Please stand by. We're about to begin. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Texas Roadhouse fourth quarter earnings conference call. Just a reminder, today's call is being recorded. All participants are now in a listen-only mode, but after the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. At that time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the 1 on your telephone keypad. Should anyone need assistance at any time during the conference, please press star zero and an operator will assist you. I would now like to introduce Mr. Keith Hauk, the Interim Chief Financial Officer for Texas Roadhouse. Mr. Hauk, you may begin.
Thank you, Paul, and good evening. By now you should have access to our earnings release for the fourth quarter ended December 27th, 2022. It may also be found on our website at texasroadhouse.com in the investors section. I would like to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer all of you to our earnings release and our recent filings with the SEC. These documents provide a more detailed discussion of the relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. In addition, we may refer to non-GAAP measures. If applicable, reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures to the GAAP information can be found in our earnings release.
On the call with me today is Jerry Morgan, Chief Executive Officer of Texas Roadhouse , Gina Tobin , President of Texas Roadhouse, and Michael Bailen, Head of Investor Relations. Most of you know Michael, so I have asked him to provide today's financial update. Following the prepared remarks, we will all be available to answer your questions. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jerry.
Thanks, Keith, and good evening, everyone. Before we begin our formal remarks, I want to thank Gina, Keith, and Michael for joining me on the call today and express my appreciation for them stepping into more visible roles. They are all veterans of Texas Roadhouse, and I look forward to seeing them further contribute to the growth of the company for years to come. I would also like to address the recent retirement of Tonya Robinson as CFO. I had the privilege of working with Tonya for 24 years. On behalf of Texas Roadhouse, I want to thank her for the contributions she made to the company, and I wish her nothing but the best. Moving forward, we're in the process of a national search for a permanent CFO.
We appreciate Keith taking on an escalated leadership role as our interim CFO. We have the utmost confidence in him and the rest of our experienced financial team. Now we will move on to our prepared remarks. There is no doubt that 2022 was a milestone year for Texas Roadhouse, with annual revenue surpassing $4 billion for the first time in our history. This is especially remarkable as it was only five years ago that we exceeded 2 billion in revenue. By maintaining our long-term focus of opening restaurants across all of our concepts, we see the potential to double our revenue again over the next decade. In 2022, despite inflationary pressures throughout the business, our strong top-line results helped us achieve significant growth in restaurant margin dollars, net income, and earnings per share.
We also returned over $120 million to our shareholders in the form of dividends, repaid 50 million of debt, and repurchased over 210 million of stock. Additionally, during 2022 we acquired eight franchise restaurants for 33 million. All these actions benefited our shareholders, and we are pleased to have numerous levers at our disposal to create value. Turning to 2023, we have been impressed by the strength of the consumer. We are pleased to see our sales momentum carry over from 2022 into the beginning of this year. The demand to dine inside our restaurants has grown, and we continue to hold onto a significant amount of our to-go business. We also are encouraged by the potential for a slowing rate of inflation, even though the underlying cost for labor and commodities is still to remain escalated.
Looking long term, we have no plans to lower our target margin percentage. Our margin dollars are strong, and we believe margin percentages will improve over time as commodity and other operating cost pressures subside. As a result, we will continue to manage the business with a disciplined approach and a focus on our long-term value proposition. Speaking of value, we recently completed menu pricing calls with our operators and will be taking a 2.2% menu price increase. We believe this level of pricing sets us up to achieve a solid year of sales and profit growth while furthering our industry-leading value. As many of you know, this approach has consistently rewarded our guests and shareholders over the past 30 years.
Moving on to development, we opened 23 company restaurants across all concepts in 2022. In 2023, we expect between 25 and 30 Texas Roadhouse and Bubba's company openings, as well as three Jaggers. Our franchise partners opened seven International Roadhouses in 2022. We expect them to open as many as 12 international and domestic locations in 2023. We will continue to maintain our long-term focus when it comes to capital allocation and shareholder value creation. We believe the best and most strategic use of our cash is building new restaurants and taking care of our existing restaurants. Additionally, as I alluded to earlier, our balance sheet and strong operating cash flow will position us to consistently grow our dividend.
Acquire franchise restaurants, and opportunistically repurchase shares and pay down the remainder of our debt. I want to comment on Gina's promotion to President of Texas Roadhouse. When I joined Texas Roadhouse 26 years ago and asked people which managing partner I needed to learn from, Gina was always the first name mentioned. During her career at Texas Roadhouse, Gina has been a managing partner, a market partner, head of our training department, and most recently, our chief learning and culture officer. Gina, I could not be more excited to have you as my partner in taking a bigger role in the company. Why don't you share a few thoughts with everyone?
Thanks, Jerry. I am excited to have the opportunity to carry on the mission of keeping the managing partner at the center of our universe and ensuring that we always view the business with an operator's mentality, which has been the key to our long-term success. I look forward to partnering with all Roadies in maintaining our culture and serving our operators each and every day. Many of you know, our unique culture, which has been shaped by our people, our past hardships, our successes, and our values, provides us with a competitive advantage. As Kent often said, we are a people first company that just happens to serve steak. It is my promise and commitment to always put our people at the forefront of my work as President. Michael will provide you a financial update.
Thanks, Gina. For the fourth quarter of 2022, we reported revenue growth of 12.7%, primarily driven by a 7.1% increase in average unit volume and Store-Week Growth of 5.5%. We also reported that net income increased 12.8% to $59.9 million and diluted earnings per share increased by 17.4% to 0.89. For the quarter, our restaurants averaged over $130,000 in weekly sales, and to-go represented approximately $16,400 or 12.6% of these total weekly sales. Comparable Restaurant Sales increased 7.3% in the fourth quarter, driven by 6.2% average check growth and a 1.1% increase in guest traffic.
