Dave & Buster's Entertainment Inc (PLAY) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon and welcome to the Dave & Buster's third-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded.

下午好，歡迎參加 Dave & Buster 的 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意此事件正在被記錄。

I would now extend the conference over to Cory Hatton, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

現在，我將會議延長至投資者關係副總裁兼財務主管 Cory Hatton。請繼續。

Thank you, operator, and welcome to everyone on the line. Joining me on today's call are Kevin Sheehan; our Chair of the Board and Interim Chief Executive Officer; and Darin Harper, our Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will be happy to take your questions. This call is being recorded on behalf of Dave & Buster's Entertainment Inc., and is copyrighted.

謝謝您，接線員，歡迎在線的每個人。參加今天電話會議的有凱文·希恩 (Kevin Sheehan)；我們的董事會主席兼臨時執行長；以及我們的財務長達林哈珀 (Darin Harper)。在我們準備好發言後，我們將很樂意回答您的問題。此通話是代表 Dave & Buster's Entertainment Inc. 錄製的，並受版權保護。

Before we begin the discussion on our company's third-quarter 2024 results, I'd like to call your attention to the fact that in our prepared remarks and responses to questions, certain items may be discussed, which are not entirely based on historical act. Any of these items should be considered forward-looking statements relating to future events within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated.

在我們開始討論公司 2024 年第三季業績之前，我想提請您注意，在我們準備好的評論和問題答覆中，可能會討論某些項目，這些項目並不完全基於歷史行為。這些項目中的任何一項應被視為與1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》含義內的未來事件相關的前瞻性陳述。導致實際結果與預期結果有所不同預期。

Information on these risk factors and uncertainties have been published in our filings with the SEC, which are available on our website. In addition, our remarks today will include references to financial measures that are not defined under generally accepted accounting principles.

有關這些風險因素和不確定性的資訊已在我們向 SEC 提交的文件中發布，這些文件可在我們的網站上查看。此外，我們今天的演講將包括參考公認會計原則中未定義的財務指標。

Investors should review the reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measure contained in our earnings release this afternoon.

投資者應審查這些非公認會計準則衡量標準與我們今天下午發布的收益報告中包含的可比較公認會計準則衡量標準的對帳情況。

And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Kevin.

說到這裡，我想把電話轉給凱文。

Thanks, Cory. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. As communicated in our press release, Chris Morris, our CEO, has resigned to pursue other interests, and I'm assuming the role as Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO. I want to assure you that despite Chris' departure, there will be a strong and seamless continuation under my interim executive leadership.

謝謝，科里。大家下午好，感謝您今天加入我們的電話會議。正如我們在新聞稿中所傳達的，我們的執行長 Chris Morris 已辭職以追求其他利益，我將擔任董事會主席兼臨時執行長。我想向你們保證，儘管克里斯離開了，但在我的臨時行政領導下，將會有一個強大而無縫的延續。

I've done this before for Dave & Buster's from the fall of 2021 until Chris started in the middle of 2022, and I am excited to work with this management team. The same plan, which we initially unveiled to you at our Investor Day in June of 2023 and have been hard at work as a team to execute on ever since will remain our focus. We are working with Heidrick & Struggles, a global executive search firm to identify the future permanent CEO of this great company. On behalf of the whole entire Board, I would like to extend that thank you to Chris to this significant amount of energy he dedicated to leading this company over the past 2.5 years, and we wish him all the very best in his future endeavors.

從 2021 年秋季到 Chris 在 2022 年年中開始，我曾為 Dave & Buster's 做過這件事，我很高興與這個管理團隊合作。我們最初在 2023 年 6 月的投資者日向您公佈了同樣的計劃，從那時起我們就一直作為一個團隊努力執行，這將仍然是我們的重點。我們正在與全球獵人頭公司海德思哲合作，為這家偉大的公司物色未來的永久執行長。我謹代表整個董事會向 Chris 表示感謝，感謝他在過去 2.5 年裡為領導這家公司所付出的巨大精力，並祝他在未來的工作中一切順利。

Now I'll turn the call over to Darin to walk you through the results for the third quarter. Darin?

現在我將把電話轉給達林，向您介紹第三季的結果。達林？

Thank you, Kevin, and good afternoon, everyone.

謝謝你，凱文，大家下午好。

During the quarter, we continued to make progress towards our long-term strategic goals. We opened three new stores which are on track to generate strong cash-on-cash returns, as we have demonstrated throughout our history. We completed 11 new fully programmed remodels and are on track to have 44 completed by the end of fiscal 2024. Our fully programmed remodels continue to outperform the rest of the store base, and we are excited for the opportunity these remodels give us to drive traffic sales and EBITDA.

本季度，我們持續在實現長期戰略目標方面取得進展。我們開設了三家新店，正如我們在整個歷史中所證明的那樣，這些店有望產生強勁的現金回報。我們完成了 11 項新的完全編程改造，預計到 2024 財年末將完成 44 項。銷售額和EBITDA。

Additionally, we saw a strong year-over-year growth in our special events business and remain optimistic about the prospects for our event business and the upcoming peak holiday of that season following the rollout of our new banquet menu and the investments we've made in our in-store sales managers.

此外，我們的特別活動業務同比強勁增長，並對我們的活動業務的前景以及在推出新宴會菜單和進行投資後即將到來的當季假期高峰保持樂觀我們的店內銷售經理。

Despite this progress, our financial results for the third quarter, which is our historically lowest seasonal volume quarter of the year, were negatively impacted as compared to the prior year by a material fickle calendar mismatch adverse weather across many important regions and disruption to certain stores in our comp set as they underwent remodel construction.

儘管取得了這些進展，但我們第三季度的財務業績（這是我們歷史上季節性銷量最低的季度）與上一年相比，由於許多重要地區的重大變化無常的日曆不匹配、惡劣天氣以及某些商店的中斷而受到負面影響在我們的比較集中，因為他們進行了改造建設。

Our new domestic store openings have consistently performed in line with or above expectations and historically high ROIs. In the third quarter, we opened two new Dave & Buster's stores in Barboursville, West Virginia and Lombard, Illinois and one new Main Events in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Quarter-to-date for Q4, we opened one new Dave & Buster store in Clarksville, Tennessee, bringing us to a grand total of 10 new stores opened year-to-date. With one new store in our pipeline slipping into 2025, we expect to open four additional stores, three Dave & Buster's, and one Main Event and the balance of this fiscal year.

我們新開的國內門市的表現始終符合或高於預期，投資報酬率也處於歷史高點。第三季度，我們在西維吉尼亞州巴伯斯維爾和伊利諾伊州倫巴第開設了兩家新的 Dave & Buster's 商店，並在密西根州大急流城開設了一家新的 Main Events 商店。第四季至今，我們在田納西州克拉克斯維爾開設了一家新的 Dave & Buster 商店，使我們今年迄今新開的商店總數達到 10 家。隨著我們計劃在 2025 年開設一家新店，我們預計將在本財年剩餘時間內開設四家新店、三家 Dave & Buster's 商店以及一家 Main Event 商店。

On the international franchise development front, we expect to have our first store open in Bangalore, India by the end of this fiscal year and five total international stores in the next 12 months with our respective franchise partners across the globe.

在國際特許經營發展方面，我們預計到本財年末將在印度班加羅爾開設第一家商店，並在未來 12 個月內與全球各地的特許經營合作夥伴一起開設 5 家國際商店。

So now let's step through a brief progress update on each of our six key organic growth initiatives. First, marketing optimization. As we've said in the past, we believe there is an opportunity to drive top line by improving the effectiveness of our marketing. We benefit from the highest brand awareness in the industry. We also know from our strong NPS scores that when customers come to our stores, they have an experience that they are very happy with.

