential. We're a value brand. Affordability, we lead. You'll see a balance of what I'll call emotional connection opportunities for the brand as well as value propositions that are maybe a bit more overt, all with healthy profit margins for our franchisees. In a nutshell, very bullish on what the balance of this year represents for the Applebee's brand.
Hey, Eric. It's John Peyton. I'm gonna jump in for a moment and give you some statistics that I think are worth sharing here that, you know, apply to both brands. We've talked about headwinds and tailwinds, right? I think implied in your question is the challenge right now of predicting the future when we see things like, you know, inflation, cost of fuel going up, uncertainty in supply chain, all exacerbated by Ukraine. You know, at the same time, there is some encouraging data. You know, for one thing, you know, the cost of eating at home, you know, via grocery, is rising faster than the cost of dining out, right? That's a tailwind for us, and I think in part drives our success in Q1 that John alluded to.
The other thing is that, you know, QSR menu pricing is increasing faster than CDR. You know, that also is, you know, favorable for us. When we look at wage rate growth, you know, the bottom quartile of earners in the U.S. actually grew wages faster than the other three quartiles, which tends to be our customer. You know, they grew wages at 5%-6% last quarter, which, you know, gives them some confidence at a time when prices are rising. In this moment of headwinds and tailwinds, you know, there is some compelling data from a consumer standpoint that explains, I think, our success in the first quarter and may give us momentum for the rest of the year.
The last thing I'll say is, you know, we continue to look at all the third-party research as well as our own about consumers' intent to return to restaurants, and that remains pandemic high as well.
That all makes sense. Maybe if you could just touch on franchisee profitability, you know, given that inflation outlook, and you mentioned the five-six points of price at Applebee's, which probably offsets the commodity side and maybe have a little bit of labor. Can you just talk about, you know, where we stand or how the franchisee profitability looked and how you expect that to trend through the year, given that inflation outlook?
Yeah, Vance, why don't you take that?
Sure, Eric. So, you know, as you know, we don't report franchisee financials, but here's what we do know. We are seeing strong same-store sales in AUV. There's no bad debt, no AR issues. We have interest from franchisees in development, and franchisees have taken appropriate menu pricing adjustments. Also, I think one last thing that's worth mentioning is that, you know, our co-op supply chain has formed a cross-functional team with our operations, our franchisees and beverage and food teams to come up with, you know, 140+ cost-saving ideas to lower production costs and reduce food waste or usage, improve restaurant labor while not negatively impacting the guest experience. Overall, I think those are the facts that we could share, and things are looking, you know. We're cautiously optimistic about the outlook.
Thanks for that.
Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Jeffrey Bernstein from Barclays. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you very much. Couple of questions. One, just on the healthy comps you talked about. I think you acknowledged that March appeared to have been a slowdown on a one-year basis. Just trying to get your perspective on that two-year, obviously removing seasonality and whatnot, but just, any concern about that March slowdown? It was actually based on AWS as of March the best of the quarters, best of the months. Any color you could provide on April just to get us more current would be great. I had a follow-up.
Hey, Jeffrey, this is Jay Johns at IHOP. I can say from the standpoint of my brand, this was fairly well expected. If you just look at the rollovers from previous year, both of the Marches, you think about two years ago, the pandemic just started, which impacted that March, which meant that last year we were already up quite a bit and that's when the recovery really started rolling over the original pandemic. March's results last year were ticking up tremendously compared to January and February. It's pretty natural you were gonna get a slowdown this year as the recovery continued. I think from our standpoint, the recovery is continuing nicely. You know, it was pretty much in line with what we had expected as we went into the month of March.
We knew that it was gonna drop down compared to January and February. A lot of the country was still shut down last year, January, February. In fact, if anything, January was probably negatively impacted because of Omicron. We should have been up even more if it wasn't for that. Even though we did have a really nice January, we expected more than.
Jeff, with respect to Applebee's, no indication of a slowdown whatsoever. Two-year comps are very strong, including March, as are three-year comps for that matter.
Any color to provide on the month of April, or refrain from any intra-quarter comment?
No color here.
Hey, Jeff. It's John. We're gonna refrain.
