Portillos Inc (PTLO) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings. Welcome to Portillo's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Barbara Noverini Portillo's Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

問候。歡迎來到 Portillo 的第四季度和 2022 財年收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，正在錄製此會議。現在我很高興向您介紹主持人，芭芭拉·諾維里尼·波蒂略 (Barbara Noverini) 的投資者關係總監。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fiscal fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. With me on the call today is Michael Osanloo, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Michelle Hook, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Let me also remind everyone that part of today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and should not be unduly relied upon. We do not undertake to update these forward-looking statements unless required by law and refer you to today's earnings press release and our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact Portillo's future operating results and financial condition. Our remarks also include non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA and restaurant level adjusted EBITDA. We direct you to our earnings release issued this morning, which is available on our website for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Any non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as an alternative to GAAP measures, such as net income or operating income or any other GAAP measure of our liquidity or financial performance. Finally, after we deliver our prepared remarks, we will open the lines for your questions. Now let me turn the call over to Michael Osanloo, President and Chief Executive Officer.

謝謝你，運營商。大家早上好，歡迎來到我們的 2022 財年第四季度財報電話會議。今天與我通話的是總裁兼首席執行官 Michael Osanloo；和公司首席財務官 Michelle Hook。我還要提醒大家，今天的部分討論將包含前瞻性陳述。這些陳述不是未來業績的保證，不應過分依賴。除非法律要求，否則我們不承諾更新這些前瞻性陳述，請參閱今天的收益新聞稿和我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以更詳細地討論可能影響 Portillo 未來經營業績和財務狀況的風險。我們的評論還包括非 GAAP 財務指標，例如調整後的 EBITDA 和餐廳級別調整後的 EBITDA。我們將向您介紹今天上午發布的收益報告，該報告可在我們的網站上找到，以了解這些非 GAAP 措施與最具可比性的 GAAP 措施的對賬情況。不應將任何非 GAAP 財務指標視為 GAAP 指標的替代方案，例如淨收入或營業收入或我們的流動性或財務業績的任何其他 GAAP 指標。最後，在我們發表準備好的評論後，我們將打開您的問題熱線。現在讓我把電話轉給總裁兼首席執行官邁克爾奧桑盧。

Thank you, Barb, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for our year-end earnings call. Portillo's had a great first full year as a publicly traded company. Our brand is synonymous with quality and value. And true to form, we closed 2022 with solid financial results. And we're off to a great start for '23. I'm excited to share more about what's on the horizon for us, give you a preview of this year. But before I do, let me recap our fourth quarter financial results. In the fourth quarter of 2022, total sales increased 8.6% to $150.9 million. Same-restaurant sales grew 6%. For the fiscal year of 2022, total sales increased 9.7% to $587.1 million. Same-restaurant sales grew 5.4%. We ended the year with an average unit volume of $8.5 million per restaurant. Restaurant level adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.2% for the quarter and 22.6% for the fiscal year. Now Michelle will go over the financial results in more detail, but let me discuss the underlying drivers of our performance as we closed out the year. People love Portillo's. Many fans bring us into their homes for holiday gatherings and celebrations, and we certainly lost a little bit of momentum during Winterstorm Elliott that week of December 23. But weather never keeps Portillo's fans away for very long. As you'll see in a graph provided in our earnings supplement, sales bounced right back the following week, and we've maintained strong sales since.

謝謝你，Barb，大家早上好。感謝您加入我們的年終財報電話會議。 Portillo's 作為一家上市公司度過了美好的第一年。我們的品牌是質量和價值的代名詞。一如既往，我們以穩健的財務業績結束了 2022 年。我們為 23 年開了個好頭。我很高興能分享更多關於我們即將發生的事情，給你一個今年的預覽。但在此之前，讓我回顧一下我們第四季度的財務業績。 2022 年第四季度，總銷售額增長 8.6% 至 1.509 億美元。同店銷售額增長 6%。 2022 財年，總銷售額增長 9.7% 至 5.871 億美元。同店銷售額增長 5.4%。我們以每家餐廳 850 萬美元的平均單位銷量結束了這一年。本季度餐廳層面調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 21.2%，本財年為 22.6%。現在 Michelle 將更詳細地介紹財務結果，但讓我在我們結束這一年時討論我們業績的潛在驅動因素。人們喜歡 Portillo's。許多粉絲將我們帶到他們的家中參加節日聚會和慶祝活動，在 12 月 23 日那一周的冬季風暴埃利奧特期間，我們當然失去了一點動力。但天氣永遠不會讓波蒂略的粉絲離開很長時間。正如您在我們的收入增刊中提供的圖表中看到的那樣，銷售額在接下來的一周內反彈，此後我們一直保持強勁的銷售額。

Our entree sold and transaction metrics are both up year-to-date in 2023. Now that includes some pent-up demand from the storm, but it also gives us confidence that our price laggard strategy is working well. Again, Michelle is going to give you more detail in a moment, but we feel really good about where we're priced compared to competitors and the value proposition that creates for our guests. Let's pivot to where it's a little warmer and talk about what's been happening in the Sunbelt. Recent openings of Kissimmee, Florida, the Colony in Texas and Tucson, Arizona, get us nearly through the class of '22 with Gilbert, Arizona on deck to open. And let me express how good that little bit of sunshine feels. In particular, we're thrilled with the reception we've received at our first restaurant in Texas. Since our grand opening on January 18, the Colony has been the #1 restaurant across the entire system. This theme has been matching the volumes of restaurants in Chicago that have been open for decades. Specifically, the Colony has averaged $48,000 in sales per day since the grand opening. Now that annualizes to $17 million per year, and that's a crazy number. So please don't model that. It's definitely coming down. But we feel really good that this restaurant will significantly exceed our underwriting expectations and sets us up for further success in Texas as we continue to expand.

我們的主菜銷量和交易指標均達到了 2023 年的最新水平。現在這包括了風暴帶來的一些被壓抑的需求，但這也讓我們相信我們的價格落後策略運作良好。同樣，米歇爾稍後會為您提供更多詳細信息，但我們對與競爭對手相比的定價以及為客人創造的價值主張感到非常滿意。讓我們轉向稍微暖和一點的地方，談談陽光地帶正在發生的事情。佛羅里達州基西米、得克薩斯州殖民地和亞利桑那州圖森最近開業，讓我們幾乎通過了 22 年級，亞利桑那州吉爾伯特即將開業。讓我表達一下那一點陽光的感覺有多好。特別是，我們對在德克薩斯州的第一家餐廳收到的接待感到非常興奮。自 1 月 18 日盛大開業以來，Colony 一直是整個系統排名第一的餐廳。這一主題一直與芝加哥開業數十年的餐廳數量相匹配。具體而言，Colony 自開業以來平均每天銷售額為 48,000 美元。現在每年達到 1700 萬美元，這是一個瘋狂的數字。所以請不要建模。它肯定會下降。但我們感到非常高興，因為這家餐廳將大大超出我們的承保預期，並隨著我們的不斷擴張，為我們在德克薩斯州的進一步成功奠定基礎。