現在，讓我們逐步介紹六項關鍵有機成長計畫的最新進展。一是行銷優化。正如我們過去所說，我們相信有機會透過提高行銷效率來提高收入。我們受益於業界最高的品牌知名度。我們也從強大的 NPS 分數中得知，當顧客來到我們的商店時，他們會獲得非常滿意的體驗。

What we have been most focused on is ensuring that we have creative that effectively communicates the breadth, quality and value of our offerings and that we deliver those messages to the right people at the right time. During the quarter, we fully onboarded a new marketing agency. And since then, we have done comprehensive testing as well as a review of our media strategy including our media mix, our digital marketing, analytics capabilities and customer targeting as well as our spend models.

我們最關注的是確保我們的創意能夠有效地傳達我們產品的廣度、品質和價值，並在正確的時間將這些訊息傳遞給正確的人。本季度，我們全面啟用了一家新的行銷機構。從那時起，我們對我們的媒體策略進行了全面的測試和審查，包括我們的媒體組合、數位行銷、分析能力和客戶定位以及我們的支出模型。

Through this work, we have discovered various opportunities to improve the effectiveness of our media strategy, including, amongst other things, implementing capabilities to better track and optimize the return on our digital marketing spend as well as ensuring that we are spending dollars during the periods when they had the greatest impact.

透過這項工作，我們發現了提高媒體策略有效性的各種機會，其中包括實施更好地追蹤和優化數位行銷支出回報的能力，以及確保我們在此期間支出資金當他們產生最大的影響時。

On the promotional side, we have recently revamped and relaunched Dave & Buster's Eat & Play combo, which aims to communicate and demonstrate value and drive attach across the full breadth of Dave & Buster's offerings. But additionally, we recently did a soft launch test of a Winter Pass, which is aimed to drive loyalty, visit frequency and food and beverage attach while providing a significant amount of value at three attractive pricing tiers. We like what we have seen from the past since the launch of the test at 36 Dave & Buster's stores and are moving quickly to roll out the offering system-wide.

在促銷方面，我們最近改進並重新推出了 Dave & Buster 的 Eat & Play 組合，旨在溝通和展示價值，並在 Dave & Buster 的所有產品中增強吸引力。此外，我們最近對冬季通行證進行了軟啟動測試，旨在提高忠誠度、訪問頻率和餐飲附加價值，同時以三個有吸引力的定價等級提供大量價值。自從在 36 家 Dave & Buster 商店推出測試以來，我們對過去所看到的情況感到滿意，並且正在迅速採取行動，在整個系統範圍內推出該產品。

Our loyalty database now has over 7 million members this is quite valuable as our loyalty members visit 2.5 times more often and spend more with us over the course of their visits. In recent months, we have brought on additional internal and external resources to help us optimize our loyalty program, and we believe significant opportunity exists to both continue to grow our loyalty database as well as further improve the value the customers get out of the program and the value we get from the customers in our database.

我們的忠誠度資料庫現在擁有超過 700 萬會員，這是非常有價值的，因為我們的忠誠度會員訪問的頻率增加了 2.5 倍，並且在訪問過程中在我們身上花費了更多的錢。近幾個月來，我們引入了更多的內部和外部資源來幫助我們優化我們的忠誠度計劃，我們相信，存在著巨大的機會，可以繼續擴大我們的忠誠度資料庫，並進一步提高客戶從該計劃中獲得的價值，我們從資料庫中的客戶所獲得的價值。

Overall, we believe the improvements we have continued to make in our creative, our media spend, our promotional calendar and our loyalty program position us to unlock material growth.

總體而言，我們相信，我們在創意、媒體支出、促銷日曆和忠誠度計劃方面不斷取得的進步使我們能夠實現物質成長。

Second, strategic games pricing. Our strategic games pricing initiatives continues to show significant upside. As a reminder, prior to this year, the company had not increased chip prices in more than 25 years. Given the macroenvironment and after the results of our testing, we cautiously rolled out higher games pricing across the country while still ensuring that we have the appropriate promotional offerings at the appropriate time to communicate and demonstrate the compelling value we offer our guests.

第二，策略遊戲定價。我們的策略遊戲定價舉措繼續顯示出顯著的上升空間。需要提醒的是，在今年之前，該公司已經有超過 25 年沒有提高晶片價格了。考慮到宏觀環境和我們的測試結果，我們謹慎地在全國範圍內推出了更高的遊戲定價，同時仍然確保我們在適當的時間提供適當的促銷產品，以傳達和展示我們為客人提供的令人信服的價值。

We are excited about the capabilities that we have been able to unlock over the last several months as our enhanced game system allows for granular store level price adjustments based on increasingly real-time performance data. We are also excited about a number of strategic investments we are planning for Midway in the coming months, which should only further enhance the value proposition we provide to our guests.

我們對過去幾個月能夠釋放的功能感到興奮，因為我們增強的遊戲系統允許根據日益即時的性能數據進行精細的商店級價格調整。我們也對未來幾個月計畫對中途島進行的一系列策略性投資感到興奮，這只會進一步增強我們為客人提供的價值主張。

We have a number of new games set to launch in advance of spring 2025, including The Human Crane, which will be installed in the majority of Dave & Buster's stores and which is adding tangible excitement in the Dallas and Miami stores we have tested it in. Games will always be what we are known for and the key differentiator to our business. We look forward to innovating on our offering and using us to solidify our leadership position in the out-of-home entertainment space.

我們計劃在2025 年春季之前推出許多新遊戲，其中包括《The Human Crane》，該遊戲將安裝在大多數Dave & Buster's 商店中，並在我們測試過的達拉斯和邁阿密商店中增添了切實的興奮感。我們期待對我們的產品進行創新，並利用我們來鞏固我們在戶外娛樂領域的領導地位。

Third, improved food and beverage. As a reminder, our Food and Beverage segment presents another opportunity to boost revenue and EBITDA by enhancing quality and service and returning customer engagement to historical levels with its attachment to games. Earlier this year, our new service model improved efficiency and the guest experience, which were supported by iterations of our revamped menu.

三是改善餐飲。提醒一下，我們的食品和飲料部門提供了另一個提高收入和 EBITDA 的機會，透過提高品質和服務並將客戶參與度恢復到歷史水平以及對遊戲的依戀。今年早些時候，我們的新服務模式提高了效率和賓客體驗，這得益於我們改進菜單的迭代。

Consequently, our guest satisfaction scores are continuing to show positive signs, up 6 points in the third quarter versus the prior year. August also saw the launch of our Phase 4 menu, concentrating on beverage innovation and special events. These Phase 4 enhancements drove encouraging improvements in F&B revenue, number of F&B checks and F&B attach rate. We have come a long way and are now in a very compelling spot with our overall F&B offering.

因此，我們的賓客滿意度得分繼續顯示出積極的跡象，第三季比去年提高了 6 個百分點。八月也推出了第四階段菜單，重點是飲料創新和特別活動。這些第四階段的增強措施推動了餐飲收入、餐飲支票數量和餐飲附加率的令人鼓舞的改善。我們已經取得了長足的進步，現在我們的整體餐飲產品處於非常引人注目的位置。

Fourth, remodels. We completed the remodel of 11 additional Dave & Buster's stores in the third quarter and continue to expect to complete 44 total remodels by the end of fiscal 2024. As a reminder, when we started this remodel initiative, we tested a number of different prototypes to see which could drive the highest returns.

第四，改造。我們在第三季完成了另外 11 家 Dave & Buster's 商店的改造，預計到 2024 財年末將完成 44 家改造。一個可以帶來最高的回報。

The conclusion of our initial effort was that the remodels that had the broadest offering, which we refer to as fully programmed, which combined a new and modernized dining room, sports bar and gaining them with new and easily substitutable entertainment offerings like electronic shuttle board, electronic darts and the arena, our immersive experience drove the highest ROI.