By month, comparable sales grew 8.3%, 7.3%, and 6.5% for our October, November, and December periods, respectively. Turning to 2023, weekly sales averaged over $146,000 for the first seven weeks, with comparable sales up 15.8% as compared to the same period in 2022. We do not expect this level of comp growth to continue as we move past the lapping of Omicron and go up against higher traffic levels in the coming weeks. At the same time, we do not want to downplay the current results as our restaurants averaged more guests over the past seven weeks than in any period in our history.
For the fourth quarter, restaurant margin dollars grew 3.4% to $145.6 million and were 14.5% as a percentage of total sales, down 132 basis points as compared to last year. Food and beverage costs as a percentage of total sales were 35.1% for the fourth quarter, up 4 basis points compared to 2021. This increase was primarily due to commodity inflation of 6.6% in the quarter, mostly offset by the benefit of menu pricing. Inflation for the fourth quarter was largely in line with expectations other than higher produce costs. As a result, our full year commodity inflation came in at 10.8%. For 2023, our commodity inflation guidance remains unchanged at 5%-6%.
We also continue to expect that the majority of the inflation for 2023 will be driven by higher beef costs. We have approximately 60% of the commodity basket locked for the first half of the year, and based on current visibility, we expect inflation in the first half of the year will be above the top end of our full year guidance. Labor as a percentage of total sales increased 75 basis points to 33.4% as compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, while labor dollars per Store-Week increased 9.3%. This increase in labor dollars per Store-Week was driven by wage and other labor inflation of 7.8% and growth in hours of 1.9%.
These increases were partially offset by the $1.1 million net benefit of adjustments to the reserves related to our Workers' Comp and group insurance programs. The reserve adjustments include a $0.3 million favorable adjustment this year and a $0.8 million unfavorable adjustment last year. For 2023, our guidance of wage and other inflation between 5% and 6% remains unchanged. Other operating costs were 15.3% of sales, which was up 58 basis points as compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. The year-over-year benefit of sales leverage was more than offset by a continuation of the higher costs we are seeing in areas such as utilities, credit card charges, and repair and maintenance expense.
Moving to our restaurant margin, G&A in the fourth quarter was 4% of revenue, with the overall expense down $2.3 million versus 2021. The primary drivers of the decreased year-over-year G&A spend are a $1.1 million benefit from one-time accrual adjustments and a $1 million decrease in total cash and equity compensation. Our effective tax rate was 11.5% for the fourth quarter and 13.6% for the full year. Assuming no changes to the tax code, we now expect an income tax rate of approximately 14% for 2023. With regards to cash flow, we ended the year with $174 million of cash and $50 million of debt. Cash flow from operations for the fourth quarter was $117 million.
This was offset by $72 million of capital expenditures, $31 million of dividend payments, and $25 million of debt repayment. We continue to expect full year 2023 capital expenditures to be approximately $265 million. I will also mention that on the first day of fiscal 2023, we spent approximately $39 million on the acquisition of eight domestic franchise restaurants. These restaurants are included in our expectation of at least 6% Store-Week Growth. Finally, as announced today in our earnings release, our board of directors has authorized a 20% increase in our quarterly dividend payment, increasing it to $0.55 per share from $0.46 per share in 2022. Now, I will turn the call back over to Jerry for final comments.
Thanks, Michael. Our future success depends on us staying focused on driving top-line growth and providing a legendary experience to every guest. We will do that by keeping value at the centerpiece of the menu and taking care of our Roadies, who in turn will take care of our guests. Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the opening of the first Texas Roadhouse. I look forward to celebrating this anniversary at our annual conference with over 700 managing partners who represent the very best of what this company has become over the past 30 years. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you have any questions, simply press star one. If you do find that your question has already been addressed, you can remove yourself from the queue by pressing star one again. We'll take our first question this afternoon from Chris Carril of RBC Capital Markets.
Hi, thanks for the question. Jerry, could you maybe expand a bit more on the demand commentary around the start of the year? If my math is correct, the three-year stack appears to have meaningfully accelerated in the first seven weeks of 2023 versus the 4Q in December in particular. Any additional detail will be helpful there.
Yeah, I mean, we're very excited about the demand for our concept and we've seen the escalation. We softened a little bit in December, it came roaring back in January, this first part of February. I will just tell you, I think it's about our execution and about the quality of the product that we're putting on the plate, and we will keep pushing that, I think that's what help drives our top line sales.
Got it. And then, on the long-term outlook, you mentioned in the prepared remarks, I think it was a doubling of revenue over the next 10 years. What are the underpinnings of that, maybe specifically around development across the three brands? Thanks.
I mean, I think if we look back at the last five years and we've doubled from there, the way we see it with the growth of our existing restaurants and our continued sales escalations, we definitely feel like that is attainable with the three concepts and the trends that we currently can model out. Michael might have a couple of comments on how we get there.
Chris, it's really not that different than what you're seeing us doing right now, keeping Roadhouse development in that 20-25 restaurants and obviously seeing Bubba's grow to maybe low double digits. On top of that, you know, Jaggers could see a little bit of growth. The assumption of those, you know, around 30-ish restaurants a year and some modest traffic and check growth is really the underlying assumption that gets you there.
Got it. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Thank you. We go next now to Brian Harbour of Morgan Stanley.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Can we just talk about the pricing decision a little bit? You know, are you still going to stick to kind of the two times per year? If, for example, beef becomes more inflationary in the second half, do you want to address that with pricing, or do you think that there will still be kind of short-term volatility there and you're just more focused on kind of, value proposition?