We took the time we needed to make sure that this restaurant opened well with everything and everyone in place to be successful. In its first 30 days, guest satisfaction scores at the Colony have outperformed the 30-day average of all the restaurants we've opened since 2021. This early outcome validates what we've learned along the way that disciplined openings set up our new restaurants for success. We're also getting a really good read on our other restaurants in the class of '22. Our Portillo's pickup location in Joliet, Illinois has just over a year of operating history now. St. Pete is about to reach its first anniversary, and Schererville, Indiana has been operating for over a quarter. All these restaurants are performing well and all are exceeding our underwriting expectations. We expect that to continue for the full class of '22. Looking ahead, we're committed to opening 9 new restaurants in 2023 with a heavy emphasis on the Sunbelt. We're already out of the gate in Texas. We recently announced our next locations in Allen and Arlington, and we've started work on both sites. As we continue to navigate the new normal in the restaurant development life cycle, our '23 openings will still be back half loaded. However, we're already planning to better balance our '24 restaurant openings across the 4 quarters. As we continue to bring Portillo's to both new and long-time fans across the nation, we remain focused on creating value for our 3 core constituents. We're taking care of our guests by delivering delicious food at an unbeatable value. We're providing unrivaled work and personal growth experiences for our team members and for our shareholders, we're committed to improving our already healthy restaurant level margins despite the flurry of restaurant openings in '23. With that, let me hand it over to Michelle.

我們花了我們需要的時間來確保這家餐廳開張良好，一切都準備就緒，每個人都準備就緒，才能取得成功。在開業的頭 30 天裡，Colony 的客人滿意度得分超過了我們自 2021 年以來開設的所有餐廳的 30 天平均水平。這一早期結果證實了我們在有紀律的開業建立新餐廳的過程中所學到的東西為了成功。我們也對 22 年級的其他餐廳有了很好的了解。我們位於伊利諾伊州喬利埃特的 Portillo 取貨點至今已有一年多的運營歷史。 St. Pete 即將迎來其一周年紀念日，而印第安納州的 Schererville 已經運營超過四分之一。所有這些餐廳都表現良好，都超出了我們的承保預期。我們希望在 22 年的整個班級繼續如此。展望未來，我們致力於在 2023 年開設 9 家新餐廳，重點放在陽光地帶。我們已經走出德克薩斯州的大門。我們最近宣布了我們在艾倫和阿靈頓的下一個地點，我們已經開始在這兩個地點開展工作。隨著我們繼續在餐廳開發生命週期中探索新常態，我們的 23 年開業仍將半載。但是，我們已經計劃更好地平衡我們在 4 個季度開設的 24 家餐廳。隨著我們繼續將 Portillo's 帶給全國的新老粉絲，我們仍然專注於為我們的 3 個核心成員創造價值。我們通過以無與倫比的價值提供美味的食物來照顧我們的客人。我們正在為我們的團隊成員和我們的股東提供無與倫比的工作和個人成長體驗，儘管 23 年餐廳開業如潮，我們仍致力於提高我們本已健康的餐廳水平利潤率。有了這個，讓我把它交給米歇爾。

 Great. Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Before we discuss our fourth quarter financial results, let me address our November 2022 secondary offering. We completed the sale of approximately 8 million shares of Class A common stock at an offering price of $22.69 per share. We used the proceeds to purchase shares primarily from the private equity firm that acquired Portillo's in 2014 and subsequently sponsored our IPO in 2021. The transaction allows them to monetize another portion of their holdings and Portillo's. This is a common and expected course of action. In private equity-backed IPOs, sponsors will reduce their ownership over time for the simple purpose of returning capital to their limited partners. No one from Portillo's management team sold shares in the offering. We completed 2 secondary offerings in 2022, which have collectively increased the liquidity of our Class A common stock and diversified our shareholder base. Since the end of Q2 2022, we've increased the amount of publicly traded Class A shares from 50.4% of total shares outstanding to 67% of total shares outstanding. Note that these transactions only caused the ratio between our publicly traded Class A and privately held Class B shares to shift, but total share count remains the same. These transactions have not been dilutive to existing PTLO shareholders.

一個了不起的。謝謝邁克爾，大家早上好。在我們討論第四季度的財務業績之前，讓我談談我們 2022 年 11 月的二次發行。我們以每股 22.69 美元的發行價完成了約 800 萬股 A 類普通股的出售。我們用所得款項主要從私募股權公司購買股票，該公司於 2014 年收購了 Portillo's，隨後在 2021 年贊助了我們的 IPO。該交易使他們能夠將其持有的另一部分和 Portillo's 貨幣化。這是一種常見且預期的行動方案。在私募股權支持的 IPO 中，保薦人會隨著時間的推移減少其所有權，目的很簡單，就是將資本返還給有限合夥人。 Portillo 的管理團隊中沒有人出售此次發行的股票。我們在 2022 年完成了 2 次二次發行，共同增加了我們 A 類普通股的流動性並使我們的股東基礎多元化。自 2022 年第二季度末以來，我們已將公開交易的 A 類股票數量從占已發行股票總數的 50.4% 增加到已發行股票總數的 67%。請注意，這些交易僅導致我們公開交易的 A 類股票和私人持有的 B 類股票之間的比率發生變化，但總股數保持不變。這些交易並未對現有 PTLO 股東造成稀釋影響。

Now turning to the results of our fourth quarter 2022 where we saw strong top line growth. During the fourth quarter, revenues were up $150.9 million, reflecting an increase of $12 million or 8.6% compared to last year, driven by a 6% increase in same-restaurant sales, combined with the opening of 5 new restaurants since the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2021. The same-restaurant sales increase of 6% was primarily driven by an increase in the average check of 6% and a 2.3% impact from the change in recording third-party delivery pricing. This was offset by a 2.3% decrease in transactions. The higher average check was driven by an approximate 7.9% increase in certain menu prices, partially offset by lower items sold per transaction. We experienced positive trends through the quarter until Winter Storm Elliott significantly disrupted sales during the last week of our fiscal quarter. We estimate that the storm had a negative impact of at least 70 basis points on our same-restaurant sales growth in the fourth quarter of 2022. Subsequent to the fourth quarter of 2022, we have seen improvements in our sales trends as same-restaurant sales grew 12.3% in our first fiscal period of 2023, and we estimate same-restaurant sales to grow 7.9% in our second fiscal period of 2023. We currently anticipate our same-restaurant sales growth to be in the range of 8% to 10% and total revenue growth to be in the range of 16% to 18% for the first quarter of 2023. We expect to open 9 new restaurants in the class of 2023 in the back half of this year with 3 to 4 targeted openings in the third quarter and the remainder in the fourth quarter.