我們最初努力的結論是，改造提供了最廣泛的產品，我們稱之為完全編程，它結合了新的現代化餐廳、體育酒吧，並通過新的且易於替代的娛樂產品（如電子穿梭板）來獲得它們，電子飛鏢和競技場，我們的沉浸式體驗帶來了最高的投資回報率。

We are encouraged that in aggregate, our fully program remodels continue to demonstrate improved top line performance. It is also important to note that we are still in the early stages of this effort, and we expect to see additional benefits as we progress on our remodel journey. Our rollout plan underscores our commitment to transforming the Dave & Buster's experience across our entire system. And by the end of this fiscal year, all new stores will look and feel like the fully programmed prototype which will give us a holistic portfolio of fresh stores upon program completion.

令我們感到鼓舞的是，總的來說，我們的全面計畫改造繼續證明了營收績效的改善。同樣重要的是要注意，我們仍處於這項工作的早期階段，隨著改造之旅的進展，我們預計會看到更多的好處。我們的推出計劃強調了我們致力於改變整個系統中 Dave & Buster 體驗的承諾。到本財年結束時，所有新店的外觀和感覺都將像完全編程的原型一樣，項目完成後將為我們提供完整的生鮮店組合。

Fifth, special events. Our special events business continued to perform well in the third quarter, up mid-single digits to the prior year. This bodes well for the fourth quarter as our special events business historically is a significantly higher percentage of sales over the prime holiday season than other periods of the year. Our marketing is now more appropriately supporting special events by utilizing paid media, digital channels, and in-store experiences with bounce backs that drive cross-selling.

五是專項活動。我們的特別活動業務在第三季持續表現良好，比去年同期成長了中個位數。這對第四季來說是個好兆頭，因為從歷史上看，我們的特別活動業務在黃金假日季節的銷售百分比明顯高於一年中的其他時期。我們的行銷現在更恰當地利用付費媒體、數位管道和店內體驗來支持特殊活動，並透過反彈推動交叉銷售。

We are also exploring offline media test to expand reach. We are seeing encouraging signs of the strength with customer deposits for group events up low double digits versus this time last year, which has been supported by advancements in our online group booking engine. The addition of on the premise sales manager into our stores is proving highly effective with our increasingly hands-on approach of enhanced training for the special events teams.

我們也在探索線下媒體測試以擴大影響力。我們看到了令人鼓舞的跡象，團體活動的客戶存款比去年同期增長了兩位數，這得益於我們線上團體預訂引擎的進步。透過我們越來越多的實踐方法來加強對特別活動團隊的培訓，事實證明，在我們的商店中增加現場銷售經理是非常有效的。

While we feel comfortable at the current level of labor investments in our special events business, the outperformance thus far of stores with dedicated sales managers indicates continued upside to expand the program to additional stores in 2025 and should we achieve our internal targets this quarter.

雖然我們對目前特殊活動業務的勞動力投資水準感到滿意，但迄今為止，配備專門銷售經理的商店的出色表現表明，如果我們在本季度實現內部目標，那麼到2025 年將該計劃擴展到更多商店將繼續有上行空間。

Finally, technology enablement. Our significant IT enhancements throughout the year have updated connectivity and server infrastructure which was foundational in supporting our game ecosystem, remodels, kitchen enhancements, loyalty program, and new service model, all of which will allow us to better integrate new property level insights into strategic analysis and enhance guest satisfaction and engagement.

最後，技術賦能。我們全年的重大IT 改進更新了連接和伺服器基礎設施，這是支援我們的遊戲生態系統、改造、廚房增強、忠誠度計劃和新服務模式的基礎，所有這些都將使我們能夠更好地將新的財產層級見解融入策略中。

On the cost management front, we remain rigorous about finding ways to further optimize our cost structure at the store level and G&A level of our P&L, and we are encouraged by the results achieved this year that will allow us to grow margins as our various top line initiatives take hold in the coming quarters.

在成本管理方面，我們仍然嚴格尋找方法來進一步優化我們的門市層面和損益表的一般管理費用層面的成本結構，我們對今年的成果感到鼓舞，這將使我們能夠隨著各個頂級公​​司的發展而提高利潤率生產線舉措將在未來幾季生效。

The investments we are making in store level IT infrastructure and service center systems are enhancing our team members' productivity, which will unlock continuous improvement and allow us to scale the portfolio in ways that don't require a significant amount of additional resources in the years ahead. Most importantly, we aim to improve margins and reduce costs while simultaneously enhancing the guest experience, a challenging but rewarding achievement.

我們在商店級 IT 基礎設施和服務中心系統上進行的投資正在提高我們團隊成員的生產力，這將實現持續改進，並使我們能夠在幾年內不需要大量額外資源的情況下擴展產品組合前面。最重要的是，我們的目標是提高利潤並降低成本，同時增強賓客體驗，這是一項充滿挑戰但回報豐厚的成就。

Okay. Turning to some additional financial detail. In our third quarter of fiscal 2024, comparable store sales decreased 7.7% on a like-for-like calendar basis versus the prior period. During the quarter, we generated revenue of $453 million; net loss of $33 million, or $0.84 per diluted share; adjusted net loss of $17 million, or $0.45 per diluted share; and adjusted EBITDA of $68 million, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.1%. Reconciliations of all non-GAAP financial measures can be found in today's press release.

好的。轉向一些額外的財務細節。在 2024 財年第三季度，可比商店銷售額與上一期相比下降了 7.7%。本季度，我們創造了 4.53 億美元的收入；淨虧損 3,300 萬美元，或攤薄後每股虧損 0.84 美元；調整後淨虧損為 1,700 萬美元，或攤薄後每股虧損 0.45 美元；調整後 EBITDA 為 6,800 萬美元，調整後 EBITDA 利潤率為 15.1%。所有非公認會計準則財務指標的調節表均可在今天的新聞稿中找到。

As a reminder, the third quarter is the lowest seasonal quarter from both the volume and EBITDA margin perspective. And as a result, a decline in same-store sales has an outsized impact on year-over-year changes in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin than in any other quarter of our fiscal year.

提醒一下，從銷售量和 EBITDA 利潤率的角度來看，第三季是最低的季節性季度。因此，同店銷售額的下降對調整後 EBITDA 和調整後 EBITDA 利潤率的同比變動影響比本財年其他季度都要大。

As you know, we do not typically provide guidance. However, given the significant calendar shifts as well as the lack of comparability of a 52-week fiscal year lapping a 53-week fiscal year in the prior year, amongst other factors, we felt it appropriate at this time to give our perspective on where we expect the year to end up.

如您所知，我們通常不提供指導。然而，考慮到重大的日曆變化以及 52 週的財年與上一年的 53 週的財年缺乏可比性等因素，我們認為此時適當地就以下問題發表我們的看法：我們預計這一年即將結束。

Based on what we are seeing in walk-in sales trends as well as our forward bookings on the special event side, we expect fiscal 2024 adjusted EBITDA to be within a range of $505 million and $515 million. In the quarter, we opportunistically refinanced a portion of our debt to extend maturities, minimize interest costs and increased liquidity.

根據我們所看到的現場銷售趨勢以及特殊活動的提前預訂，我們預計 2024 財年調整後的 EBITDA 將在 5.05 億美元至 5.15 億美元之間。在本季度，我們機會主義地為部分債務進行了再融資，以延長期限、最大限度地降低利息成本並增加流動性。

We raised the new $700 million term loan due in 2031. We redeemed the remaining outstanding $440 million principal amount of our senior notes that were due in 2025. We paid down $200 million of existing term loan principal due in 2029.

我們籌集了2031 年到期的7 億美元新定期貸款。 。

And we upsized the capacity of our revolving credit facility by $150 million to $650 million and extended its maturity for a fresh five years to 2029.