Hey, Brian, it's Michael. You know, I think we are committed to looking at menu pricing twice a year. We, you know, we look at it with the intention of taking pricing in early April and sometime in October. You might remember that commodity inflation is something that we don't typically focus our menu pricing on. We view that as cyclical in nature, so we are more focused on the structural items, the labor component when we are determining what level of pricing we're going to take. Obviously, any pricing that we take to deal with labor pressures will also help the commodities and other lines. We, you know, we're in this for the long term and really don't knee-jerk react to commodity costs being above or below what we might expect at one point, when we're factoring in our menu pricing.
Makes sense. Okay, thank you. Just on, you know, kind of uses of cash. Do you're running pretty low on debt here. Do you think it makes sense to pay down the rest of that? Also, I think you had repurchased some shares earlier in the year. It doesn't look like as much in the second half, but do you, have an intent to return to that?
Brian, this is Keith. Thanks for the question. On our debt, we plan on paying all that back this year. We'll probably even look to do that in the first quarter, but we'll be making that decision in the coming weeks. On share repurchases, you know, we're really proud of our share repurchase program over the years, you know, and the value that we've created from that. You know, in the last four years, which includes some pandemic years, we've repurchased over $400 million of our stock.
When I look to this year, I'd say that we will definitely look to buy back dilution, and then anything after that, you know, is gonna depend on our other capital allocation needs, what our cash balance is, and really the market conditions, and then we're gonna make whatever decisions we feel like we have to in the best interest of our shareholders and our company.
Okay. Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. We go next now to Brian Bittner of Oppenheimer.
Thanks. Hey, guys. I'd like to go back to the business trends you're seeing so far in the first quarter. You said comps are up about 16%. Based on your commentary last year, I think that implies average weekly sales are trending at that $147,000 level. Can you confirm that? Is the math correct there? Is that where the average weekly sales are trending? Is that how we should think about average weekly sales for the rest of the quarter, or is there some reason why those are going to decelerate to a lower level for the full quarter?
Hey, Brian, it's Michael. Yes, your math is pretty spot on. Yes, we were at 15.8% comp growth, and in my remarks I said we averaged 146,000 over the first seven weeks. I would say, you know, look, we don't know what the next, you know, six weeks of the quarter are going to bring. Certainly, you know, we were lapping Omicron, which helped with some of those, you know, some of that large growth that you're seeing. Yeah, sales, you know, that percentage probably comes down from there as we start to lap some more normalized numbers. I think we still have opportunity to grow, whether that's 146,000, something more or around that range, you know, we will see.
We've certainly shown that we're able to generate that level inside our restaurants, and that's how our operators are gonna continue to view the business.
Yeah, I would say.
Okay. Sorry
you know, we've been very good on gift card redemption, and there's been some driving forces with some great weather across the country and some enthusiasm out there. I think there's a couple of reasons why it's being aggressive right now, which we're excited about. Don't know how long it will hold at that level.
Sorry, Michael, I must have missed the call-out on that 146 in the prepared remarks. I apologize for that. My follow-up is on the labor costs. You know, the per operating week costs outpunched the inflation because of the hours that have been added in the fourth quarter. The question is, moving forward, you've given us this labor inflation guidance for 2023. How should we think about the per operating week cost in that labor line? You know, with the type of comps you're seeing so far, you know, in 2023, the question becomes how much operating leverage do you get off that, particularly on the labor line?
I mean, I think there's, you know, there's something still to be, you know, to be determined there. We, you know, we are still obviously in the first quarter rebuilding the hours from the Omicron impact of last year. Staffing has gotten much stronger and, you know, is getting to the levels we need. The hours growth is probably going to come down, and I think at some point, maybe in the back half of the year, we get back or closer to our historical algorithm, you know, for lack of a better term, as to how our traffic or hours grow in, you know, 50% of our traffic growth. We'll see if that's the new, you know, if there's a new normal or something else.
I think there's some, you know, there is no doubt going to be wage pressure, you know, throughout the year is our expectation. You know, with maybe the midpoint of our guidance and, you know, a healthy consumer, you know, that labor line, you know, maybe holds fairly steady for the year. Probably, you know, wouldn't surprise me to see some pressure, you know, earlier in the year and then, maybe getting some benefit in the back half of the year.
Thank you.
Thank you. We go next now to David Palmer of Evercore ISI. Mr. Palmer, your line is open. We can't hear you. You might want to check your mute function on your phone.
Can you hear me? I don't know.
We can hear you now, sir.
Okay. Yep. Thank you. The inflation, 5%-6%, or you said it's gonna be above that high end of the 5%-6% in the first quarter. That would be, I assume is gonna be related to beef. If you could just give a sense of what sort of cadence of the inflation you're expecting and the breakdown of that between beef and other.
Yeah. Hey, David, it's Michael. We did say, yeah, we expect the commodity inflation to be above the top end of the range, not just for the first quarter, but the first half of the year. A lot of that is certainly driven, you know, by beef. You know, pretty much throughout the whole year, that's gonna be the major pressure point we believe in our commodity basket in 2023 is beef. You know, we're gonna feel pressures in other areas. Some of that you're gonna see maybe diminish as we move through the year. The first quarter of last year hadn't really felt the impact from what was going on in Ukraine as of yet, so we're still lapping some of that.
That's some of the reason why you're gonna feel higher inflation in the first quarter and second quarter, and then we start to lap some of those higher numbers. Beef pressure throughout the year and maybe moderation in other areas as we move through the quarters.
I was wondering if you wouldn't mind just giving a little color about Bubba's. We don't have them up here in the Northeast, and would love to get one up here. How are the returns of those units versus. We can see some of the stack comp numbers. They look pretty good. You know, how are the returns versus the Roadhouse on those units, and are you seeing a fairly even set of returns? Are they doing as well in the ones you're placing in the Midwest as they do in the South and in Texas? Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah, David, it's Michael again. I would say, you know, look, we have 40 Bubba's right now, you know, we are certainly very excited about the concept. We're very pleased with the returns on some of the more recent openings as well as some of the older ones. When you have just 40 and you're learning, there are some in there that are underperforming that pull the overall number down. We certainly believe in the concept, believe in its ability to generate that mid-teen IRR that we are looking for, which is the same return that we're looking for at Roadhouse.
