Okay, thank you, very much. My name is Brian Mullan. I'm the restaurant and food distribution analyst here at Piper Sandler. Very happy to have the team from Kura Sushi. We have the CEO, Jimmy Uba, the CFO, Jeff Uttz, and IR, Investor Relations Officer, he runs IR, Ben Porten, and strategy. Thanks for being here, everyone. So just want to start off asking about, sales trends in general. You know, your guidance for fiscal 4 Q calls for same store sales in the down mid-single digit to high single digit range. So I just wanted to check in and see if you might give an update on how the quarter progressed and finished out. Anything you might offer to give a sense would be great.
Brian, thank you for your first question. Please allow me to answer in Japanese. He's gonna translate.
So we gave the mid to high negative single digit guidance for comps in July, but in the subsequent two months, we've seen a clear trajectory of, you know, return of consumer strength, general sales recovery, which has been-
Only-
Yeah, not, not just in the West Coast, but across our entire system, which is very encouraging.
Great. So it sounds like an improvement. Oh.
While we have been very encouraged by recent results, two months doesn't necessarily make a trend, especially when you consider August. We had a One Piece IP collaboration, which was very successful. It's hard to tease out the impact of that on the overall comp for August. Our approach going into the new fiscal year remains largely the same as what we discussed before, in that our strategy is to focus on the middle of the P&L, drive efficiencies as much as possible, without counting necessarily on a very, you know, strong consumer environment.
Understood. Maybe a good segue, you know, since you referenced focusing on efficiencies. Next couple of more on the expense side or the efficiency side. On the most recent earnings call, you talked about an operational initiative. You moved from four stations in the kitchen down to three. Given how efficient the company already is, I was surprised to hear that that might be an opportunity. So could you just elaborate, add some context there on what you're doing?
This was this applied to maybe 2/3 of our system, just depending on the kitchen size. But we started in earnest late May. In June, we completed the rollout of the new operational mode by the end of August, and so we'll see the full benefit as we enter Q1. And early results have been just... We're very happy, not just in terms of the speed of the rollout, but in terms of the effectiveness of the program. Obviously, we always have a very large tech pipeline, but that is time-consuming, stage-gated, requires hardware, sometimes software, and sometimes regulatory approvals, whereas changes in operations are really just, you know, you can think of it, you can apply it.
And so us being able to rapidly pivot is, I mean, that, that's one of the reasons we were able to maintain that 20% restaurant level margin in Q3, in spite of the unexpected sales deceleration. So Jimmy did personally oversee the implementation of the first five restaurants with the new system to make sure there was no impact to operations, and it met his satisfaction.
The team members, they found it seamless, the employees?
Yes.
Okay. And then sticking with costs, you know, the company, the organization's already made a lot of progress on leveraging G&A. But wondering if you think that in your fiscal 2025, you might be able to see further progress on leveraging G&A?
Absolutely. We the last two years, if we hit the midpoint of our guidance this year, it'll be 80 basis points over last year, and the year before that, we had 80 basis points. We went from 15.8-1 5 that year. And again, if we hit the midpoint of our guidance this year, we'll be around 14.2 . And if we hit that, that's, you know, 160 basis points over two years. I wouldn't expect to see 80 basis points a year, but I am pretty confident that we could see 50-60 basis points a year as we continue to push forward.
A lot of what we saw over the last year to two was some of the low-hanging fruit, but now as we dig a little bit deeper, we're still gonna see leverage because we are set up really well in the office and support center in order to continue to see that line get better.
Okay, great. I'm gonna switch over to development. The issue I'd like to explore with you, it relates to the idea of some cannibalization, which came up on the last earnings call. You know, maybe just for everyone's benefit, talk about what the message was on that topic, on the call, what changed or what you've learned with some of your newer openings, and why this is not a concern, but kind of normal course and part of the evolution going forward? Yep.
... Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to provide further clarity on this. And so cannibalization, I mean, that's always been a factor in our comps. It just hasn't been worth calling out, given that our comps have always been so incredibly robust. It didn't make sense to say it would have been +3 or, you know, whatever number had there not been cannibalization. And it was really only worth discussing in the context of the April slowdown. One thing that we've done over the last several years is start to pivot from a 50/50 split in terms of new and existing markets. This year - or fiscal 2024, it was more of a 30/70 split of new and existing, and so naturally, there was more infilling, which did lead to some regional DMA efficiencies, but also led to cannibalization.