現在轉向我們 2022 年第四季度的結果，我們看到了強勁的收入增長。第四季度，收入增長 1.509 億美元，與去年同期相比增長 1200 萬美元或 8.6%，這主要是受同一餐廳銷售額增長 6% 以及自本季度以來新開 5 家餐廳的推動2021 年第四季度。同店銷售額增長 6% 的主要原因是平均支票增長 6% 以及記錄第三方送貨定價變化帶來的 2.3% 的影響。這被交易減少 2.3% 所抵消。較高的平均支票是由某些菜單價格上漲約 7.9% 推動的，部分被每筆交易售出的較低商品所抵消。我們在整個季度都經歷了積極的趨勢，直到冬季風暴埃利奧特在我們財政季度的最後一周嚴重擾亂了銷售。我們估計風暴對我們 2022 年第四季度的同店銷售增長至少產生了 70 個基點的負面影響。在 2022 年第四季度之後，我們看到同店銷售的銷售趨勢有所改善在我們 2023 年的第一個財政期間增長了 12.3%，我們估計在 2023 年的第二個財政期間同店銷售額將增長 7.9%。我們目前預計我們的同店銷售額增長在 8% 到 10% 之間2023 年第一季度的總收入增長率將在 16% 至 18% 之間。我們預計將在今年下半年開設 9 家 2023 級新餐廳，第三季度將開設 3 至 4 家目標餐廳季度和第四季度的剩餘部分。

Now let's look at our costs. Cost of goods sold, excluding depreciation and amortization, as a percentage of revenues, increased to 35% in the fourth quarter of 2022 from 32.6% in the fourth quarter of 2021. This increase was largely driven by a 14.5% average increase across most commodities, especially in beef and chicken. Additionally, cost of goods sold was negatively impacted by 1.4%, resulting from the change in recording third-party delivery pricing. These increases were partially offset by the increase in our average check. In 2023, we expect our overall commodity inflation will ease and our currently estimated mid-single-digit commodity inflation for the full year. As you would expect, it will start high and taper down over the course of the year. For reference, Q3 of 2022 was up 15.4% and Q4 of 2022 was up 14.5%. Q1 of 2023 will be a sequential improvement from these past quarters. Now let's look at labor. Labor as a percentage of revenues increased to 26.5% in the fourth quarter of 2022 from 26.2% in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase was primarily driven by incremental investments to support our team members, including hourly rate increases made in Q3 2022 and higher variable base compensation expense. These increases were largely offset by an increase in our average check and operational efficiencies. We anticipate making continued wage investments in 2023 and remain committed to providing a competitive total rewards package for our team members.

現在讓我們看看我們的成本。不計折舊和攤銷的銷貨成本佔收入的百分比從 2021 年第四季度的 32.6% 增加到 2022 年第四季度的 35%。這一增長主要是由於大多數商品平均增長 14.5% ，尤其是牛肉和雞肉。此外，由於記錄第三方交付定價的變化，銷售成本受到 1.4% 的負面影響。這些增加部分被我們平均支票的增加所抵消。到 2023 年，我們預計我們的整體商品通脹將放緩，我們目前估計的全年商品通脹將達到中等個位數。正如您所預料的那樣，它會從高位開始，然後在一年中逐漸下降。作為參考，2022 年第三季度增長 15.4%，2022 年第四季度增長 14.5%。 2023 年第一季度將是過去幾個季度的連續改善。現在讓我們看看勞動力。勞動力佔收入的百分比從 2021 年第四季度的 26.2% 增加到 2022 年第四季度的 26.5%。這一增長主要是由支持我們團隊成員的增量投資推動的，包括 2022 年第三季度及以後的時薪增加可變基本補償費用。這些增長在很大程度上被我們平均支票和運營效率的提高所抵消。我們預計在 2023 年繼續進行工資投資，並繼續致力於為我們的團隊成員提供有競爭力的總薪酬方案。

Other operating expenses increased $3 million or 20% in the fourth quarter of 2022, which was primarily driven by new restaurant openings in 2021 and 2022 as well as increases in repairs and maintenance expenses. Occupancy expenses were flat as a percent of sales. As a result of the above, restaurant-level adjusted EBITDA decreased 8.5% to $32 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Restaurant level adjusted EBITDA margins were 21.2% in the fourth quarter of 2022 versus 25.2% in the fourth quarter of 2021. The 400 basis point decrease in restaurant level margins was primarily driven by the continued impact of increased commodity costs and to a lesser extent, labor investments. We partially offset higher expenses through menu price increases and operational efficiencies. We raised menu prices 1.5% in the first quarter of 2022, 3.5% during the second quarter of 2022 and 3.4% during the fourth quarter of 2022. These actions resulted in an effective price increase of approximately 7.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 7.5% year-to-date. During mid-January of 2023, we did increase menu pricing to reflect a net 2% price increase as we continue to combat inflationary cost pressures and restore our margins. Our G&A expenses decreased $33.6 million to 11.7% in Q4 2022 from 37% in Q4 2021. The absence of IPO-related expenses in Q4 2022 contributed to the overall decrease in equity-based compensation of $25.5 million, option holder payments of $6.6 million and transaction-related fees and expenses of $2.3 million. Variable based compensation also decreased by $1.7 million in the quarter. These decreases were partially offset by increases in our people and business.

其他運營費用在 2022 年第四季度增加了 300 萬美元或 20%，這主要是由於 2021 年和 2022 年新開的餐廳以及維修和保養費用的增加。入住費用佔銷售額的百分比持平。由於上述原因，2022 年第四季度餐廳層面調整後的 EBITDA 下降 8.5% 至 3200 萬美元。2022 年第四季度餐廳層面調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 21.2%，而 2021 年第四季度為 25.2%。餐廳層面的利潤率下降 400 個基點主要是由於商品成本增加的持續影響以及勞動力投資的影響較小。我們通過提高菜單價格和提高運營效率來部分抵消較高的費用。我們將菜單價格在 2022 年第一季度提高了 1.5%，在 2022 年第二季度提高了 3.5%，在 2022 年第四季度提高了 3.4%。這些行動導致 2022 年第四季度的有效價格上漲了約 7.9%，並且今年迄今為 7.5%。 2023 年 1 月中旬，隨著我們繼續應對通脹成本壓力並恢復利潤率，我們確實提高了菜單定價以反映 2% 的淨價格上漲。我們的 G&A 費用從 2021 年第四季度的 37% 減少 3360 萬美元至 2022 年第四季度的 11.7%。由於 2022 年第四季度沒有與 IPO 相關的費用，導致基於股權的薪酬總體減少 2550 萬美元、期權持有人付款 660 萬美元和與交易相關的費用和開支為 230 萬美元。本季度基於可變的薪酬也減少了 170 萬美元。這些減少部分被我們的人員和業務的增加所抵消。

We will continue to make investments in G&A in 2023 and estimate that full year spend will be in the range of $72 million to $77 million. Preopening expenses increased $1.7 million to 2% in the fourth quarter of 2022 from 0.9% in the fourth quarter of 2021. This increase was due to the timing and geographic location of activities related to our planned restaurant openings at the end of fiscal '22 and early fiscal 2023. We expect preopening expenses to be between $7.5 million to $8 million in 2023, which covers 4 class of 22 restaurants and the 9 additional restaurants we expect to open during the second half of the year. All this led to adjusted EBITDA of $18.1 million in the fourth quarter of '22 versus $23.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, a decrease of 22.1%. Below the EBITDA line, interest expense was $8.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, an increase of $0.8 million from the fourth quarter of 2021. This increase was primarily driven by $2 million of additional interest expense on our first lien term loan due to an increased interest rate, partially offset by lower outstanding borrowings under our first lien term loan and by the payoff of our second lien term loan. As of the end of the fourth quarter, the effective interest rate on the first lien term loan was 10.4%.