我們將循環信貸額度的容量增加了 1.5 億美元，達到 6.5 億美元，並將其期限再延長五年至 2029 年。

I'd like to thank our bank partners for the consistent support and flawless execution in this important transaction, which solidifies our balance sheet for the long term as we continue to invest in our business. It also reemphasizes the confidence our financial partners have in our go-forward plan.

我要感謝我們的銀行合作夥伴在這項重要交易中的一貫支持和完美執行，這在我們繼續投資業務的同時鞏固了我們的長期資產負債表。它也再次強調了我們的金融合作夥伴對我們的前進計劃的信心。

We had a $7 million operating cash outflow during the third quarter, ending the quarter with a cash balance of $9 million for total liquidity of $546 million when combined with the $537 million available on our upsized $650 million revolving credit facility, net of outstanding letters of credit. We closed on an additional sale-leaseback transaction for the real estate of one Dave & Buster's store with an institutional real estate partner generating $28.5 million in proceeds.

第三季我們的營運現金流出700 萬美元，本季末現金餘額為900 萬美元，流動性總額為5.46 億美元，加上我們擴大的6.5 億美元循環信貸額度中可用的5.37 億美元（扣除額未償還的信用證）信用。我們與一家機構房地產合作夥伴就 Dave & Buster 商店的房地產完成了一項額外的售後回租交易，產生了 2,850 萬美元的收益。

Coupled with the sale-leaseback transaction we closed in the second quarter, this takes our year-to-date proceeds to nearly $75 million and we have four owned and operating real estate assets today, with 1 more wholly owned property scheduled to open later this fiscal year. We find these types of transactions attractive to allow us to replenish our capital for further investment into the business and being methodical in how and when we decide to monetize our existing and growing pipeline of real property assets.

加上我們在第二季完成的售後回租交易，這使我們今年迄今的收益達到近7500 萬美元，我們目前擁有4 個自有和運營的房地產資產，還有1 個全資擁有的房產計劃於今年稍後開業財政年度。我們發現這些類型的交易很有吸引力，可以讓我們補充資本以進一步投資業務，並有條不紊地決定如何以及何時決定將現有和不斷增長的房地產資產貨幣化。

Turning to capital spending. We invested a total of $131 million and capital additions during the quarter, of which over 90% was considered growth CapEx. During the quarter, due to our belief in the significant value we see in our shares at current levels, we repurchased $28 million of shares, bringing total repurchases year to date to $88 million representing 2 million shares or 5.1% of the company's outstanding shares as of the end of fiscal '23.

轉向資本支出。本季我們總共投資了 1.31 億美元以及增資，其中 90% 以上被視為成長資本支出。在本季度，由於我們相信我們的股票在當前水準上具有巨大價值，我們回購了2,800 萬美元的股票，使年初至今的回購總額達到8,800 萬美元，相當於200 萬股，占公司已發行股票的5.1%。

We still have $112 million remaining on our board approved share repurchase authorization to opportunistically repurchase our shares. With our expected healthy free cash flow into the future, we will work closely with our Board to evaluate our new store growth, remodel program, other accretive growth investments and share repurchase opportunities to drive maximum shareholder value.

我們的董事會批准的股票回購授權中還剩 1.12 億美元，可以趁機回購我們的股票。憑藉我們預期未來健康的自由現金流，我們將與董事會密切合作，評估我們的新店成長、改造計畫、其他增值成長投資和股票回購機會，以推動股東價值最大化。

Now, Kevin and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Kevin can address any topics related to the Board or management changes and I can take those related to our business performance. So, operator, please open the line for questions.

現在，凱文和我很樂意回答您可能提出的任何問題。凱文可以討論與董事會或管理層變動相關的任何主題，我可以討論與我們的業務績效相關的主題。那麼，接線員，請撥打電話提問。

(Operator Instructions) Jake Bartlett, Truist Securities.

（操作員指示）Jake Bartlett，Truist 證券公司。

I wanted to start with Chris's departure and really how we should think about the plan that Chris was so critical in putting together. He's left but the plan remains. How confident should we be that the plan stays as is? Or as you look for a replacement new CEO. What do you look for in terms of attributes that might change the plan going forward.

我想從克里斯的離開開始，以及我們應該如何思考克里斯在製定過程中至關重要的計劃。他離開了，但計劃仍然存在。我們應該對計劃保持原樣有多大信心？或當您尋找替代的新執行長時。您正在尋找可能改變未來計劃的屬性。

A second part of that question is, what has not gone wrong -- not gone right in your mind. So what needs to be course corrected in terms of kind of what's been executed so far? And then I have a couple of follow-ups.

這個問題的第二部分是，什麼地方沒有出錯──在你的腦海中沒有出錯。那麼，就迄今為止所執行的內容而言，有哪些方面需要修正呢？然後我有一些後續行動。

Sure. When you listen to Darin's commentary on each of those initiatives, you can't help but get excited because there's a lot of progress going on here behind the scenes and I'm excited about that. So the Board and the whole management team, just as a way of background, work very closely with Chris in devising the original plan. And the plan was clearly defined all the underlying initiatives that we have a tremendous amount of confidence and we'll continue to execute against.

當然。當你聽到達林對每項舉措的評論時，你會情不自禁地感到興奮，因為幕後正在取得很多進展，我對此感到興奮。因此，董事會和整個管理團隊，作為一種背景，與克里斯密切合作制定最初的計劃。該計劃明確定義了所有基本舉措，我們對此充滿信心，並將繼續執行。

And I would just say in this intervening period, a lot of my time will be focused square on that and making sure we show tangible progress on each of these initiatives and drive things to move forward so that we can show you some success in each of these. There's a lot of value in these, and we want to make sure we communicate that to you guys along the way.

我只想說，在這段時間裡，我的大量時間將集中在這方面，並確保我們在每一項舉措上都取得切實進展，並推動事情向前發展，以便我們能夠向你們展示在每一項方面所取得的成功。這些內容有很多價值，我們希望確保一路向大家傳達這一點。

Now the only wildcard is the consumer environment has been somewhat conflicting this year. But we have a significant amount of optimism that things are progressing forward in a very encouraging way. And from here, our search to identify a very capable permanent CEO that shares this vision is critical, and it will be obvious to the right candidate that these are the things that will move the meter forward.

現在唯一的變數是今年的消費環境有些矛盾。但我們非常樂觀地認為事情正在以非常令人鼓舞的方式向前發展。從這裡開始，我們尋找一位非常有能力、有共同願景的常任執行長至關重要，對於合適的候選人來說，很明顯，這些都是推動進步的因素。

And as far as the successor CEO, we're looking for -- you can take the textbook, but it's really important. We're looking for someone with a clear lead in strategic vision, operational execution, getting things accomplished and financial performance of the company. We have to watch everything as we go through the balance sheet, the income statement, the cash flow and make sure the capital allocation is right.

至於繼任者首席執行官，我們正在尋找——你可以看教科書，但這確實很重要。我們正在尋找在策略願景、營運執行、完成工作和公司財務表現方面具有明確領先優勢的人。我們在查看資產負債表、損益表、現金流量時必須注意一切，並確保資本配置正確。

This role demands a forward-thinking leader who can integrate the dining and the entertainment experiences into a cohesive, scalable and profitable business model while fostering the innovation that Darin was talking to you about with so many of the things that we're working on, which should translate into strong guest satisfaction and brand loyalty. They will need to be an individual who can drive these initiatives forward.