Gotcha. Okay. Just on the virtual brands that you mentioned, obviously Cosmic been around for a little while. I'm just wondering whether you can share any greater financial metrics in recent months. Obviously, dining is returning, so maybe there's some easing of virtual. Any early test results on both IHOP brands, which seem really exciting to have that second make line and a whole lot of afternoon and evening available capacity. Any early learnings on the IHOP virtual brands would be great.
Hey, Jeff, John C here. With respect to Cosmic Wings, I'll resist on providing any detail sales-wise since we're still in process on expanding this to our third delivery partner. We'll have a pretty good handle on this business when we get around to Q2, but I'll resist at this point.
This is Jay Johns at IHOP again. On our virtual brands, we're really excited about the way this has begun. You know, it's a little soon to be able to predict what's gonna happen as we expand to more and more restaurants, but we're still very bullish on the way this looks. I think at the Investor Day, I shared that at the first set of test restaurants, these two brands were each doing around $1,000 a week in sales per restaurant, and now we've expanded to 280 restaurants. It's expanding very rapidly. As I said, I think within the next several months, we have the potential to get up to about 1,000 restaurants on the program. I think as we expand out further, this may drop slightly, but it's maintaining pretty well.
Got it. Just lastly, specific to Applebee's, I know you guys have talked about the big pivot to net unit growth next year. I'm wondering if you can share to what magnitude and maybe where international falls within this. It seemed like international is a huge opportunity for your brand, but it doesn't seem like it's as much of a growth vehicle or at least not talked about as much.
Jeff, John C here. I'll speak domestically. International, by the way, is a meaningful growth opportunity. Domestically, our confidence level is high on returning to net new unit growth in 2023. We'll come pretty close this year, but I referenced the detail for 2022. We're reestablishing a pipeline. We know where those trade area opportunities are, in particular, the very high volume trade area opportunities. We have a new prototype, we have franchisee demand, and our expectations are not only to return to net new unit growth in 2023, but then to accelerate that level of development on an annual basis moving forward in the U.S..
Jeff, it's John Peyton, just a comment on international. Now, the mix for international growth, you may recall from Investor Day, is about, you know, two-thirds or more for IHOP. The mix internationally, you know, is a greater proportion of ghost kitchens as well. You know, our goal there, our aspiration is to go from about 200 restaurants internationally to 500 over the next four years.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Jake Bartlett from Truist Securities. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks for taking the question. You know, mine was really on the consumer, and thanks for the macro perspectives. I did hear in the comments, I think maybe a focus on a little more value at Applebee's. I'm just wondering, if you could expand on that, you know, what your approach is for the rest of the year, and whether, you know, if it is a bit of a more weight towards the value side, is that because, you know, you are seeing, you know, some trade down in the menu or any sort of, you know, impact from that maybe lower income consumer?
Hey, Jake, John C. Regarding Applebee's, we love our guest profile as I referenced. That's you know, the average household income is about $75,000. We're at the lower end of the average check continuum, as I mentioned. There are a number of ways to deliver value. Some of those are overt. In March, we offered five boneless wings for $1 with any handcrafted burger, which performed very well for Applebee's. There are other opportunities to connect emotionally. In January, February, we really wanted to celebrate our regulars, you know, our most loyal guests. There were no actors or actresses in those ads. You know, incredibly popular among our guests, those ads really resonated in January, February with America.
Whether it's value-added, whether it's overt, whether there's some co-branding or perhaps even entertainment-based propositions moving forward, we have clear visibility to our innovation pipeline and the ability to be very nimble and change course as needed as we've done over the past two years. We will deliver value. We'll just do it in a number of creative and innovative ways at Applebee's, always with our finger on the pulse of that guest who has, you know, reasonably limited discretionary income at the moment.
Great. That's helpful. You know my next question is for Jay on Applebee's. You mentioned the opportunity for hours and you know recovering the hours that have been lost so far here. What is the opportunity in breakfast? If you could maybe talk about where breakfast sales stand, maybe on an average weekly sales basis versus 2019 you know relationship to overall average weekly sales being, I think my math is down about 5% in the first quarter. How much room is there to recover in breakfast still?