我們將在 2023 年繼續對 G&A 進行投資，預計全年支出將在 7200 萬至 7700 萬美元之間。開業前費用從 2021 年第四季度的 0.9% 增加到 2022 年第四季度的 170 萬美元至 2%。這一增長是由於與我們計劃在 22 財年末開業的餐廳相關的活動的時間和地理位置以及2023 財年初。我們預計 2023 年的開業前費用將在 750 萬至 800 萬美元之間，其中包括 4 類 22 家餐廳和我們預計在下半年開業的 9 家額外餐廳。所有這些導致 2022 年第四季度調整後的 EBITDA 為 1810 萬美元，而 2021 年第四季度為 2320 萬美元，下降了 22.1%。在 EBITDA 線以下，2022 年第四季度的利息支出為 840 萬美元，比 2021 年第四季度增加了 80 萬美元。這一增長主要是由於我們的第一筆留置權期限貸款的額外利息支出為 200 萬美元，原因是利率上升，部分被我們的第一筆留置權定期貸款下的未償借款減少和我們的第二筆留置權定期貸款的還清所抵消。截至四季度末，第一筆留置期限貸款實際利率為10.4%。

On February 2, we announced that we entered into a new 5-year $300 million term loan and $100 million new revolver facility. The proceeds under the term loan and revolver facility, along with cash on hand, were used to repay outstanding debt under our previous first lien term loan and transaction-related expenses. At prevailing rates, the all-in interest rate on the term debt has been reduced by approximately 270 basis points. At these rates, we expect that our annual interest expense in 2023 will be approximately $8.5 million lower as compared with our previous debt facilities. This new credit agreement provides additional financial flexibility to pursue our growth strategy and other strategic initiatives. Income tax benefit was $1.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 and an income tax expense of $1.8 million for the year. Our effective tax rate for the year was 9.6% versus 20.9% in 2021. Our future effective tax rate will fluctuate as Class A equity ownership increases and as equity-based awards are exercised invest. We ended the quarter with $44.4 million in cash. Subsequent to the quarter, we deployed approximately $9.7 million of cash on hand in connection with the refinancing to pay off the existing term loan and transaction-related fees and repaid $5 million of outstanding borrowings under our new revolver facility.

2 月 2 日，我們宣布簽訂一項新的 5 年期 3 億美元定期貸款和 1 億美元新循環貸款。定期貸款和循環貸款下的收益以及手頭現金用於償還我們之前的第一筆留置權定期貸款和交易相關費用下的未償債務。按現行利率計算，定期債務的總利率已降低約 270 個基點。按照這些利率，我們預計 2023 年的年度利息支出將比我們之前的債務融資減少約 850 萬美元。這項新的信貸協議提供了額外的財務靈活性，以實施我們的增長戰略和其他戰略舉措。 2022 年第四季度的所得稅收益為 170 萬美元，全年所得稅費用為 180 萬美元。我們今年的實際稅率為 9.6%，而 2021 年為 20.9%。我們未來的實際稅率將隨著 A 類股權的增加和股權獎勵的行使而波動。我們在本季度末擁有 4,440 萬美元的現金。本季度之後，我們動用了約 970 萬美元的手頭現金進行再融資，以償還現有的定期貸款和交易相關費用，並償還了我們新的循環貸款下 500 萬美元的未償借款。

Going forward, we will be using our cash balance plus operating cash flow to support our continued growth. In 2023, we are estimating our capital expenditures to be between $70 million to $75 million. We remain committed to delivering healthy top line and bottom line growth in 2023 and beyond. More importantly, we are confident in our long-term outlook that was provided in our earnings release this morning. Thank you for your time. And with that, I'll turn it back to Michael.

展望未來，我們將使用我們的現金餘額加上經營現金流來支持我們的持續增長。到 2023 年，我們估計我們的資本支出將在 7000 萬至 7500 萬美元之間。我們仍然致力於在 2023 年及以後實現健康的收入和利潤增長。更重要的是，我們對今天上午發布的收益報告中提供的長期前景充滿信心。感謝您的時間。有了這個，我會把它轉回給邁克爾。

 Thanks, Michelle. Before we open for questions, I want to thank our Portillo's team members for all of their hard work in 2022. We persevered during a challenging year for the restaurant industry, and this is because we kept our focus on what matters, an unrivaled experience for our team members and our guests, and it's working. Our guest satisfaction scores continue to be the highest they've been in 3 years. Consumers are choosing Portillo's. Our sales and comp trajectory continue to show that. In 2023, we're focused on balancing the needs of our 3 core constituents. We're creating value for our guests by delivering delicious food at a great price point. We're creating value for our team members through great work experiences. And we're creating shareholder value by improving our already healthy restaurant level margins. We'll keep delivering on those promises. Thank you. With that, operator, can we open the line for questions.

謝謝，米歇爾。在我們開始提問之前，我要感謝我們 Portillo 的團隊成員在 2022 年所做的所有辛勤工作。我們在餐飲業充滿挑戰的一年中堅持不懈，這是因為我們一直專注於重要的事情，這是一次無與倫比的體驗我們的團隊成員和我們的客人，它的工作。我們的客人滿意度得分繼續保持 3 年來的最高水平。消費者正在選擇 Portillo's。我們的銷售和補償軌跡繼續表明這一點。 2023 年，我們將專注於平衡 3 個核心成員的需求。我們以優惠的價格提供美味的食物，為我們的客人創造價值。我們通過出色的工作經驗為我們的團隊成員創造價值。我們通過提高本已健康的餐廳利潤率來創造股東價值。我們將繼續兌現這些承諾。謝謝。有了這個，接線員，我們可以打開問題熱線嗎？

Yes. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is from Sarah Senatore with Bank of America.

是的。 （操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自美國銀行的 Sarah Senatore。

 I actually just -- I wanted to sort of dig into the margin piece and the cost outlook. And specifically, if you can give us any kind of guidance, I know you're looking to improve that. Maybe sort of talk through how much price you expect to have on the menu? And also more specifically, you talked about continued labor investments. My sense has been that your wage inflation has been pretty much in line with the industry in the double-digit range in 2022. So maybe you could talk to that, is it that maybe perhaps you got a later start to raising wages? Is it to stay ahead of the curve? Should we expect to see more broadly maybe another wage cycle in 2023? I'm just trying to understand sort of the complexion of the margin outlook and wages in particular.