You know, we're seeing great acceptance of the brand, you know, in, you know, in the South to Southwest, you know, in really all the areas that we are opening them and, you know, are very excited. We think we'll get about five of those open this year and, you know, long runway to go there.
Thank you.
Thank you. We go next now to David Tarantino of Baird.
Hi, good afternoon. Jerry, you mentioned that you expect restaurant margin percentage to recover over time, I guess my question is really about kind of the path to getting there. I think, you said, you know, easing commodity costs and some other items like leverage on traffic. If you could just clarify, you know, how do you get to higher margin percentages over time? Michael, you know, can you comment on whether you think progress on that front is possible this year, you know, in terms of margin percentage, given all the puts and takes on the cost side?
Yeah. Hey, David, it's Michael. I'll start and then let Jerry add in. You know, I do think let's, you know, use the midpoint of our guidance range and the assumption that, you know, the consumer remains, you know, healthy and we see modest growth moving through the year. What level of growth, that's gonna be up to you guys to determine. Yeah, I think you could see some, on the percentage side, some margin improvement in 2023. I think other operating is certainly maybe the easiest path forward for some of that margin improvement. Then depending upon where we are within our guidance ranges on commodities and labor would factor into how much maybe leverage we could get in those areas. So I think obviously driving traffic is one way.
Seeing the menu pricing flowing through, you know, is another way. But like I tell you, the percentages are important to us, but maintaining that top line growth and maintaining those restaurant margin dollars are just as important if not more important.
I would just say as we continue to attack our top line sales and continue to watch inflation throughout our cost of goods, you know, there's obviously that part of it we do hope and do hear that maybe we're gonna have some relief outside of protein and then in other controllables from that. Labor, obviously, as we've really emphasized getting staffed this year and making that investment so that we can handle the sales and the volume that we're doing. Hopefully, we have really added to our po- we have 82,000 people, so we are back above.
Basically the pandemic levels and to handle the volume that we have. We really do want to utilize the tenure of our people now and the ability for them to handle the volume. There was a lot of ramping up to do these sales, I feel very comfortable going into this year that we should see some relief and even make some headway on those two categories for sure.
Great. Just a clarification, Michael, is there some level of traffic that you're thinking about, you know, I guess, traffic growth that would lead to margin expansion this year? Is there a break-even point that we should think about for the year?
I don't know necessarily if there's a break even versus last year. Probably, you know, on top of what we've already generated, some fairly modest traffic growth continuing through the year. Obviously, pricing drives margin % a lot more easily than does traffic. You would probably need to continue to see traffic grow. I mean, traffic growth is certainly going to benefit that labor line and the other operating line, and help us get some leverage there.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We go next now to Jeffrey Bernstein of Barclays.
Thank you very much. Two questions. One, just on the unit side of things. I know this year you were originally talking about maybe 30 openings. Now I think you referred to 25 or 30. In the short term, just wondering whether there's any near-term headwinds that are kind of still weighing on things, and that kind of ties into the 30 that, Michael, I believe you mentioned. You know, for the many years to come, you guys can do 30 a year. I'm just wondering now with the potentially three concepts, still humming along, just wondering what the constraint would be to, you know, going well above 30, whether or not there's anything in particular or whether that's just your comfort zone to assume 30 per year. I had one follow-up.
Yeah. Jeffrey, how you doing, buddy? Listen, I do believe that we will continue to focus on the growth of Texas Roadhouse at that low 20s and as we kick Bubba's 33 in also as we start working towards a double-digit number. You know, Jaggers is still a little bit early to see what we can put into the pipeline. I am excited about it. I do believe that it will continue to out- add to our portfolio. I do believe that we can get to the high 20s and low 30s in the next couple of years is where our target focus is and our pipeline. I do see it escalating from there. It will be incremental, but it's not going to be a big jump.
As we do get more aware of what we can do with Jaggers and Bubba's, they will be there. We're very comfortable with where Roadhouse is in the pipeline for the next three years, I would say, and we could be at that number, and the other two will be the driver to kick us up over into the 30s or higher. That would be the thought there on my side.
Got it. Is there any particular headwind in terms of this year or still ongoing delays and whatnot that would, maybe temper that prior 30?
Yeah, I believe there is some concerns on our part on just still a couple of things. The transition of property between our landlords delays things when we're in a negotiation, and we've seen a little bit of that. Permitting is getting better, but it's still a challenge by city or municipality. We're anticipating getting through all of that. We also have to be cautious of what we've seen the last couple of years.
Yeah. Jeff, this is Michael. I just still want to, you know, mention. That adjustment from the approximately 30 down to the 25-30, just with some of the movement we were seeing, it just felt like the right thing to update, but really had no impact on our thoughts on the Store-Week Growth for the year. It was, you know, deals that were already expected to be pretty late in the year that just realistically look like they're gonna slip into early next year, but again, would not really change that Store-Week Growth number.
Got it. My follow-up was just on the earlier question on beef. You know, I think you said the majority of your inflation is gonna come from beef. Just wondering if you can share what you're currently contracted specifically for beef and maybe at what inflation rate that we're talking about. I know one of your larger peers reported earlier today, and they talked about how they were 100% contracted for beef, assuming mid-single digit inflation. I'm just wondering how that compares. Maybe it's different product you're looking at or different specs, but is 100% something you would look to achieve? Any color you can provide in terms of, you know, the outlook for beef specifically as we move through this year would be great. Thank you.