這個角色需要一位具有前瞻性思維的領導者，他能夠將餐飲和娛樂體驗整合到一個有凝聚力、可擴展和盈利的商業模式中，同時促進達林與您談論的我們正在做的許多事情的創新，這應該轉化為強烈的賓客滿意度和品牌忠誠度。他們需要是能夠推動這些舉措向前發展的人。

As I said, we need to show you guys the progress that we're making day by day or quarter by quarter as the case may be. But there's a lot of -- I just went through a series of meetings. There's a lot of very excited team members here. And I think it's going to be a very encouraging fourth quarter and 2025. Thank you.

正如我所說，我們需要向你們展示我們每天或每季所取得的進展（視情況而定）。但有很多——我剛剛參加了一系列會議。這裡有很多非常興奮的團隊成員。我認為第四季和 2025 年將是非常令人鼓舞的。

Great. And a follow-up, it was very helpful to get that guidance for the year on EBITDA I think it's important for us to understand how sales is driving that. So I'm hoping you can give us a little more detail. I know it's not typical. But on the quarter-to-date November, how it's trended, I'm trying to understand, you gave us a range for EBITDA.

偉大的。後續，獲得今年關於 EBITDA 的指導非常有幫助，我認為了解銷售如何推動這一點對我們來說很重要。所以我希望你能給我們更多細節。我知道這不典型。但在 11 月季度至今，我試圖了解它的趨勢如何，您給了我們 EBITDA 的範圍。

How does that correspond in terms of sales? And how confident are you in an acceleration in the same-store sales in the fourth quarter or perhaps not?

這與銷售額有何對應？您對第四季同店銷售加速是否有信心？

Hey, Jake. It's Darin. Yes, we felt like given the you're correct. We typically don't give guidance. But given the 53 weeks in the prior year, calendar shifts and some other factors, we just thought it would be helpful to provide what we believe is a conservative level setting.

嘿，傑克。是達林。是的，我們覺得你是對的。我們通常不提供指導。但考慮到上一年的 53 週、日曆變化和其他一些因素，我們只是認為提供我們認為保守的水平設定會有所幫助。

And so regarding sales assumptions, I think the best way to think about it is if we assume that Q4 performed similarly to Q3, maybe with some modest improvements. And this is based on what we're seeing in walk-in trends and forward bookings that kind of gives you some directions for how we thought about that EBITDA guide.

因此，關於銷售假設，我認為最好的思考方式是，我們假設第四季的表現與第三季類似，也許會有一些適度的改進。這是基於我們在步入式趨勢和提前預訂中看到的情況，這為我們如何看待 EBITDA 指南提供了一些指導。

As we've articulated, we're working on a number of things, hard at work at a number of initiatives, and we are optimistic in the near and medium-term contribution that those are going to have. But we wanted to present what we thought was a fairly conservative guy and just help investors cut through some of the noise and some of the comparability challenges.

正如我們所闡明的，我們正在做很多事情，努力實施一些舉措，我們對這些舉措的近期和中期貢獻持樂觀態度。但我們想展示我們認為相當保守的人，只是幫助投資者消除一些噪音和一些可比性挑戰。

Okay. And then just last question just on that point. It sounds like you've talked about higher bookings, you have considerably higher or leased deposits. I believe your deferred revenue is down year-over-year. Maybe just kind of help us understand what we should -- how we should read in terms of deferred revenue.

好的。最後一個問題就是關於這一點的。聽起來您已經談到了更高的預訂量，您的押金或租賃押金要高得多。我相信你們的遞延收入較去年同期下降。也許只是幫助我們理解我們應該做什麼——我們應該如何解讀遞延收入。

But in the context of that, you mentioned -- I think you're talking about kind of same-store sales roughly being the same as they were in the fourth quarter as in the third?

但在這種情況下，您提到 - 我認為您正在談論同店銷售額與第四季度和第三季度大致相同？

But if you have those special events, a big part of the business, you're seeing some good movement there. why would we expect? And is there something that maybe is walking decelerated or something? Is there an offset that you're seeing that would make us feel like the special events was not going to be driving an improvement?

但如果你有那些特殊的活動，這是業務的重要組成部分，你會看到那裡有一些好的變化。我們為什麼會期待？是否有什麼東西可能正在減速或其他什麼？您是否看到了某種抵消，讓我們覺得特殊活動不會推動改善？

Yes. No. No, I would not look at it that way at all. What I'd say right now is where we are quarter to date. The preponderance of the quarter is yet ahead of us. We still have 75% of our quarter between now and the end of Q4.

是的。不，不，我根本不會那樣看。我現在要說的是我們本季迄今為止的情況。本季的優勢就在我們面前。從現在到第四季末，我們的季度仍有 75% 的時間。

And so with holiday shifts, from where we are quarter to date and with all of our special events predominantly happening over the next two to three weeks, we feel very confident about where these are going. But we didn't want to overextend and demonstrate any additional sort of walk in guidance.

因此，隨著假期的輪班，從我們季度至今的情況來看，我們所有的特別活動主要發生在接下來的兩到三週內，我們對這些活動的進展非常有信心。但我們不想過度擴展並展示任何額外的步行指導。

Look, we feel very good about what we have to offer going into Q4. And again, I'd say I would look at this guidance as a very conservative view just to help really level set and make sure people know at least generally how to approach Q4, just given Q4 and the prior year had a 53rd week and just some other year-over-year numbers. So I'd say we're looking at this very conservatively and are optimistic that we're going to have a strong Q4.

看，我們對第四季度提供的產品感覺非常好。再說一次，我想說，我會將此指導視為非常保守的觀點，只是為了幫助真正設定水平，並確保人們至少大致了解如何處理第四季度，僅考慮到第四季度和去年有第53 週，並且只是其他一些同比數字。所以我想說，我們非常保守地看待這個問題，並對第四季的強勁表現持樂觀態度。

Andy Barish, Jefferies.

安迪·巴里什，杰弗里斯。

Hey, guys, and yes, welcome back, Kevin, at least on the call. Darin, just on the calendar shift benefit within that guidance, again, without having to parse it too much. assuming the negative impact of the third quarter flips around in the fourth quarter, and I know it doesn't fully offset an extra week, but can you give us some sense of sort of or at least what's going on with that shift in the 4Q?

嘿，夥計們，是的，歡迎回來，凱文，至少在電話中。達林，再次強調，日曆輪班在該指南中受益，而無需對其進行太多解析。假設第三季的負面影響在第四季度發生逆轉，我知道這並不能完全抵消額外一周的影響，但您能否給我們一些感覺，或者至少告訴我們第四季度的這種轉變發生了什麼？

Yes. Yes. I think when you look at the impact in Q3, and there's a table in the earnings release that provides some color there, if you haven't had a chance to digest that. The benefit in Q4 is going to be half of that or less. So certainly, we would not look at that as it is hardly going to offset the 53rd week.

是的。是的。我認為，當您查看第三季的影響時，如果您還沒有機會消化的話，收益發布中有一個表格可以提供一些顏色。第四季的收益將是其一半或更少。所以當然，我們不會考慮這一點，因為它很難抵消第 53 週的影響。

The 53rd week had a $39 million impact in the prior year in this fiscal week shift, maybe circa $5 million favorable impact in Q4. So I hope that provides some context.

在本財政週的轉變中，第 53 週對上一年產生了 3,900 萬美元的影響，對第四季的有利影響可能約為 500 萬美元。所以我希望這能提供一些背景資訊。

Yes. Very helpful. And then just maybe nitpicking here, but obviously important as you move into '25. You didn't kind of give a sales increase in the fully program remodels? And prior to now, I think you guys have kind of said, hey, we need and are seeing a double-digit increase to justify the returns on a, let's say, a $3.5 million investment.

是的。非常有幫助。然後也許只是在這裡吹毛求疵，但隨著你進入 25 年，顯然很重要。你們沒有在完全計劃改造中增加銷售嗎？在此之前，我想你們已經說過，嘿，我們需要並且正在看到兩位數的成長，以證明 350 萬美元投資的回報是合理的。

So is there anything that you're seeing that's not generating similar types of returns? Or are you just kind of being a little bit more conservative right now? I think that's an important area just to kind of help parse out here?