我實際上只是 - 我想深入了解利潤率和成本前景。具體來說，如果你能給我們任何指導，我知道你正在尋求改進。也許可以談談您希望菜單上的價格是多少？更具體地說，你談到了持續的勞動力投資。我的感覺是，到 2022 年，你們的工資通脹率與行業基本一致，處於兩位數範圍內。所以也許你可以談談，是不是你們開始加薪的時間較晚？是為了保持領先地位嗎？我們是否應該期望在 2023 年更廣泛地看到另一個工資週期？我只是想了解利潤率前景，尤其是工資的情況。

 Yes. Let me start and then I'll turn it over to Michelle. On pricing, I mean I don't think -- hopefully, it's not lost on anyone that our pricing last year lagged our competition. And when we look at the underlying metrics, when we look at our traffic trends, our sandwich count metrics, when we look at guest satisfaction scores, speed of service scores, we feel really, really good about the value that we're providing guests and we think that we have untapped pricing power. And so I'm not going to say specifically how much we're going to price this year, but we feel like we have pricing power, and it's right and appropriate to catch up to the pack in terms of overall pricing. And then I'll let Michelle talk about labor. The one thing I'll tell you that the gift that keeps on giving for us on labor is we have worked very, very hard as an organization to make sure that we are providing a great experience and a great environment for our team members. And we see that our gap in hourly turnover versus the rest of our competitors is actually getting bigger. So we have anywhere from a 40 to 50 point gap on turnover versus other limited service restaurant companies. And our gap on turnover with our management teams has also increased. So -- and you know, right, turnover is hugely important to this industry. There's soft costs and hard costs associated with it. The hard cost is relatively easy to measure. Soft cost is a little bit harder to measure. I think that the investments that we're making more than pay for themselves in terms of team member satisfaction, lower turnover, which in turn generates better guest experiences.

是的。讓我開始，然後我會把它交給米歇爾。關於定價，我的意思是我不認為 - 希望我們去年的定價落後於我們的競爭對手，這不會讓任何人失望。當我們查看基本指標時，當我們查看我們的流量趨勢、我們的三明治數量指標時，當我們查看客人滿意度分數、服務速度分數時，我們對我們為客人提供的價值感到非常非常滿意我們認為我們有未開發的定價能力。所以我不打算具體說我們今年要定價多少，但我們覺得我們有定價權，在整體定價方面赶超是正確和適當的。然後我會讓米歇爾談談勞動。我要告訴你的一件事是，在勞動中不斷給予我們的禮物是，我們作為一個組織非常非常努力地工作，以確保我們為我們的團隊成員提供良好的體驗和良好的環境。我們發現我們與其他競爭對手的小時營業額差距實際上越來越大。因此，與其他有限服務餐廳公司相比，我們在營業額上有 40 到 50 個百分點的差距。我們與管理團隊的營業額差距也有所擴大。所以 - 你知道，對，營業額對這個行業非常重要。有與之相關的軟成本和硬成本。硬成本相對容易衡量。軟成本有點難以衡量。我認為我們所做的投資不僅僅是在團隊成員滿意度和更低的人員流動方面為自己付出的代價，這反過來又會產生更好的客人體驗。

Yes, Sara, I would just add on to what Michael is saying in terms of the pricing and the margins, with the pricing that we put out there with the 2% we took in Q1, we'll be at around 9-ish percent in the first quarter of '23. And then we'll be then lapping a price increase in mid-May. So if that falls off, you'd be at about 5.5% price if we took no action. But as Michael said, we're going to remain fluid and flexible in our pricing approach. We're not committing to anything beyond what we've already announced with the January price increase because we got to continue to see how the landscape plays out with both commodities as well as the labor environment. I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we do expect to continue to make investments in labor. I think when you look at -- you mentioned it, our labor inflation in '22, we saw double-digit inflation. That started to come down a bit in the back half of the year. So we're at about 9% labor rate inflation in the fourth quarter. I expect that to come down as we start to lay up some of those numbers. But we do expect to make the continued investments in labor as well in '23.

是的，Sara，我想補充一下 Michael 在定價和利潤方面所說的話，根據我們在第一季度推出的 2% 的定價，我們將達到 9% 左右在 23 年的第一季度。然後我們將在 5 月中旬提價。因此，如果價格下跌，如果我們不採取任何行動，您的價格將達到 5.5% 左右。但正如邁克爾所說，我們將在定價方式上保持流動性和靈活性。除了我們已經宣布的 1 月份價格上漲之外，我們不會做出任何承諾，因為我們必須繼續觀察大宗商品和勞動力環境的情況。我在準備好的發言中提到，我們確實希望繼續對勞動力進行投資。我想當你看——你提到過，我們在 22 年的勞動力通脹，我們看到了兩位數的通脹。這在今年下半年開始有所下降。因此，我們在第四季度的勞動力通脹率約為 9%。我希望隨著我們開始計算其中一些數字，這種情況會下降。但我們確實希望在 23 年繼續對勞動力進行投資。

Okay. And sorry, just to put a finer point on it. It sounds like you can take price, you think to cover -- broadly cover inflation. So as we think about margin expansion, should we be thinking about leverage on positive transactions? Or is there something else that might go into that?

好的。抱歉，只是為了更好地說明這一點。聽起來你可以考慮價格，你認為可以涵蓋——廣泛涵蓋通貨膨脹。因此，當我們考慮保證金擴張時，我們是否應該考慮對積極交易的槓桿作用？或者還有其他可能涉及到的東西嗎？

 Yes, Sara, absolutely. We've always discussed as we think about combating inflationary pressures using prices and mechanism to do that. So we'll continue to think of it in that regard. And then the other thing is our operational efficiencies that we've talked about over the course of '22, we're going to be looking at can we do some additional things within our restaurants from that standpoint to help the margin profile. And then the expectation is, and Michael mentioned this in his remarks, that transaction as well as our entree count has been positive year-to-date. I know it's early on, but it's to be determined the remainder of the year, but we're seeing good trends there early on.

是的，莎拉，絕對是。當我們考慮使用價格和機制來對抗通脹壓力時，我們一直在討論。所以我們會繼續考慮這方面的問題。然後另一件事是我們在 22 年的過程中談到的我們的運營效率，我們將研究我們是否可以從這個角度在我們的餐廳內做一些額外的事情來幫助提高利潤率。然後期望是，邁克爾在他的評論中提到了這一點，即今年迄今為止的交易以及我們的主菜數量都是積極的。我知道現在還早，但要在今年剩餘時間裡確定，但我們很早就看到了良好的趨勢。

Our next question is from Sharon Zackfia with William Blair.

我們的下一個問題來自 Sharon Zackfia 和 William Blair。

 I'm curious if you can talk about commodity inflation. I know you mentioned it's going to drop off as the year goes on, and it would be lower than the fourth quarter sequentially in the first quarter, but there's a lot of room to be lower than 14.5%. So can you give us kind of how you expect commodities to play out as the year progresses? And I don't know if I missed it, but did you talk about kind of where you are on the percent of your basket that's locked?