Yeah. We're not gonna get into what percent of our beef is locked for the year. Obviously, we have more of it locked in the first quarter into the second quarter than we do in the back half of the year. With it being almost half of our basket, if we're 60% locked on the overall basket, beef has to be kind of in that same general range. You know, I did, you know, in our, in our remarks say that the majority, you know, I think you could call that, you know, 80%-ish of our Commodity inflation for the year is expected to come from beef.
Again, if you just, for the easier math, took the bottom end of our range of 5% commodity inflation, that would imply that you know, you're going to have beef inflation, you know, you know, high single digits or low, low double digit is what's kind of embedded in that expectation. You know, I can't really comment on what others are doing. You know, I can just tell you know, With the way we buy our beef, where we buy our beef from, the fact that we age it and cut it in our restaurants, it does require us to maybe do something a little bit different than what others, you know, do. We have no problem locking in when we think it's appropriate, but we're also.
You know, we have some pretty smart people in our procurement department who, you know when, you know, when's the right time to rebuy and when's the right time to wait, and, you know, they will make those decisions on what they think will result in the best, you know, cost for us. Obviously if locking in can be done, we certainly will do that.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We go next now to Peter Saleh at BTIG.
Great. Thanks for taking the question. I want to come back to the sales performance so far this year in the first seven weeks. I know you saw a pretty sizable increase in average weekly sales to 146,000 from, I think, the fourth quarter was about 130,000. Can you talk about is that increase really mostly that you're seeing, is that mostly traffic, or are you seeing any change in behavior in terms of what consumers are spending on? Is the check going up? Just anything when you look under the hood in those first seven weeks, just trying to understand the consumer behavior there?
Hey, Peter, it's Michael. You know, of that 15.8%, you know, we had mentioned on the last call that we were gonna have about 6% pricing, you know, in the first quarter. We're seeing most of that flowing through. I would say the traffic is just a tick over 10% of that 15.8%, and the rest of it is check growth.
Great. Just on the staying on the average weekly sales for a second, given how high it is, and it's probably, I think maybe the highest that you guys have seen, how do you feel about staffing levels with average weekly sales at this level? Do you feel like you need to staff up? Do you feel like you're appropriately staffed? Should we expect the labor hours to increase from here? Just any help with that would be appreciated.
Hey, Peter, this is Gina. I'll tell you that overall right now, we are very happy with our current staffing numbers. We've seen an increase in that. Our turnover is definitely going down. We know that quality of people hired and retention is going to increase our productivity, and that's gonna help to drive down the labor percent, which is what we are currently working on right now. You know, tenure matters, and connections to our people to create that culture and reduce that turnover amount will continue to be what we work on.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We take our next question now from Sara Senatore of Bank of America.
Hi. Thank you. I just wanted to go back to the unit growth question. You know, I think you said just sort of on the margin, maybe we'll see some of the units sort of in the following year in January instead of December. I noticed though the CapEx guide is unchanged, and I guess I wanted to ask on that, you know, are you still seeing relatively high inflation in build costs? Is there sort of a, you know, more repair or I should say like updating maintenance CapEx that you're spending on? Was any of that kind of deferred during the pandemic? You know, the other operating expenses, like you said, repair and maintenance, were high.
You know, is that also kind of part and parcel of what we're seeing broadly, which is kind of some of these elevated, still elevated costs? Just trying to understand, you know, given how strong the volumes are, whether or not it's sort of the marginal returns are higher as you would think they should be, or maybe the cost of building has gone up sufficiently that, you know, it's offsetting some of that.
Yeah. Hey, Sara, it's Michael. I'd say first on the CapEx question, you know, we are still going to be building those restaurants that aren't gonna open late this year. The, the main reason like the CapEx number didn't change isn't because of a increase in our assumption for the cost. It's just simply that even though a store may not open till January or February of next year, it'll probably be, for the most part, built by the end of this year. The CapEx number did not need to move. As far as other operating, you know, we continue to feel those, you know, pressures in there. A lot of services, you know, go into the other operating, you know, part of the business. A lot of supplies.
The utilities continue to be a pressure point, and repair and maintenance are still elevated. You know, there's also, you know, other new fees that just go in there that we really haven't talked a lot about in the future and aren't huge driving forces. You know, when we roll out, you know, new technology, there are costs associated with that. Whether that's running equipment or paying for installations, there are some costs that, you know, continue to pressure that line. With the growth in our volumes, we're certainly seeing, you know, more use of those different other operating items, but we're also seeing some new items introduced into that area.
I'm optimistic that we won't see it grow the way it has, or I'm hopeful that we won't see it grow on a dollar per store week the way we have and have more potential on that line for some leverage in 2023. We will wait and see exactly how that all plays out.
Okay, thanks. Just if you can give me a little bit of sense on the CapEx. I know it makes sense that, you know, the opening most of the work's being done before it opens. How much, you know, inflation have you seen on, you know, on build costs, let's say, versus pre-COVID? Just so I can get a sense of like where things stand versus maybe they were a couple years ago.
Yeah. You know, there's a few things that go into that. You know, there's obviously the building cost, there's the rent and everything else. We've probably seen. And you can't just look at the total cost and, you know, do the math one over the other because, again, where the restaurants open one year versus the next can have an impact on building costs and rents. You probably have seen, you know, ballpark 10%-15%, you know, increases in the cost of building a restaurant. We're also embedded in that is we're building a bigger restaurant than we have in the past, so it's hard to separate those two items out.
Understood. Thank you.
We'll take our next question now from Dennis Geiger of UBS.
Great. Thanks, and congrats to everyone on your promotions and expanded roles. I want to ask on G&A. You called out a couple of items contributing to the G&A levels in the fourth quarter. Curious if you could provide any thoughts on G&A in 23. Anything on investment there, you know, whether it's as a percentage of sales G&A or maybe growth year-over-year, any color on what to expect this year.