那麼，您是否發現有什麼東西不會產生類似類型的回報？還是你現在只是比較保守一點？我認為這是一個重要的領域，只是為了幫助解析這裡？

Yes, yes. No, great question. What I'd say is our fully programmed remodels, our phase one of remodels, which were the initial, call it, proof-of-concept remodels. We are still seeing double-digit growth in those locations.

是的，是的。不，很好的問題。我想說的是我們完全編程的改造，我們改造的第一階段，這是最初的，稱之為概念驗證改造。我們仍然看到這些地區的兩位數成長。

So we remain very pleased with how they're performing. The balance of the fully programmed remodels are seen mid- to high single-digit growth.

所以我們對他們的表現仍然非常滿意。完全規劃的改造的餘額呈現中高個位數成長。

What I'd say that we've learned is when we saw the success the first remodels, we went into, hey, let's aggressively push these out. And as we've done that, going through any of these programs, as you're probably aware, is you pick up a lot of learnings along the way where you need to tweak things or you need to modify. And so what we've learned is that there's opportunity for us to learn from how we roll out those initials for -- there's a lot of dedicated effort, there is plus up marketing, there is additional training.

我想說的是，我們學到的是，當我們看到第一次改造的成功時，我們開始說，嘿，讓我們積極地推出這些。正如我們所做的那樣，您可能知道，透過這些程式中的任何一個，您都會在需要調整或需要修改的地方學到很多東西。因此，我們了解到，我們有機會從如何推出這些首字母縮寫中學習——有大量的專門努力，有額外的營銷，有額外的培訓。

When we started getting more aggressive at the rollout we realize that those are really critical elements to really giving the best returns out of these. So with that being said, we've had a lot of learnings, and we are now making some changes to how we're messaging the brand. The awareness of the remodel is very critical.

當我們開始更積極地推出時，我們意識到這些對於真正獲得最佳回報來說是非常關鍵的因素。話雖如此，我們已經學到了很多東西，現在我們正在對品牌訊息的傳遞方式做出一些改變。改造意識非常關鍵。

And so as we look at our phase three fully program remodels, we are going back and plussing up our marketing and messaging to more reflect what those first four were like and focusing on some of those areas that we really excel at on those first four. And we think that's really important as we move forward with this remodel program.

因此，當我們審視第三階段的全面計劃改造時，我們將回過頭來，加強我們的營銷和信息傳遞，以更多地反映前四個階段的情況，並專注於我們在前四個階段真正擅長的一些領域。我們認為這在我們推進改造計畫時非常重要。

So I think that's still like our returns. We think we can optimize those returns even more, and we have a pathway to that, that we think is the correct one to do that.

所以我認為這仍然是我們的回報。我們認為我們可以進一步優化這些回報，我們有一條實現這一目標的途徑，我們認為這是正確的途徑。

Okay. Helpful. And then just finally, I know things are in flux and the annual budget is probably being worked on, but there's some discussion of 60 fully programmed remodels for fiscal '25 coming up. Can you comment on that at this point? Or would you rather hold off?

好的。有幫助。最後，我知道事情正在不斷變化，年度預算可能正在製定中，但有一些關於即將到來的 25 財年 60 項完全規劃的改造的討論。現在您能對此發表評論嗎？還是你寧願延後？

Yes. I'd say we're still very committed to obviously getting to 44 then this year. And we're continuing to work with our Board on what that cadence looks like for FY25. If we chose to, we could do 60 next year. I think we might take a little bit more judicious of approach just to make sure that we can focus on delivering the right marketing, the right ops execution with it.

是的。我想說，我們仍然非常致力於今年達到 44 個目標。我們將繼續與董事會合作，確定 2025 財年的節奏。如果我們選擇的話，明年我們可以做 60 個。我認為我們可能會採取更明智的方法，以確保我們能夠專注於提供正確的行銷和正確的營運執行。

But we're still very excited about this program. And I think next time we get together, we'll provide some more color on the quantum of remodels. But needless to say, it's still a very key initiative, and we're just working through what that right cadence looks like for '25.

但我們仍然對這個計劃感到非常興奮。我想下次我們聚在一起時，我們將為改造的規模提供更多的色彩。但不用說，這仍然是一項非常關鍵的舉措，我們只是在研究 25 年的正確節奏。

Sharon Zackfia, William Blair.

莎朗·扎克菲亞，威廉·布萊爾。

I guess I wanted to ask about the brands and kind of your research with your core customers on where the relevancy is of the brand at this point? Where you think that can improve? And then on the remodels, I would be interested in hearing about the utilization of the social base?

我想我想問一下品牌以及您對核心客戶的研究，以了解目前品牌的相關性在哪裡？您認為哪裡可以改進？然後在改造方面，我有有趣了解社會基礎的運用？

Yes, sure. So the first question, for both the brands in terms of relevancy, we've done a lot of extensive consumer research over the last couple of years or so. Our consumers love our brands and some of the most compelling feedback that we've gotten, which has influenced this remodel program and some of our other initiatives is relevancy in terms of that entertainment innovation.

是的，當然。因此，第一個問題，對於這兩個品牌的相關性而言，我們在過去幾年左右的時間裡進行了大量廣泛的消費者研究。我們的消費者喜歡我們的品牌，我們收到的一些最引人注目的回饋也影響了這個改造計劃，而我們的其他一些舉措也與娛樂創新相關。

The entertainment side is the key driver for the occasion for our guests, which is why it's important for us to deliver on that. in the midway through incremental innovation from an entertainment side. So it's remarkably consistent over the years that our product offering has high appeal. And so we're very much aligning our strategy with that.

娛樂方面是為我們的客人舉辦活動的關鍵驅動力，這就是為什麼我們必須實現這一目標。在娛樂方面進行漸進式創新的過程中。因此，多年來我們的產品始終具有很高的吸引力。因此，我們正在根據這一點調整我們的策略。

In terms of your second question, in terms of the utilization of the social base and the arenas, I think it's a -- we see some differences on a store-by-store basis with our remodels. Our locations are not prototypical. It's a snow flight; they're all different. And so the placement of the social base and the arenas in each one is a little bit different. But the number of social base and arenas as well can differ. And that leads to different usage.

就你的第二個問題而言，就社交基礎和競技場的利用而言，我認為我們在每家商店的改造中都看到了一些差異。我們的地點並不是典型的。這是一場雪地飛行；他們都是不同的。因此，每個人的社會基礎和競技場的位置都略有不同。但社會基礎和領域的數量也可能有所不同。這導致了不同的用法。

And so we're continuing to learn how to further engage our guests with this new platform because it's a new form of entertainment for us. But we think we're just scratching the surface quite frankly, even in our fully programmed locations that are performing incredibly well. We just think we're scratching the surface on the guest usage and awareness and traffic driving ability of these new forms of entertainment debt that we've put in place.

因此，我們正在繼續學習如何進一步吸引我們的客人使用這個新平台，因為這對我們來說是一種新的娛樂形式。但坦白說，我們認為我們只是觸及了表面，即使在我們完全編程的地點表現得非常好。我們只是認為我們正在觸及我們所實施的這些新形式的娛樂債務的客人使用情況、意識和流量驅動能力的表面。

So we think we can drive more, and we've got the teams focused on that a lot from a training, from a staffing, from a pricing, from a length of gameplay to drive even more utilization.

因此，我們認為我們可以推動更多，我們的團隊從培訓、人員配置、定價、遊戲時長等方面都非常關注這一點，以推動更多的利用率。

Andrew Strelzik, BMO.