我很好奇你能否談談商品通脹。我知道你提到它會隨著時間的推移而下降，第一季度將低於第四季度，但低於 14.5% 的空間很大。那麼，您能否告訴我們隨著時間的推移，您預計商品將如何發揮作用？我不知道我是否錯過了，但你有沒有談過你在你的籃子裡被鎖定的百分比？

Yes, Sharon. Obviously, the year is -- there's a lot of year left to play out, but I don't expect it to be the 14.5% we saw in Q4. As I said, I do expect sequential improvement. But as you can imagine, I don't expect that to fall off a cliff either. And all of a sudden get us into a range that is single digits or even mid-single digits. But based on what we know today, what I would expect is that, again, that improvement quarter-over-quarter -- we have locked in we do have some hedge positions. We're at about 34%, about 1/3 locks for the full year in '23. As you know, most of the positions that we take is generally on those beef flats where we do forward buys on that. And so we have that pretty locked in for Q1. We've taken some positions in the remaining quarters on that particular line item. And then we're working through some other items in our basket today. But I do expect the easing in those chicken and pork proteins as most have said over the course of the year. But beef, again, expect that to be more of a pressure in the back half of the year as we continue to see that trend. So that's what we know today. But again, a lot of year left to play out, and we'll update you as we continue to get more information.

是的，莎倫。顯然，這一年——還有很多年要結束，但我預計它不會達到我們在第四季度看到的 14.5%。正如我所說，我確實希望有連續的改進。但正如您所想像的那樣，我也不希望它從懸崖上掉下來。突然之間，我們進入了個位數甚至中等個位數的範圍。但根據我們今天所知道的，我期望的是，再次，季度環比有所改善——我們已經鎖定我們確實有一些對沖頭寸。我們大約有 34%，大約是 23 年全年鎖定的 1/3。如您所知，我們持有的大部分頭寸通常是在我們進行遠期購買的那些牛肉單位上。所以我們已經鎖定了第一季度。我們在剩餘的季度中對該特定行項目採取了一些立場。然後，我們今天正在研究購物籃中的其他一些項目。但我確實預計，正如大多數人在這一年中所說的那樣，這些雞肉和豬肉蛋白質的需求會有所下降。但是牛肉，再次預計，隨著我們繼續看到這種趨勢，這將在今年下半年帶來更大的壓力。這就是我們今天所知道的。但同樣，還有很多年要玩，我們會在繼續獲得更多信息時向您更新。

And then a quick question on the Colony. I mean, those are pretty jaw-dropping volumes. I can't even imagine what it's like to be a team member at that location. I guess just given those volumes, I understand there's some (inaudible), but still, I mean, does that kind of accelerate any idea of opening a location that might cannibalize some of that? I'm not familiar if you've got something in the pipeline that might take off some of that pressure.

然後是一個關於殖民地的快速問題。我的意思是，這些都是令人瞠目結舌的數量。我什至無法想像在那個地方成為團隊成員是什麼感覺。我想只是考慮到這些數量，我知道有一些（聽不清），但我的意思是，這是否會加速任何打開可能蠶食其中一些位置的想法？我不知道你是否正在準備一些可以減輕壓力的東西。

Thank you first because you're right. These are -- they're like eye-popping numbers. And the team has been fantastic. And I think we have like we've learned a lot, and we have -- we probably have overinvested in experienced, talented Portillo's management down there, and our team is doing an amazing job. So we're very, very proud of that team. It -- we had planned for, and I think we publicly said this, another 4 to 5 restaurants in Texas. We want to kind of be in that 4% to 5% range by the end of this year, '23 in Texas. So we've announced 2 more and don't be surprised if we build a few more in Texas this year. I think the Colony will settle down, and I don't think we need to think about cannibalizing it quite yet. I think that that's a restaurant that's going to settle down. It is an iconic flagship restaurant for us in a fantastic location. And so my expectation is that it performs closer to like a Chicago market restaurant than a typical out-of-core restaurant. But I'll tell you what it does, Sharon. We have a lot of people asking us questions about do you think you'll succeed in Texas? Do you think that people will eat Italian beef in Texas? And it's only 6, 8 weeks in, but I feel like the answer to that is a resounding, yes. They seem to like our beef sandwiches a lot. No surprise, beef and bread works really well in the great state of Texas.

先謝謝你，因為你是對的。這些是——它們就像令人大跌眼鏡的數字。團隊一直很棒。而且我認為我們已經學到了很多東西，而且我們已經 - 我們可能已經過度投資於那裡經驗豐富，才華橫溢的 Portillo 管理層，我們的團隊做得非常出色。所以我們為那個團隊感到非常非常自豪。它——我們曾計劃，我想我們公開說過，在德克薩斯州再開 4 到 5 家餐館。我們希望在今年年底之前達到 4% 到 5% 的範圍，'23 在德克薩斯州。因此，我們又宣布了 2 個，如果我們今年在德克薩斯州再建造幾個，請不要感到驚訝。我認為 Colony 會安定下來，而且我認為我們還不需要考慮完全蠶食它。我認為那是一家會安定下來的餐廳。對我們來說，這是一家標誌性的旗艦餐廳，地理位置優越。因此，我的期望是它的表現更接近芝加哥市場餐廳，而不是典型的核心外餐廳。但我會告訴你它的作用，莎倫。我們有很多人問我們關於您認為您會在德克薩斯州取得成功的問題嗎？你認為人們會在德克薩斯吃意大利牛肉嗎？它只有 6、8 週，但我覺得答案是響亮的，是的。他們似乎很喜歡我們的牛肉三明治。毫不奇怪，牛肉和麵包在偉大的得克薩斯州非常適合。

Our next question is from David Tarantino with Baird.

我們的下一個問題來自 David Tarantino 和 Baird。

Just first, a question about the fourth quarter. I don't think you mentioned the entree count growth if you had the entree count growth number, that would be helpful.

首先，關於第四季度的問題。如果您有主菜計數增長數字，我認為您沒有提到主菜計數增長，那會很有幫助。

Yes, David, it was in the quarter, it was negative for the quarter. But if we excluded the impact of the storm, we would have been flat. But all in it was negative for the quarter. It would have been flat excluding the impact of the storm.

是的，大衛，在這個季度，這個季度是負的。但如果我們排除風暴的影響，我們就會持平。但所有這些對本季度都是不利的。如果不考慮風暴的影響，它應該是持平的。

Okay. Great. And then just kind of circling back on the new unit performance, especially in Texas, I guess, Michael, based on your observations or your data collection for that location, I was wondering if you could just elaborate on why you think it was so strong in the early days? Do you think it's more related to the site you picked? Or do you think it's more related to the consumer demand for your type of product? I know you mentioned the beef sandwiches are popular. But I guess, what's your thought on this being a leading indicator for the rest of the market as you go forward?