Well, this is Jay. Question. You know, we've got opportunities, I think, across the board to continue to work on our comp sales as we move forward. You know, breakfast has actually recovered more than any other day part for us right now, though. Breakfast is strong. I mean, if you think about it, that's what we're most known for. It's probably what our guests were missing the most about IHOP if they hadn't been in a long time. I think the other thing to remember is the beginning of the pandemic, the whole world shut down and no one was going to work. I think that negatively impact our breakfast business as well.
I think as people are getting back out, even though there's a lot of flex work now, and people may not be going to work as many days as they were in the past, they are back out now, which kind of tells you how high is up. We're just not sure. Frankly, I don't know how much the headwinds are causing pressure to prevent a recovery from being even bigger and faster than it could be. I think there's still a lot of opportunities both in the weekend breakfast, which gets negatively impacted if a restaurant isn't staffed. You can't turn tables as fast. You can't get as much throughput through those restaurants if you're not staffed on the weekend. That's our weekend breakfast opportunity.
Weekday breakfast. I think obviously, if you go back to comps multiple years ago, I think we've got opportunity there just because even though people are getting back to work, not in the same quantity. I think the breakfast behaviors. There's a paradigm shift in how people are behaving, and I don't know how much of this is permanent and how much of this will morph over time. People are fine in a way, and I think they have new flexibility from their jobs now to work a little more on their own time, which in a weird way also gives them the opportunity to go sneak out and have breakfast and start working two hours later. You know, it's a strange dynamic going on right now, but I think there's still a considerable upside both on the weekend and weekdays for breakfast, but it's recovering nicely.
Great. Thanks. That's very helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Brian Vaccaro from Raymond James. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks and good morning. Could you provide the monthly average weekly sales at IHOP like you did at Applebee's? I guess just talk about how the brand performed exiting Omicron. Did I think about multi-year stacks back to 2019, and it seems like March maybe didn't come back as strong as some other sectors have, and just your broader thoughts on why that might be, any changes in behavior for the IHOP core consumer that might be worth highlighting.
Thanks, Brian, for the question. I don't have those at my fingertips. I did say that the average for the entire quarter. I'll try to grab those real quick here. I did say for the whole quarter, I think it was $36,000 a week, the average. And then we topped out at $41,000 March. It did keep improving after we got past the Omicron. Where we struggled a little bit was in the in the first probably five or six weeks because of the Omicron variant compared to prior years, et cetera. If you look, I'm pulling this up right now just to tell you here. In the first month, it looks like we averaged, in January, it's about $32,000, then it was $36,000, and then almost $39,000 in March.
You can see it kept building once we got past this Omicron variant. Most of the February softness was before Valentine's Day. It was those first five or six weeks was weak, and then it started building from that. I think that March did improve greatly and was pretty strong. It's like I answered on the first question. When you look at the comp sales, it looked like we dropped off, but that's really in relation to the comp you're rolling over from last year.
Yeah.
The recovery was already on last year, so it looks like it tailed off, but the weekly sales kept growing.
Right. Yep, no, definitely focused more on average weekly sales than the comps, given the lapse and the recovery that we start moving to in the spring of last year. On commodity inflation, I wanted to just circle back on that as well. Can you share what the year-on-year inflation was for each brand in the first quarter? Just sort of how each brand, how each one you expect to play out in terms of inflation, considering the differences in their baskets for 2022?
Yeah. Yeah, Brian. We are seeing for the first half, Applebee's probably expecting 22% inflation, and for IHOP, about 20% inflation for the first half. That moderates somewhat in the second half. Year-over-year inflation probably gets down to low teens in the second half of the year. It averages out to about 13%-16% for the year is what we're expecting.
Okay, great. Okay. That's helpful. Last one for me, I want to just ask about menu pricing. John, I heard you say that. I think you said that Applebee's recently took 5%-6%. What does that bring the year-on-year pricing to? Could you just clarify that and then also speak to the level of menu pricing on the IHOP side?
Sure, Brian. The probably the best way, this is John C, to think about Applebee's pricing. In Q1, our franchisees on average took 5%-6%, and they're very measured and thoughtful moving forward. Last year, probably 3%-4%. If you think about that on a two-year basis, they're clearly attempting to balance margin protection with continuing to deliver great value for the guests. I think they've been very successful. I anticipate that success.