Yeah. Thanks, Dennis. This is Keith. Yeah, for G&A, you know, we always target to keep G&A growth lower than our revenue growth. I think in 23 might be a year where we get a little bit of that leverage back. We have a couple of G&A growth challenges in 23. You know, one of those, as we talked about, this is our 30-year anniversary, we're getting ready to have our annual managing partner conference. With it being our 30th anniversary, it's going to be quite the event. I think you can definitely look to see us having elevated conference costs this year, that will be a big driver, some of it.
We also have a new human capital management system that's going in, so we're going to have, you know, several non-capitalizable costs, you know, that we'll be incurring this year. That's going to be a big factor. The other piece is really going to be with the pandemic slowdown. You know, we've kind of been gradually recovering on a lot of things, but I think this is going to be the year where you're going to see us fully recovering and, you know, even in some cases, catching up on things like travel and training and really investing in our people too. I think those are going to be your main drivers this year.
Appreciate that color, Keith. One more quick one. Just as it relates to pricing, as it relates to the current levels and what you're taking in March, could you just help kind of level set us on what the effect of pricing by quarter maybe looks like over the next couple of quarters, given the moves there? Thanks very much.
Yeah. This is Michael. I can help you with that. 1st quarter, you know, with the 2.2%, assuming we don't take any pricing in October, you know, we'll have about 5.9% pricing for the 1st quarter, 5.6% in the 2nd quarter, 5.1% in the 3rd quarter, then 2.9% in the 4th quarter. Again, we will be looking at menu pricing and, you know, most likely taking something in October. But that's the cadence without any additional pricing.
Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it.
Sure.
Thank you. We go next now to Andrew Strelzik at BMO Capital Markets.
Hey, good afternoon. thanks for taking the questions. I had two. The first one, I believe you said that you're pretty comfortable with the pipeline for new stores over the next three years. It does feel like we hear from almost everyone that they're looking to accelerate unit growth, even those that don't really grow units. I'm curious, as you're building that pipeline farther out, do you see that show up at all, more competition, higher costs, any of those types of things would be the first question. The second question is just on the acquired franchise units. Any color around volumes or margins or potential investments to get those to where you want to be, relative to your system average? Thanks.
I'll take that first part. I think Michael will grab that second part. Yeah, I do. Obviously, there's competition out there, and I think there are. We have our targeted markets and states and growth areas. We've been working this plan for quite a while, and it's been very successful for us for Roadhouse and Bubba's. Obviously, as we're incorporating our strategy on how to grow Jaggers systematically, probably keeping it a little closer to here in the Kentucky Basin or the Heartland and knowing that around it. There is, there's always competition and, you know, there is real estate to be had out there.
I think, well, I'm not sure what others are doing, but we are very focused on our strategy and our focus on how to continue to do it right. We do have some relocations that we are also incorporating into the system and which is really helping us in a different way. That also adds to us looking for more real estate, other than new store openings. Being able to take a store, relocate it, put a bigger parking spot in and a bigger restaurant, which we need for our volume, whether it be cooler expansions or bump outs or extra dining rooms as we look forward to it. We're excited about some opportunities to do some things a little bigger, as they say in Texas, going forward. Yeah.
Andrew, on those franchise acquisitions, I would say those are pretty average performing stores from a sales and profit standpoint, so I don't think you're going to see any kind of movement in our overall company numbers because of that. From a CapEx requirement, you know, there is some CapEx needed, and that's built into our $265 million estimate for the year.
Great. Thank you very much.
We'll go next now to Joshua Long of Stephens.
Great. Thank you for taking my question. First one, I wanted to see if you might be able to provide a little bit more color on some of the underlying trends and understand the strong trends here in the first part of the year. You know, any sort of context you can provide as we think about Omicron impact from January, believe there's also a calendar shift last year from Valentine's Day and Super Bowl, just sort of trying to get at the underlying trends here for the first part of the year would be my first one. Secondarily, it sounds like your human capital is in a solid spot, also just thinking about the growth and, you know, all of the work you've done to maintain that gap between, you know, other peers in the industry.
Seems everyone is really focused on the human capital aspect going forward as a, the key, you know, pillar for how they're gonna get out their growth. You've done that really well historically. Just curious how you think about human capital and investments into that Roadie culture over the next, you know, two, three, four, five, 10 years, kind of that next chapter to get at some of that doubling of revenue that you talked about earlier in the call.
Hey, Josh, it's Michael. Maybe I'll start with the first question, about the first seven weeks, and really don't have a lot of, you know, numbers to call out for you. I'll tell you, there's always a lot of, you know, different things going on, whether it be the lapping of Omicron and, you know, winter weather this year or winter weather last year or the timing of Valentine's and Super Bowl. You know, I'll tell you, we've seen some, you know, we've seen strength throughout the seven weeks of the year, so there's really not any kind of number I would call out and say, "Hey, you need to adjust it upwards or downwards because of something." I think it would be unfair to take, you know, to have you all add something to it without then backing something off.
Like I said, I'd say it's been a pretty consistently strong performance throughout the seven weeks.
On the staffing side, I would tell you that I think in the last 18 months on the human capital side. Was he talking Workday or that part of it? No. On the staffing side, no, we have been very aggressive the last 18 months, and we feel really good about our position on the people side in our restaurants, in the front of the house, in the back of the house, in our management team. That piece of it has been a big investment. We're hoping obviously this year as we settle in and we reduce our turnover and we really focus on keeping our folks and connecting with our folks, that will be an investment that we see a return on this year, would be our hope.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll go next now to Andy Barish at Jefferies.
Hey, guys. Thanks. Two quick ones from me. Just on the margin performance in the 4Q, can you help us level set? I mean, it's unusual to see margins kind of go down from the 3Q to the 4Q. Was there something about December flow-through that wasn't quite what you expected or any help there just as we, you know, we look to, you know, to build off of, you know, that 14.5% restaurant level margin?