安德魯‧斯特雷齊克 (Andrew Strelzik)，BMO。

My first one, I know that you continue to talk about the strong returns you get on the new stores. But I guess just as kind of they're implementing all these things and doing the remodels and going down the path of repositioning the business.

我的第一個問題是，我知道您繼續談論在新商店中獲得的強勁回報。但我想他們正在實施所有這些事情並進行改造並走上重新定位業務的道路。

Is there any thought to pulling back on the store-opening pace temporarily to focus on the core for a period of time and kind of get the comps in the right place, improve the cash flow profile? I know you talked about kind of getting with the board to talk about capital allocation priorities. So I'm just wondering if there's any consideration to that.

是否有考慮暫時放慢開店速度，在一段時間內專注於核心業務，並在適當的地方進行比較，改善現金流狀況？我知道您談到與董事會討論資本分配優先事項。所以我只是想知道是否有任何考慮。

Yes, it's a great question. At this moment, we would say no for a couple of reasons. Number one, we hit phenomenal returns on our new store openings. And this is our standard size of the store are smaller locations as we go into smaller markets in existing or new markets, continuing just to get really, really great returns.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。此時此刻，我們會因為幾個原因而拒絕。第一，我們的新店開幕取得了驚人的回報。這是我們商店的標準規模，當我們進入現有或新市場中較小的市場時，我們會選擇較小的地點，繼續獲得真正非常大的回報。

Secondly, all the things that we're focused on right now, all the initiatives that we just walked through, while it's frustrating in this in this environment to not see the impact of all these green shoots poke through the macro environment, we are highly committed, highly confident that we're focused on all the right initiatives.

其次，我們現在關注的所有事情，我們剛剛經歷的所有舉措，雖然在這種環境下看不到所有這些萌芽對宏觀環境的影響令人沮喪，但我們高度重視我們堅定不移，對我們專注於所有正確的舉措充滿信心。

And when that works in conjunction with our remodel program, with the right marketing messaging, the right innovation, the right ops execution we believe we're going to start seeing the results of that. So I think if you start having questions on that core strategy that could lead you to allocate capital away from new stores, but we're not close to that right now and remain very confident in that.

當它與我們的改造計劃結合起來時，透過正確的行銷訊息、正確的創新、正確的營運執行，我們相信我們將開始看到其結果。因此，我認為，如果您開始對核心策略產生疑問，可能會導致您從新店中分配資金，但我們目前還沒有接近這一目標，並且對此仍然非常有信心。

Okay. And then my other question is about the marketing optimization, which I think if I go back to the original Investor Day deck was identified as the biggest revenue and EBITDA opportunity amongst all the things that you guys have identified. And it sounds like we're kind of still a work in progress towards that.

好的。然後我的另一個問題是關於行銷優化，我想如果我回到最初的投資者日甲板，我認為行銷優化被認為是你們所確定的所有事情中最大的收入和 EBITDA 機會。聽起來我們仍在為此努力。

So from here, I guess, what's the pathway? When do we start to see that full expression of the marketing optimization really flow through and start to realize the benefits of that? How far away are we from that driver really playing out?

那麼從這裡開始，我想，路徑是什麼？我們什麼時候開始看到行銷優化的完整表達真正流動並開始意識到其好處？我們離那個真正發揮作用的司機還有多遠？

Yes, it's a great question. And I think we would say admittedly, that has been one of the more challenging areas to address, I think, for a number of reasons. But we remain very optimistic that there is a lot to untapped there. So what I'd say is that there has been a lot of learnings, particularly when we look at the condition of the just the underlying infrastructure, the availability of actionable data, our analytics capability, that takes a while to build.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。我想我們會承認，出於多種原因，這是需要解決的更具挑戰性的領域之一。但我們仍然非常樂觀，認為那裡還有很多東西有待開發。所以我想說的是，我們學到了很多東西，特別是當我們查看底層基礎設施的狀況、可操作資料的可用性以及我們的分析能力時，這些都需要一段時間才能建置。

And I think we probably underestimated the amount of work that went into doing that. And then once you get that foundation laid and then you partner and we brought in a new agency, there was a number of things A number of things that we have learned and identified that we are now really starting to focus on.

我認為我們可能低估了這樣做所需的工作量。一旦你奠定了基礎，然後你與我們合作，我們引入了一個新的機構，我們已經學到並確定了很多事情，我們現在真正開始關注這些事情。

A few examples of that is media mix. We shifted from a media mix that had a good blend of linear off-line and online, we really shifted to a 90% digital, 10% offline. And while that shift to digital is the right move, we likely overcorrected by completely eliminated TV entirety from our mix. So we've been doing some tests in terms of linear.

媒體組合就是其中的幾個例子。我們從線性離線和線上良好融合的媒體組合轉變為 90% 數位化、10% 離線化。雖然向數位化的轉變是正確的舉措，但我們可能會矯枉過正，將電視從我們的組合中完全消除。所以我們一直在線性方面做一些測試。

We've recently added some back to really drive top-of-the-funnel awareness, which we believe is showing some really positive signs. How we allocated some of our spend across locations. We've learned that we weren't allocating that as smartly as we could.

我們最近又增加了一些內容，以真正提高對漏斗頂部的意識，我們相信這正在顯示出一些真正積極的跡象。我們如何在不同地點分配部分支出。我們了解到，我們沒有盡可能明智地分配資源。

Kind of going back to my comment on remodels. We were appropriately messaging all the great things that we had. And so we are looking at that at that balance shift between awareness and relevance. We're taking our latest round of fully programmer models and heavying up on our spend there and starting to get some good returns.

有點回到我對改造的評論。我們適當地傳達了我們所擁有的所有美好事物。因此，我們正在關注意識和相關性之間的平衡轉變。我們正在採用最新一輪的完全程式設計師模型，並加大投入，並開始獲得一些良好的回報。

How we're sitting in the stage in terms of how we know if our digital spend is appropriately driving? Are we targeting that guest properly? And are they coming into our center after being delivered an impression? How we have looked at our loyalty program and how we're shifting that?

我們在舞台上如何知道我們的數位支出是否得到了適當的推動？我們是否正確地瞄準了該客人？他們是在獲得印象後才進入我們中心的嗎？我們如何看待我們的忠誠度計劃以及我們如何改變它？

So that being said, we still -- there's a lot here. There's a lot to unlock for us. And I think we made a little over corrected in some areas, setting that foundation took a little bit longer than we thought. But our confidence and optimism about what that strategy can unlock. We continue to be very passionate about.

話雖如此，我們仍然有很多東西。有很多東西需要我們解鎖。我認為我們在某些​​領域做了一些過度修正，奠定基礎花費的時間比我們想像的要長一些。但我們對這項策略所能帶來的成果充滿信心和樂觀。我們仍然充滿熱情。

So I know I said a lot, but hopefully, that provides some color, that's helpful for you.

所以我知道我說了很多，但希望這能提供一些色彩，對你有幫助。

Dennis Geiger, UBS.

丹尼斯蓋革，瑞銀集團。

I'm curious if you guys could talk at all about the Friendswood location, sort of just the latest update there as it relates to year. And then if anything else to share on those remodels, I'm sort of -- I know it's early days for many of them.

我很好奇你們能否談論一下 Friendswood 的位置，大概是與年份相關的最新更新。然後，如果要分享關於這些改造的其他內容，我有點——我知道對許多人來說現在還處於早期階段。

But just on the trajectory of the performance following the initial open as it -- are they generally especially phase one? Are they generally tracking in line or either perhaps better than your expectations? Just how that's generally looked if there's anything notable to call out there?