And the level of cannibalization was well within our expectations. And, going forward, you know, as we continue to grow, it's gonna be an inevitable part of the business, as is, you know, any multi-unit business. But up until this point, we hadn't really put too much thought in terms of the comp pressure that cannibalization represented, just given the strength of the overall comp. Now, we have a comp schedule, so we know where units are coming in so that we can balance the pipeline appropriately and not have it be a concern.
And also, as we think about the pipeline and cannibalization, for years, it was always an infill or a new market, and now we can kind of look at it in three buckets: a brand new market, a second store in a market with only one unit, because that cannibalization will be different than if you go into a market with five, six, or seven stores. So we kind of now have three buckets that we look at, and we want to make sure that our development as we push forward is equally weighted, not, maybe not equally weighted, but weighted where we want it to be in terms of those three buckets.
Okay, thank you. And then, you know, kind of related to this discussion, my understanding is the plans for fiscal 2025, because pipelines take time to build, maybe 40% new markets, 60% existing. You know, so if that's? Is that right? Would cannibalization potentially be with you in fiscal 2025? And then a little long-winded, but, you know, when you get to 2026 and beyond, when you have a little more time to plan the pipeline, what's the optimal mix for you going forward?
In terms of the ratio of new to existing, it will be around 40, maybe 30, depending on which units open in the fourth quarter. But generally, yes, you are correct. Looking to future years like fiscal 2026, our expectation is closer to a 50/50. That being said, if there is an amazing unit in an existing market, it does not make sense for us to pass that up just because it does not fit into, you know, that 50/50 paradigm. In terms of, you know, longer term, those numbers will shift as markets mature, and it will stop being so much a 50/50. As Jeff mentioned, we will be thinking about it in terms of 3 buckets. We have a couple units in particular that we are excited about for fiscal 2025.
Since the IPO, we've systematically run through our top 20 DMAs, which we're very happy to have planted a flag across that. And generally speaking, the units that we've opened have been between the top 20-40, and now we have a couple units that fall in the top 100. So an example would be Bakersfield, California, or Fishers, Indiana. We have very high hopes for those restaurants. We think they're gonna be just as strong as any of our other units. And should that be the case, that proves out there's, you know, greater opportunity and, you know, not necessarily triple A tier markets. And so that certainly extends the runway of a 50/50 new and existing market composition.
Understood. That's helpful context, too. And so at the time of the IPO, I think there was a 300-unit target or TAM people like to refer to. You know, has anything changed with the view that this is a conservative target for the company over time?
Certainly, we, when we commissioned the white space study, at the time of the IPO, we set the parameters conservatively, and so we knew the 300 number was conservative. We wanted an achievable number for the purposes of the S-1, but we always knew that the numbers were conservative. Looking at the most recent quarter and, you know, the little comp pressure there, that's a blip for us. We certainly don't interpret that as having any sort of impact on the total addressable market. The biggest factor in the conservative, in why we believe it's conservative, would be the fragmented nature of the market. You know, the top two players control just over 2% of revenue. It's largely mom-and-pops, and over the pandemic, we saw a massive die off, unfortunately, of mom-and-pops, which has, you know-...
Concurrently expanded our belief, our expected white space, and the ongoing pressures now could be a recapitulation of that, and so we think the white space is as strong as ever, if not stronger. The only reason we haven't commissioned a white space study yet is everybody agrees with that, so we haven't had to prove that out.
Understood. Just gonna pivot a little here. You know, one unique aspect about Kura. There are many unique aspects, but one unique aspect about Kura. I think about a third of the sales come from loyalty members. You know, that's something you don't really see in full service in my role following the industry. So maybe talk about the evolution of that loyalty program all the way into the new VP of marketing hire you just made. How does the program... So talk about the program, the hire, and then how does that program continue to evolve from here?
Yeah. So to give context to the program, it actually launched in 2019, but in October of last year, we launched a new program on a completely different platform, which is much more robust. And it wasn't an automatic migration process. So every person who joined the new platform was somebody who willingly opted in. They're a highly engaged base, which is one of the reasons we had that 33% rate. Our membership base, since moving to the new platform, is pretty much the same size as it was with the prior platform, even though it's a much, much shorter period. And so that, it just speaks to the strength.