Yeah. Hey, Andy. It's Michael. It's actually more to do with the third quarter. If you may or may not recall, when we on our third quarter earnings, we called out the $6.6 million Breakage benefit that we received in our other sales, as well as a $4.4 million benefit to our other operating for a general liability reserve adjustment. Those two numbers and the benefit of those in the third quarter had called probably a %, 1.1% benefit to our Q3 restaurant margin. Really on an adjusted basis, we would have gone from a more like a 14.3% in Q3 up to that 14.5% in Q4. It really had more to do with those beneficial items last quarter.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Then on traffic growth at these kind of volume numbers, I mean, Jerry maybe and/or G ina, I mean, it's phenomenal. It, it obviously gets a little tougher in execution. You know, legendary food, legendary service continues to be the hallmark. Are there other things we should be thinking about? You know, as you've mentioned tech a few times or, you know, Roadhouse Pay or remodels, bump outs, anything you'd like to call out as, you know, as we try to, you know, figure out traffic growth for 2023 and beyond?
Well, we are absolutely, always looking at speed in our restaurants. Roadhouse Pay is one of those, items that we've recently put in where, you know, the guests can pay at their, you know, in a timely manner. We can turn our tables faster, which is what we've seen. We are putting KDS in some of our, kitchens, which helps our ticket times. We really look at, from a technology standpoint, any piece that can help the speed of our restaurants, which obviously increases the traffic growth.
We look at that. And you know, there may be some other, you know, as our operators, we've said this, you know, as our staffing levels have come up and we've gotten staffed, and we get the tenure in our restaurants, and people are more experienced, obviously the productivity goes up, and they become more efficient and faster in their roles. All of that leads to stronger traffic.
I'll just expand on that Digital Kitchen a little bit. You know, Roadhouse Pay, we have in almost 615 stores now. It has been a huge win last year. We are still testing tablets so that we can do a mobile handheld ordering piece of it. We're working on our software as we go. We want to make sure it's perfect when we get it out there to execute. Far as the Digital Kitchen, we have converted two of our restaurants and opened two new stores and are probably committed to 30 restaurants this year moving to the Digital Kitchen, which is obviously very exciting. We just opened one a restaurant, a high volume store that we relocated, and it has been very successful.
The operators are excited about it, so we're excited to invest in seeing some real rewards as we move forward. This will be a big year for us when it comes to opening new stores with a Digital Kitchen and even converting some existing stores. Kinda definitely gonna be leaning on some technology to help us get faster and really we want to complement our service with technology.
Very helpful. Appreciate it.
We'll go next now to John Ivankoe of JPMorgan.
250 Texas Roadhouses over the next 10 years. Round numbers, I suppose. Is your site profile changing? Are you seeing new areas, you know, where Texas Roadhouse can be successful, maybe even closer to some of the major cities? You know, maybe it would come at a higher cost, but maybe also much higher sales. Just how the overall site profile is emerging or evolving for the next chapter.
Yeah. I would say we'll probably stay pretty tried and true to our philosophy of the suburbs. We do have a restaurant in New York City, in New Rochelle, that we've looked at. We are starting to look a little bit more in a, in a city area or higher traffic, which could be. We've got a couple of those. We are expanding a little bit. We've had some success in some smaller communities or lower populated areas that we can go into. We've got a broad scope and a mind and looking at every option. I, and I think in a, at a company our size and what we want to accomplish, we gotta stay true, but we have to test and try some new things that might help us.
Because we're looking at Bubba's and we're looking at Jaggers, we're probably expanded and are looking at areas that would help all three brands. I think our real estate team clearly understands what we're trying to do with all three, but we have opened the scope of where we will go and what we will try so that we can expand and have a lot of success in that side of it. There is a couple of things that we're working on that are a little different than what we've done in the past, and we're excited to see how they turn out for us.
That's great. Thank you. Secondly, and related, I suppose, on development, are there still significant bump out opportunities, you know, for the chain? Or have you know, done basically what you can do at this point? You've mentioned relocations. How significant of an opportunity is relocations for the Texas Roadhouse brand?
Well, we like them. They're so far proven out, pretty well. I would say that over the last five years, we probably have a dozen, and every one of them have proven to see a real bump in sales. That's exciting. As people term out on their 20-year lease, that's when we start looking at what is our opportunity to reinvest or to maybe relocate if the energy moved or something. I think that's a smart strategy from a business standpoint. From that, as far as bump outs, Michael, I think, has a couple of stats on that.
Yeah, yeah, John, I think on bump outs, I'd say there still is opportunity. Really every year there's new restaurants that kind of start to qualify as potentials, potential ones for us to look at. Either they've grown their volumes enough to be considered or they've been open long enough. You know, for 2023, I wouldn't be surprised to see us open, I don't know, bump out 10-12 restaurants. We probably have on top of that another 20+ that are already in the pipeline for 2024 and beyond. Sometimes they take a little bit more work on the legal side of getting all the approvals to get them done.
We definitely have a lot of restaurants still interested in them and new ones kind of every year that, you know, kind of qualify and get on our radar to be considered for a bump out.
Thank you.
Thank you. We go next now to Jon Tower of Citigroup.
Great. Thanks for taking the question, and I'll try and make it quick. In previous quarters, you talked about a nice little mix up in the menu. This quarter looks like mix was flat. Kinda curious to get your perspective. Are you just not seeing as much trade up on the menu? Is there anything else going on perhaps in the fourth quarter?