好的。偉大的。然後回到新單位的表現，特別是在德克薩斯州，我想，邁克爾，根據你對該地區的觀察或數據收集，我想知道你是否可以詳細說明為什麼你認為它如此強大在早些時候？您認為它與您選擇的網站更相關嗎？還是您認為它與消費者對您的產品類型的需求更相關？我知道你提到牛肉三明治很受歡迎。但我想，在你前進的過程中，你認為這是其他市場的領先指標嗎？

Great question, David. I'm going to give you a comp out answer because it's a little bit of everything you just said. It is undeniably a great location, and we're thrilled to be partnering with the folks who've developed that area, there's a Nebraska Furniture Mart there. There's a SCHEELS. Those are world-class retailers, and we have a fantastic location in a very, very well-designed development. So that's an undeniable truth. It's right next to a business complex in Frisco. It's a mile away from all of the office buildings in Frisco. So it's great. Now that said, we invested time, energy and money in marketing Texas. We sent the beef bus down for 2 tours to generate excitement, energy and demand. We overinvested to some extent, with a fantastic multi-unit manager down there, a fantastic general manager down there. And 70% of our management team and crew chiefs have Portillo's experience. So we stack the deck to make sure that we can handle these volumes, et cetera. We are -- despite all that, I am a little surprised and overwhelmed by the response that we've gotten. I think that Texas can be either hit or miss for restaurant companies. If you do well, if you really -- you approach it with a sense of humility and work your butt off, you can be great. If you try to mail it in and just assume you're going to be great, you might stub your toe.

好問題，大衛。我會給你一個比較好的答案，因為它是你剛才所說的一切的一部分。不可否認，這是一個絕佳的位置，我們很高興能與開發該地區的人們合作，那裡有一家內布拉斯加州家具市場。有一個 SCHEELS。這些都是世界級的零售商，我們在一個非常非常精心設計的開發項目中擁有絕佳的位置。所以這是一個不可否認的事實。它就在弗里斯科的一個商業綜合體旁邊。它距離弗里斯科的所有辦公樓一英里。所以這很棒。話雖如此，我們投入了時間、精力和金錢來營銷德克薩斯州。我們派出牛肉巴士進行 2 次旅行，以產生興奮、能量和需求。我們在某種程度上過度投資了，那裡有一位出色的多部門經理，一位出色的總經理。我們 70% 的管理團隊和機組負責人都有 Portillo 的經驗。因此，我們堆疊甲板以確保我們能夠處理這些體積等。我們 - 儘管如此，我對我們得到的回應感到有些驚訝和不知所措。我認為德克薩斯州對於餐飲公司來說可能會受到打擊或錯過。如果你做得好，如果你真的 - 你以謙遜的態度對待它並努力工作，你會很棒。如果你試圖郵寄它並假設你會很棒，你可能會絆到你的腳趾。

We are approaching our Texas expansion with a great deal of humility. We're looking for A+ locations. We're going to continue to overinvest in management team and training of our team members. We'll open the restaurant when it's beautiful and ready to go and the folks are ready to go. And so I think we did just sell a lot of things right. And as we continue to evolve and develop, we'll continue to get a lot of things right. And so my hope is that it is a precursor of what we can expect for Texas. But look, Florida is doing really well. Our newest restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, is just fantastic. We feel like we're -- we've got the flywheel working for us in the Sunbelt.

我們正以極大的謙遜態度對待德克薩斯州的擴張。我們正在尋找 A+ 位置。我們將繼續對管理團隊和團隊成員的培訓進行過度投資。我們會在餐廳環境優美、準備就緒、人們準備就緒時開張。所以我認為我們確實賣了很多東西。隨著我們不斷發展和發展，我們將繼續把很多事情做對。因此，我希望它是我們對德克薩斯州的期望的先驅。但是你看，佛羅里達做得很好。我們在亞利桑那州圖森市的最新餐廳非常棒。我們覺得我們是——我們已經讓飛輪在陽光地帶為我們工作。

Got it. That's helpful. And then one more quick one on Texas. Texas, I guess my impression is it's a lower cost market to operate in. But I guess how would you characterize whether it's construction costs or labor costs relative to your typical financial model, is it -- am I right that that's a lower cost market?

知道了。這很有幫助。然後是德克薩斯州的一個快速的。得克薩斯州，我想我的印像是它是一個成本較低的市場。但我想你如何描述相對於你的典型財務模型的建築成本或勞動力成本，是嗎 - 我是對的，這是一個成本較低的市場？

I mean there are certain elements that make it easier, I would say, to work in Texas, but we're -- our first restaurant there is in a relatively high-priced location. We're paying really well. We're not -- we're paying for great labor. We expect greatness out of our team. So I would tell you that don't think of it as coming out of the gate with Chicago like margins.

我的意思是，有某些因素可以讓我更容易在德克薩斯州工作，但我們 - 我們的第一家餐廳位於價格相對較高的位置。我們的報酬非常好。我們不是——我們是在為偉大的勞動付出代價。我們期望我們的團隊表現出色。所以我會告訴你，不要認為它像芝加哥一樣從大門出來。

Our next question is from Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的布賴恩港。

To that point you just made, Michael, maybe comment on the margin performance of some of the other new locations, not just Texas, but are they coming in better than you expected or perhaps not? And how do we think directionally about the impact of those new units as we think about margins for the first quarter and then also kind of the second half of the year where you will have quite a few openings as well.

關於這一點，邁克爾，也許可以評論其他一些新地點的利潤率表現，而不僅僅是德克薩斯州，但它們的表現是否比你預期的要好，或者可能沒有？當我們考慮第一季度的利潤率以及下半年的利潤率時，我們如何定向考慮這些新單位的影響，在那裡你也會有很多空缺。

Yes. Let me give you a sort of the philosophical part of the question -- the answer, and then I'll let Michelle give you a little bit more. But keep in mind, when we open a new restaurant, it's -- I would really be hesitant to draw any conclusions about margin in the first couple of quarters because we have a new restaurant opening team helping out. We over-invest in management. When you're running at the volumes that we have right now, you need all hands on deck to help, and it's very important to provide guests a fantastic experience, right? You can -- when you're first in market, you're at a new restaurant, it's really important to provide a great experience or you're going to chase people away for a long time. So we overinvest and I frankly don't even care about the margin coming out of the gate for the first couple of quarters. It will stabilize over the course of the year, and then it will improve. What we think works really well is get the restaurant on the right footing, get it going right away from a guest satisfaction standpoint, from enticing crew members to stick around. And then the margin comes fast. And for us, Michelle has talked about this in the past that when we reach 6 to 8 restaurants, there's like an inflection point on our operating margins. And so once we've decided that a market is going to work for us, it is important to us to get to scale relatively quickly to start seeing that material margin improvement.