There are so many different ways for us to engage with our guests, especially with all the IP collaborations that we have, that we're really, really excited about where we can take it. We have meaningful upgrades coming to the rewards program, spearheaded by our VP of marketing. He joined in April. He's been really kicking butt over the last four months. We're very, very happy with him. If you're listening, Newton, here's to you. And we also have a reservation system that we're bringing over from Japan. Right now, people can check in remotely and fill a line, but it doesn't give them the opportunity, the ability to, say, reserve a lunch slot, which makes it less appealing when you have a defined lunch hour. So that's coming soon, and yeah, it just improves convenience and the accessibility for our guests.
Okay. And do you have any sense on the income demographic of that loyalty member database, and has their behavior changed at all? And I'm asking, just given, I assume at least some of them have high frequency, you know, any changes with the loyalty members, given the size of the sales, could potentially be impactful to what you report on comps.
Yeah, we haven't really seen too much of a change. So in other words, they've been holding strong, which is good.
Okay. And then talk about your most recent IP collaborations, whether that be Dragon Ball in May, how that did, you know, what you're currently running with now or next, and then just how you feel about the pipeline going forward, anything worth discussing?
There is plenty worth discussing, but not much that I can. Unfortunately, our licensors like to, like I said, stay tight-lipped, but every single year, I've been impressed by the quality of the IP collaborations that the PR department's been able to secure. And with our greater visibility, that continues to be true. And so we have a couple that I'm really excited about announcing in upcoming earnings calls. In terms of Dragon Ball, that was what we had believed to be the single biggest collaboration we'd ever had coming up, which is part of the reason why we gave a revenue guidance upgrade in our April call. That didn't pan out to our surprise, whether it was because of just an overall slowdown or something specific to Dragon Ball, we just didn't see that pop.
That was useful for us in terms of not baking into our expectations, you know, promotions which are, by their nature, unpredictable. To that, our assumption was that Dragon Ball would be much stronger than our current collaboration of One Piece. Going back to Jimmy's earlier comments, August has been very much buoyed by the strength of One Piece. We know that the collaborations are still great, and they can really move the needle and not to bake them into our models.
Understood. And then the reservation feature you just discussed, I didn't... I missed. Is that, is that launched? Is that coming? Just where are you with that, and what are the-- If it works exactly how you hope or what you've seen in Japan, what is... Like, what are the benefits, the simple benefits?
Yeah. So this is basically a porting of a technology that is common in Japan. Or it, it's been in use for a couple of years in Kura Japan. The major hope is, besides just the improved convenience, would be the expansion of shoulder periods. So guests can look at the, I guess, like, the reservation slots, and they could see 7:00 P.M. from, like, 9:00 P.M. is completely booked through. And so if they wanna get a seat at, like, 7:00 P.M., it's gonna be a two-hour wait until the 9:15 P.M. slot opens. But there are abundant tables at 5:00 P.M. at, you know, at restaurant X. And so we're hoping that we can, you know, sort of distribute that two-hour line that tends to accumulate over the course of dinner to the shoulder periods.
That, that's really the primary, I guess, fiduciary goal of the reservation system. We're currently in the process of porting it. The strong hope is that early 2025 calendar year, we'll begin statewide testing. One thing that we're also very excited about in terms of the new program is that it's not just a reservation system, but it also an automated self-seating system, which we think is gonna be most meaningful in shoulder periods. So at this point, even if it's less busy, we still need somebody at the counter to greet guests. But with the self-seating system, that is not necessary, so they can, you know, be focused on other tasks. So that is a labor saving that we're very much excited for.
Wanted to ask about the smartphone ordering initiative. Helpful when you have parties, you know, more than two people at a booth. You know, where does that stand? Are you seeing that drive mix? Are you seeing that drive check? How is the consumer uptake?
Yeah. The program's now system-wide. So we've completed stage one, which is the rollout of the program, and now we're in the process of stage two, which is giving guests the ability to earn prizes by, you know, ordering through the smartphone ordering. And I think it's one of the reasons that mix has improved, as we reported in the prior quarter. And it's still very early days, but I'm very happy with the usage rates, and I'm pretty confident that it'll be a tailwind for us.
Okay. The technology is a key competitive advantage and a focus. The robotic dishwasher could be coming to the U.S. You know, just update everyone on what that is, on the process, and would this be for new stores only if it gets approved, or could you actually bring this to some of your existing store base?