This is Jay. On the IHOP side, if you look at the year-over-year pricing, you know, look at Q1 this year versus Q1 last year, 7.9% is what IHOP took overall.
All right, great. I'll pass it along. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question or comment comes from the line of Nick Setyan from Wedbush Securities. Your line is open.
Thank you. Can you just remind us just the historical seasonality relative to March in terms of the average weekly sales in April, May, and June for both brands?
Sure, Nick. For Applebee's, this is John C. March is a high volume month. As you look at the flow of sales volume across the year, March would likely be our highest volume month, September perhaps our lowest volume month. That's a good way to think about it. Think about indices that range from a kind of a 90 to a 110, depending upon the month. Make sense?
Yeah. What about IHOP?
IHOP side, you know, we don't have any. If you look quarter to quarter, we don't have any true seasonality overall. You know, as John said, you have individual months that tend to go up and down a little bit and probably very similar to March. Anytime you got as many spring break weeks, and kids are out of school, that tends to help in March. It's one of our busier months. You know, back to school and that end of August-September period is also a little bit of a slower time, but it's probably not material for us.
What about marketing rates, you know, throughout the year? Any quarter stand out in terms of, you know, maybe a higher marketing weight within that quarter versus some others for each brand?
Nick, this is John C. We deploy, you know, $130- $140 million in working media on an annual basis, pretty evenly dispersed by quarter, up a bit versus last year on a full year basis. We did lean into a heavier mix of 30-second ads in January, February in Q1, in bringing to life those ads I referenced called the Regulars that really resonated. Probably a little bit of a heavier dollar spend in January, February versus year ago because of that 30-second ad investment, but very balanced year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter, as we look at balance of year.
Yeah, this is Jay. On the IHOP side, very similar. We try to spread this out fairly evenly throughout the year. In fact, even more so now than we used to. We've changed our strategy, as I mentioned, to more of an omni-channel strategy. What that enables us to do is to not just be on national TV, but to deliver different messages to different audiences at different times to try to move all of our day parts for different events or reasons. In doing that, you know, the philosophy we have is really kind of an always-on marketing stream. Because of that, you're spending money pretty evenly throughout the year.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Brett Levy from MKM Partners. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just two questions, largely about sales and capacity. First, if you could just give a little bit more color since you have such great scale, what you're seeing across the country from a demand as well as an operational challenges side. Specifically on operations, you talk about the 90% of SOP. How important is it to get that last 10%, and what kind of sensitivity do you see in terms of incremental sales, incremental profitability if you're able to get there? Thanks.
Thanks. This is Jay. Brett, I think that if you look across the country, you know, the shutdown and the recovery was not even across the country, right? That causes some waves as far as the recovery coming back, et c. For example, California is doing really well right now by the simple fact that they were the last ones pretty much to open back up. You're rolling over numbers there where they were still closed down pretty much last year. You look in other parts of the country, in the Southeast, et c, the impact wasn't as severe on closures. They opened up sooner, so their rollovers now are already harder this year.
It's not an even playing field as far as how the recovery goes, and hasn't been the whole time, and wasn't even when it shut down either. That's one dynamic that goes on. You know, your question about staffing, you know, there are pockets of the country, you know, where their recovery's been faster, the economy's hotter, you know, staffing gets harder to maintain. That does have a connection to our restaurants. The last point you asked about is the hours of operation, and we're getting closer and closer, making progress every quarter to get to full standard operating procedure hours. Where the big opportunity for us really is, though, is to get back the overnight hours.
You know, we're still missing about half of our restaurants that did overnight business and, you know, but we're very bullish on eventually getting that back. We think the virtual brands will actually help us with that. A lot of that business comes in the evening, and much of those sales, you have opportunity overnight with those sales. And frankly, franchisees have to make a P&L decision on is it worth being open overnight in a market where they used to pay, as an example, if you paid $8 for a cook in your market, to get one to work overnight, you may pay $25. The economics are different on getting people to work. The hurdle you have to get over to make it worthwhile to expand those extra hours that they used to have.
Well, if I can get a virtual brands going, now it makes much more sense to also open up the IHOP business and do both of them at once. The more we can get that out there, I think the more that will also help our overnight business.
Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Brian Mullan from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Thank you. Just coming back to the advertising environment, you know, maybe broadly across casual dining over the course of this year, be curious if you expect, you know, Applebee's peers to be out there spending on advertising in a more meaningful way. If so, you know, is that something you can even plan for ahead of time or incorporate into your plans, or maybe do you just kind of run your own race and it's something you can't control? Just curious if you would feel that and how quickly you'd have a sense if things do get more competitive.
Hey, Brian. John C here. We're very thoughtful on the landscape, competitively. I do anticipate casual dining large casual dining players being more aggressive in 2022. We pay attention to that, and we have formidable competitors. With that said, we have a terrific marketing plan that we, you know, we're fairly disciplined. We validate with our guests before we execute. Our level of execution is superior. With that said, while we pay attention to our competitors, we also did outperform by 740 basis points last year. We genuinely believe on a post-pandemic basis that we've earned the trust of America, and that's gonna pay meaningful dividends for the Applebee's brand. We have very strong culture, in particular among our 31 franchise groups.
You combine loyalty and preference based upon that trust with superior execution and strong culture, and in some respects, it may not matter what our competitors choose to do. We have a clear strategy, and we're gonna execute against it.
Understood. That's very clear. Thank you. Then just as a follow-up, just can you give your current thinking on the company-owned stores at Applebee's? You know, with all the strength of the brand, do you think you might look to sell those in the coming quarters? Do you have the operations in a really good place? Or conversely, maybe is there some benefit you see to owning those over the longer- term, even if that wasn't, you know, the original thought?
Hey, Brian. It's John Peyton. I'll take that. You know, our thinking hasn't changed. You know, we're proud of what our operating team has done, right? It's taken that portfolio, which was in one of our lower quartiles and moved it to the top quartile in terms of performance. We're very proud of that. The philosophy of not being a long-term holder remains. Can't give you any information about, you know, when we might have a transaction. You know, our intent remains to flip those restaurants at some point in the future. As we've talked about, it was deferred because of COVID, but the strategy is the same.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our final question is from the line of Todd Brooks from Benchmark. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks for squeezing me in. Just one question. If we look at the 90% kind of staffing to plan that both brands communicated. If you look at the three buckets, kind of applicant flow, training people up, onboarding, getting them experienced enough to be able to man maybe a late-night shift and retention, where do we stand on each of those buckets? Where is the opportunity to really move this needle? It feels like kind of industry-wide, we're leveling out in these kind of low 90% of targeted staffing levels. I'm wondering where you see the most opportunity within those three buckets. Thanks.
Hey, Todd, John C. Regarding Applebee's, we held a national hiring day. Applicant flow was really great, significantly higher than when we executed that in the prior- year. Our need, quite candidly, was lower, meaning we're in a pretty good position. Our restaurants can be fairly selective. Training is strong. Again, that comes back to culture, which is equally strong. Retention, always a challenge, you know, in this particular environment. I don't wanna paint an overly rosy picture. What I would say is we're very pleased with our staffing levels. It allows us to execute everything that we're contemplating, including perhaps even late-night propositions, which would have been a challenge last year.
Yeah, I think on this, Jay, on the IHOP side, you know, I think that finding qualified staff that we want to hire is probably still our biggest challenge, right? You can get a lot of applicants, but not anybody gets to work for us, right? The pickings are thinner than they used to be, and I think that's our biggest challenge. We've made great improvements and have really good training programs now. We can get people trained up pretty quickly. I think for us, it's still finding the staff and again, I refer to those overnight hours. You also got to find people willing to work, you know, the overnight shift. That's a little harder for us to source, and that's one of the reasons we've not been able to get all these hours back as well.
Again, as you get your business coming back too, servers make more tips. The more tips that are out there, the more people wanna work for you. It's all a little bit of a flywheel. Once things really get cranking, then it just helps the thing overall.
Okay, great. Thank you both.
Thank you. I'm showing no additional questions in the queue at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.
Thanks, Howard. You know, thanks to our team for a great quarter. Thanks to all of you for your good questions today. We appreciate it. I know we'll be on the phone with some of you later on today as well to go a little bit deeper. Thanks for the time you spent with us this morning, and have a great day.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.