Yeah. Jon, it's Michael. You know, it's a interesting question or one that we've been looking at. I'd say so far this year, you know, we're seeing this tremendous traffic growth, but you are right, we are seeing a little bit of negative mix coming in. What we don't know is we certainly lapped the move up to a higher check that our guest has, you know, chosen to do. Even with this little bit of negative mix that we're now seeing, we're still well above where we were pre-pandemic. What we're still, you know, looking at and trying to determine is what is driving a little bit of negative entree mix that we're seeing right now.
Because we're not seeing it in appetizers, we're not seeing it in other add-ons, we're not seeing it in soft beverage, but we're seeing a little bit in that, in that entree. It, you know, it could be some customers trading down a little bit, but honestly, it could also be somebody trading up to us that now sees the relative value of a Texas Roadhouse as compared to going to a fast casual restaurant for a very similar price. They can be seated and waited upon. Maybe some of those people are now coming in and driving some of this traffic growth. Maybe they are coming in at some of our lower price points on the menu.
It's something we're watching, but it's the unique thing over these last, you know, handful of weeks is we're seeing it just a little bit in the entree category, but not in the rest of the menu. We are still seeing a little bit on the alcohol mix, but we were already seeing that. That may be people moving from alcohol to soft bev, because we are seeing that soft bev mix move up a little bit.
Got it. I appreciate that color. Just lastly for me, I think you hit on this maybe earlier in the call, but new store productivity at Roadhouse has been phenomenal. I think it's up, you know, the average weekly sale up 8% versus the comp store base in 22. Maybe you answered this earlier in the form of building bigger stores, but is there anything else going on that would be driving that acceleration you're seeing in new store productivity versus the past?
Yeah. Nothing is, Michael. Nothing that I can think of that would be driving that. I don't know if, Gina, if there's anything you would see there?
No, nothing I can think of.
All righty. Thank you.
Thank you. We go next now to Brian Vaccaro of Raymond James.
Hi. Thanks. Good evening. Just two quick ones. First on labor, Gina, where is hourly turnover sort of trending over the last few quarters? Could you just ballpark that for us and maybe give us some perspective on how that compares to pre-COVID levels?
Yeah, sure. It, I will tell you that, we are seeing the turnover number going down, consistently over quarter-over-quarter. We are seeing more application flow, which is good for us. You know, as we like I said before, it's the quality of people that really makes a difference. Once we get those quality of people in with the experience, we can keep them longer. That really helps with that turnover piece. We continue to see it go down, which is really promising.
Yeah. Brian, this is Michael. I can just put a few numbers to that. Again, remember, every company maybe calculates turnover a little bit differently, we've seen our number, which we, you know, we look at over a last 12-month period. It's a slow-moving number. we're down in the high 120s right now. Middle of 2022, we were in the mid 130s, we've definitely seen it come down. I would say pre-pandemic, we were somewhere probably in that 105-110 range.
Okay.
We still have a little room to go, but getting better.
Okay, great. That's helpful. Just last one, on just sort of near term store margin expectations and just sort of in the spirit of getting everyone on the same page. You know, in an environment where your sales are so strong in the first quarter, it can be a little disorienting. I guess could you provide any guardrails on first quarter store margin expectations? Is there a historical perspective maybe versus Q4? I think it's usually up about 200 bits. Is that reasonable? Maybe there's something in the current environment where that wouldn't be the case this year.
Yeah. Hey, Brian, it's Michael. You know, not gonna get too deep into that one, but I don't think what you spelled out is certainly possible that, you know, our margin % are certainly typically at their highest in Q1 and Q2 because our sales volumes are typically at their highest. Yeah, what you're talking about, you know, something to that, you know, magnitude, you know, could be the case.
I'm not gonna say whether it's a 200 basis point move or not. We would expect to see some, you know, higher margins in the first half of the year, just as we, you know, saw higher margins in the first half of last year and, you know, we said, "Hey, there's a potential to see some overall margin improvement year-over-year." You would kind of need something like that to happen.
Okay. All right. Fair enough. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our final question will come from Nick Setyan at Wedbush.
Thank you. Just a couple of questions for me. I just wanted to walk through maybe just the COGS dynamic in Q4 and perhaps in Q1. If we assume, you know, similar commodity inflation in Q1 as we saw in Q4, that's off of a lower base in Q1 of 2022. So presumably, sequentially, the COGS percentage should be down from Q4 to Q1. Is that fair?
From, so from Q4 to Q1?
Yes.
Is that what you said, essentially?
Yes
I can see it being fairly similar. Whether it's up or down, again, it depends on where within our numbers, but they probably are going to be in the same ballpark as each other given the numbers that we've called out and, you know, where our costs or underlying cost structures are.
Okay. Fair enough. Just remind us historically in terms of seasonality, what March looks like in terms of average weekly sales versus January and February.
Yeah. March tends to be a very strong, you know, you know, month for us. If we were to go back and maybe look at, I don't know, 2019. Give me a second to pull that up in front of me. You know, January, period one and two, you know, were both around 105,000 in weekly sales. In our March period, we're, you know, 110,000-111,000 a week in sales. We do tend to see a, you know, a little bit of a increase in that, in that March period.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. That does conclude our question and answer session this afternoon. Mr. Morgan, I'd like to turn things back to you for any closing comments you may have.
Thank you very much. I just want to say, 30 years ago tomorrow, we opened our very first Texas Roadhouse. I couldn't be more excited and proud of what this company has accomplished as we're over 700 restaurants and three concepts. We appreciate everyone's support and partnership throughout this journey. It's very exciting to see what this company has accomplished. I couldn't be more proud to celebrate with all of our folks here in Louisville tomorrow and our partners when we have our conference in April. Thank you all for your support and partnership. We will continue to perform at a high level.
Thank you, Mr. Morgan.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's Texas Roadhouse fourth quarter earnings conference call. Again, I'd like to thank you all so much for joining us and wish you all a great evening. Thank you very much.