It would be almost entirely for new stores. For people that haven't been to one of our restaurants yet, we have, at every table, a plate slot, so that as you're eating, you bus your plates. About 70% of our sales are done on these sushi plates. So how it works now is that once you put the plate in the plate slot, there's an aqueduct that brings it to the dishwasher, who then racks it up and runs it through your typical industrial dishwasher. And what this new robot does is it racks everything up by itself. It makes a completely closed loop so that those dishes are never... We never need to worry about them again. So in other words, 70% of our dishwashing is completely eliminated forever.
And so that, that translates, you know, immediately to headcount reduction, but also greater retention because the work for the remaining dishwasher is that much easier. And it's a very high turnover position because it's physically grueling labor, so that's something that we're really excited about. But this is something that's really. It really speaks to the uniqueness of Kura. It's because we have this relationship with Kura Japan, which is, you know, as technologically advanced as a restaurant company could possibly be. They also have a much bigger scale than us, so they can make these investments, and we just get to benefit from them once they're ready. Fiscal 2026 would probably be the earliest that we see them, and yeah, we're.
There might be an opportunity to retrofit a couple of the existing restaurants, but given, you know, the goal of every restaurant opening is to design the kitchens as efficiently as possible, there generally isn't extra room in the existing restaurants.
That's something we talk about a lot, too, is the access to the technology of, that Kura Japan has. And we get asked a lot, "Are you done? Have you taken everything from them?" We say, "Probably not," because there's always new things coming and coming. So the reservation system and the self-seating system are just two examples of something that came up in the last four, five, six months, that we continue to use the technology through that. We pay 50 basis points a year to Kura Japan. It gives us access to all their patents, all their technology. It's. R&D is on their dime, and through the 50 basis points, we can pick and choose the projects that they're doing that will work in the U.S. and implement them here. So it's very advantageous to us.
If it were to be ready for fiscal 2026, I mean, you have a development team working on the pipeline, can you kind of dual track, or can you have your development team designing stores, knowing they might have it, they might not? Is that hard to do?
We're already designing from, like, a certain point in fiscal 2025, all of our future restaurants to be able to accommodate the ultimate installation of the dishwasher. We've tested it in restaurants in Japan, and while it still, you know, needs to finish up its development and certification process, the upside is more than obvious, and so we know we want it in every restaurant, and so that'll be, yeah, how we approach that.
And then, can you talk about the sushi slider tech? Where are you with that? And same question: Can this come to existing locations, or is this for new restaurants?
This will also be largely for new restaurants. There might be a couple, probably more existing restaurants than the dishwasher, but this certainly won't be system-wide, but this definitely improves our throughput. I think it could even improve our opportunities for off-premises sales, just because it allows us to process more orders per hour, especially during peak hours, so that's something that I'm really excited about. It works very much in tandem with the new back-of-house operations system that we developed. We actually developed the new system to be able to leverage the sushi slider as best as possible.
You mentioned off-premise, maybe a good segue. I was gonna ask about DoorDash.
Mm-hmm.
I think it's a relatively new relationship-
Mm-hmm.
For the company. You know, what have you seen from a consumer demand perspective? How has it worked from an operations perspective? And you just made a comment that maybe there's a way to improve off-premise, so how does that all tie together?
Yeah. I think those questions are all sort of tied together. In terms of operations, the real challenge that we face is our popularity. Our kitchens are maxed out during, you know, dinner and lunch periods, which is when people would typically want to place DoorDash orders. And so we have, you know, our off-premises sales have about doubled since we rolled out DoorDash, and so, you know, we're pretty happy with that. We think there's greater runway in the future as we infill markets and take some burden off of kitchens. And so that will be one way that we can maintain comparable sales at existing markets and mitigate the impact of cannibalization.
Okay. Well, in the time we have left, we're gonna just wanna turn it over to you if anyone has any closing comments or anything to say about Kura?
As we've mentioned, we can't control the consumer environment, but we're really pleased to see that pretty much everything that is under control is going as we hoped. Whether we're talking about cost savings, improvements, and efficiencies, everybody's really pulled out all the stops, you know, brought up great ideas and executed. We're just really impressed with the team and really happy with the results, and excited for fiscal 2025 with that as a tailwind.
Thank you. That's a great place to leave it. Thank you for being here.
Thanks, everyone.