但就首場演出後的表演軌跡來看——他們通常特別是第一階段嗎？他們總體上是否符合您的預期，或者是否比您的預期更好？如果有什麼值得注意的地方的話，那通常看起來怎麼樣？

Yes, yes. So Friendswood, and we, I think, mentioned on the last call that began lapping its remodel from the prior year. And we continue to be pleased with its performance. Obviously, on a year-over-year basis, that has moderated and not that it's lapping out green over green but we continue to be pleased with where that's settled in.

是的，是的。所以，我想，Friendswood 和我們在上次電話會議中提到了從前一年開始對其進行改造的情況。我們仍然對其表現感到滿意。顯然，與去年同期相比，這種情況已經有所緩和，並不是說它在綠色上超越綠色，但我們仍然對這種情況的解決感到滿意。

Look, I think with any of these remodel programs, it's not it's not a linear view of the world where there's some variance to how these things perform. But overall, we're continuing to see that strong growth and aren't seeing anything there that has led us to believe that it's just a short-term burst that the guests are uninterested in. That's not what we're seeing at all. So we feel really good about that.

聽著，我認為任何這些改造計畫都不是線性的世界觀，這些東西的表現有些差異。但總體而言，我們繼續看到強勁的成長，並且沒有看到任何讓我們相信這只是客人不感興趣的短期爆發的東西。所以我們對此感覺非常好。

Do you have another part to your question that I didn't address?

你的問題還有我沒有提到的部分嗎？

No, that's great. I appreciate that. Just the second unrelated question, if I could. Just looking back at 3Q, and you guys called out some of the pressures, some weather and different things and clearly the macro, just curious if any other notable observations.

不，那太好了。我很欣賞這一點。如果可以的話，只是第二個不相關的問題。回顧第三季度，你們提到了一些壓力、一些天氣和不同的事情，以及明顯的宏觀因素，只是好奇是否還有其他值得注意的觀察。

Are the macro pressures still generally impacting visit patterns, spending patterns in a generally similar way, again, if you kind of cut through some of the noise maybe on some of the call-outs that you mentioned? Any kind of notable changes in those behaviors, visits, spending, et cetera, better or worse, generally similar?

宏觀壓力是否仍普遍以類似的方式影響訪問模式和消費模式，如果您消除了您提到的某些呼籲中的一些噪音？這些行為、訪問、消費等方面有什麼顯著的變化，無論好壞，整體相似嗎？

Yes. Look, I'd say the macro environment at best just continues to be that headwind. As mentioned previously, particularly that low-end consumer is really where we're feeling that decline to the extent that the is down twice as much as the other income quintiles. So we're continuing to see that pressure on the consumer.

是的。看，我想說的是，宏觀環境充其量只是繼續逆風。如同前面所提到的，特別是低端消費者確實是我們感覺到下降的地方，其下降幅度是其他收入五分位數的兩倍。因此，我們繼續看到消費者面臨這種壓力。

So yes, so overall, from a trend perspective, now look, I wouldn't say there's anything terribly meaningful from a trend change from a regional performance perspective, we're seeing similar trend performance there. So I think it's is just a little bit more of the same from a macro perspective from Q2 heading into Q3.

所以，是的，總的來說，從趨勢的角度來看，現在看，從區域表現的角度來看，我不會說趨勢變化有任何非常有意義的東西，我們在那裡看到了類似的趨勢表現。因此，我認為從宏觀角度來看，從第二季度到第三季度，情況略有相同。

Todd Brooks, The Benchmark Company.

托德·布魯克斯，基準公司。

First question, just following up on Dennis' question, Darin, if you look at kind of some of the pressures that you called out in the third quarter between the calendar whether the remodels. Can you size maybe what the bucket of that pressure meant from a same-store sales drag?

第一個問題，只是跟進丹尼斯的問題，達林，如果你看看你在第三季度在日曆之間提出的一些壓力是否會進行改造。您能否估算一下同店銷售拖累帶來的壓力代表什麼？

And then on the remodel portion of that drag, are the remodels taking longer than expected or where it was a bigger than expected drag versus what you thought going the quarter?

然後，關於該阻力的改造部分，改造是否花費了比預期更長的時間，或者與您認為本季的情況相比，改造的阻力是否大於預期？

Yeah. So from a weather and remodel construction impact, -- we estimate about 50 to 100 basis points of pressure on our comps of down 7.7. And that comp of down 7.7 is on a like-for-like basis. So that ignores the noise from the calendar shift. So that's the biggest callout in terms of the same-store sales performance.

是的。因此，從天氣和改造施工的影響來看，我們估計我們的比較將面臨大約 50 到 100 個基點的壓力，下降 7.7。下降 7.7 的比較是在同類基礎上進行的。因此，這忽略了日曆變化帶來的噪音。因此，這是同店銷售業績最大的亮點。

And again, you've got the macro impact. And then again, a lot of what I kind of walked through, particularly from a marketing perspective in terms of the opportunities that we've identified after bringing in a new agency partner, those changes and improvements and enhancements that we're making are going to be into Q4 heading into Q1.

再說一次，你受到了宏觀影響。話又說回來，我經歷的很多事情，特別是從營銷的角度來看，我們在引入新的代理合作夥伴後發現的機會，我們正在做的那些改變、改進和增強正在發生。 ，進入第一季。

So it's difficult to know what kind of impacts that sort of unoptimized sort of marketing had. But I'd say heading into these ensuing periods, we feel good about what we're able to do to help sort of fight some of these macro headwinds.

因此很難知道這種未經優化的行銷會產生什麼樣的影響。但我想說，在接下來的時期，我們對自己能夠採取哪些措施來幫助應對一些宏觀不利因素感到滿意。

Brian Vaccaro, Raymond James.

布萊恩·瓦卡羅，雷蒙德·詹姆斯。

Darin, you touched on it a little bit earlier, but your review of the advertising and the shift away from linear TV in recent years. I'm curious just how much of a role you think that's played in the company's negative comp performance if there's a way to kind of frame that high level.

達林，您早些時候談到了這一點，但您對廣告以及近年來線性電視的轉變進行了評論。我很好奇，如果有辦法建立這麼高的水平，你認為這在公司的負面業績表現中扮演了多大的角色。

Yes. I can't speculate on what that impact might be. You just don't know a lot of times when you've had a plan that was very heavy, linear to now are to guardrail to guardrail goes very heavy digital, which, again, I think that shift was generally the right.

是的。我無法推測這種影響可能是什麼。你只是不知道很多時候你有一個非常沉重的線性計劃，現在是從護欄到護欄變得非常沉重的數字化，我再次認為這種轉變通常是正確的。

But I think we're now trying to say, look, do we need to balance this better and some of our testing is telling us, yes, we need to balance that better because we might be we might be missing a lot of that top of the funnel, which the brand is focused on, notwithstanding having very high brand awareness. So I can't speculate on what that impact will be.

但我認為我們現在想說，看，我們是否需要更好地平衡這一點，我們的一些測試告訴我們，是的，我們需要更好地平衡這一點，因為我們可能會錯過很多頂部儘管品牌知名度非常高，但品牌所關注的漏斗的部分。所以我無法推測這會產生什麼影響。

I think the biggest test will be as we rebalance it, we'll see what our performance looks like moving forward. And we feel like there's a lot of opportunity there.

我認為最大的考驗將是當我們重新平衡它時，我們將看到我們的表現如何向前發展。我們覺得那裡有很多機會。

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kevin Sheehan for any closing remarks.

我們的問答環節到此結束。我想將會議轉回凱文·希恩 (Kevin Sheehan) 發表閉幕詞。

Thank you, operator, and thank all of you for joining. We look forward to speaking with you again soon. And in the meantime, happy holidays from our families to yours. Thank you very much.

謝謝運營商，也謝謝大家的加入。我們期待很快再次與您交談。同時，祝您的家人節日快樂。非常感謝。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。您現在可以斷開連線。