是的。讓我給你一個問題的哲學部分——答案，然後我會讓米歇爾再給你一點。但請記住，當我們開設一家新餐廳時，我真的很猶豫要在前幾個季度就利潤率得出任何結論，因為我們有一個新餐廳開業團隊提供幫助。我們過度投資於管理。當您以我們現在的數量運行時，您需要所有人齊心協力提供幫助，為客人提供美妙的體驗非常重要，對吧？你可以——當你第一次進入市場時，你在一家新餐廳，提供良好的體驗真的很重要，否則你會把人們趕走很長時間。所以我們過度投資，坦率地說，我什至不關心前幾個季度的利潤率。它會在一年中穩定下來，然後會有所改善。我們認為真正有效的方法是讓餐廳處於正確的立足點，從客人滿意度的角度出發，從吸引船員留下來開始。然後利潤率來得很快。對於我們來說，米歇爾過去曾談到這一點，當我們達到 6 到 8 家餐廳時，我們的營業利潤率就會出現拐點。因此，一旦我們確定市場將為我們服務，對我們來說，相對快速地擴大規模以開始看到材料利潤率的提高對我們來說很重要。

Yes. And I think just to add on to that, Brian, Michael is absolutely right. As we talked about the profile for a class of restaurants, right? And that's sort of how we're bucketing these when you talk about the class of '22 or even the class of '23. The typical profile for that class is high teens margins in year 1, a slight improvement to flattish in year 2, and then it starts to grow in year 3. Scale does matter, as Michael pointed out. So that's going to be important as we continue to get to scale. But I think that when you think about the overall margin profile of Portillo's, as Michael mentioned in his prepared remarks, we're committed to improving that despite the restaurant openings in '23 because we know and we've talked about that we purposefully had margin degradation in '22 because of our price laggard approach. And so that is what we're looking to do in '23 despite the openings.

是的。而且我想補充一點，布賴恩，邁克爾是絕對正確的。當我們談到一類餐廳的概況時，對嗎？當你談論 22 屆甚至 23 屆時，這就是我們對這些進行分類的方式。該類別的典型情況是第 1 年的青少年利潤率很高，第 2 年略有改善至持平，然後在第 3 年開始增長。正如 Michael 指出的那樣，規模確實很重要。因此，隨著我們繼續擴大規模，這將變得很重要。但我認為，當你考慮 Portillo's 的整體利潤率時，正如邁克爾在他準備好的發言中提到的那樣，儘管 23 年餐廳開業，但我們致力於改善這一點，因為我們知道並且我們已經討論過我們有目的地擁有由於我們的價格落後方法，22 年的利潤率下降。因此，儘管有空缺，但這就是我們希望在 23 年做的事情。

Okay. Separately, maybe just talk about food delivery and what you are still seeing there on a year-over-year basis, maybe on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Have you still continue to see that be quite strong? And then also maybe on new units, how do those do just on third-party delivery?

好的。另外，也許只是談論送餐以及您仍然在那裡看到的同比，也許是季度環比。你還繼續看到那個很強嗎？然後也可能在新單位上，那些如何只在第三方交付上做？

Yes. Great question. So we're like God bless the people doing third-party delivery because it just keeps on growing. And so it's performing well for us. The channel continues to grow. It's probably continuing to do a little bit of mix shift for us. So we're seeing continued growth in third-party delivery even through the course of '22 and into the fourth quarter. So that is definitely happening. Your latter -- the last part of your question about new units is a very good question because we're very thoughtful about metering the channel so that we don't overwhelm a new restaurant. And let me tell you what I mean by that. Our Orlando restaurant came out of the gate blazing, had a fantastic first year. And -- can we tell how much... No. Okay. So -- but it had a fantastic first year. We did not want to overwhelm that team. So we did not have third-party delivery, pickup or catering turned on, on purpose. And we've only recently, after a little bit over a year, added a channel, added another channel. So now it's got the whole mix. The Colony does not have third-party turned on, does not have digital ordering turned on, does not have catering. Right now, it is exclusively dine-in, pickup and drive-through. And that's on purpose because we -- it's doing such crazy volumes. We don't want to create excess pressure and create more channel stress right now. So for new restaurants, that's a very -- that is a sort of a new normal for us, which is expand the channel outreach over time once the restaurant stabilizes and can handle the volumes.

是的。很好的問題。所以我們就像上帝保佑做第三方交付的人，因為它一直在增長。所以它對我們來說表現很好。該渠道繼續增長。它可能會繼續為我們做一些混合轉變。因此，即使在整個 22 世紀和第四季度，我們都看到第三方交付持續增長。所以這肯定會發生。你的後者——你關於新單位的問題的最後一部分是一個很好的問題，因為我們對頻道的計量非常周到，這樣我們就不會壓垮一家新餐廳。讓我告訴你我的意思。我們的奧蘭多餐廳開門見山，第一年非常棒。而且——我們能說出多少……不，好吧。所以 - 但它有一個很棒的第一年。我們不想讓那支球隊不知所措。因此，我們沒有故意啟用第三方送貨、取貨或餐飲服務。直到最近，在一年多之後，我們才添加了一個頻道，又添加了一個頻道。所以現在它得到了整個組合。 The Colony 沒有打開第三方，沒有打開數字訂購，沒有餐飲服務。現在，它只提供堂食、取餐和免下車服務。這是故意的，因為我們 - 它正在做如此瘋狂的事情。我們現在不想製造過大的壓力並製造更多的渠道壓力。因此，對於新餐廳來說，這對我們來說是一種非常新的常態，一旦餐廳穩定下來並能夠處理數量，就會隨著時間的推移擴大渠道範圍。

Our next question is from Dennis Geiger with UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Dennis Geiger。

And congrats on the Colony and some of the other strength in the other recent openings. I wanted to ask first sort of on supply chain permitting and then any other delays as it relates to targeted openings for this year and how you're thinking about this year? Is there any update there? And I guess, maybe, Michael, if you could just kind of touch on build costs, how that's trending? And any kind of expectation for this year relative to what you saw in '22?

並祝賀 Colony 和其他最近空缺的其他力量。我想先問一下供應鏈許可，然後是與今年的目標開放相關的任何其他延誤，以及您對今年的看法？那裡有更新嗎？我想，也許，邁克爾，如果你能稍微談談建造成本，那趨勢如何？與你在 22 年看到的相比，今年有什麼期望嗎？

Yes. On timing, look, I think -- I'm sure you've heard this from every other restaurant company, but there seems to be a new normal in how long it takes to get through certain administrative processes with governments, et cetera. And so we've built in significantly more time for permitting, for all this stuff. The things that are under our control, we feel pretty good about. We're getting better. We're getting smarter. We're getting faster. We built 3 of the restaurants that we built were with first-time national scale general contractors. That's what we've got to do. We've got to become a scale construction company. And so I feel good that we have learned a lot and that we are more pragmatic and planful in when we think things are going to open. It is honestly done, it's why the '23 is so back-half loaded. I would never want it to be back half loaded in a perfect setting. And so my expectation is '24 is much closer to bright and then '25 should be perfect. We should have -- and perfect for us, I think, is 60%, 70% of the restaurants are opened in the front half and the remainder opened in the third quarter, maybe 1 in the fourth quarter. That's what great looks like. So we're not great in '23. We're back half loaded, far more than I would prefer, but that is neither here nor there. And then in terms of construction costs, it has -- I would describe it as it has tapered a bit. It hasn't come back to earth. And I don't know how much of it will. I don't know how much of it won't. We've talked about this before. What that means for us is because we're still very committed to hitting the financial targets that we have set. So it means, Michelle and I are only approving restaurants that we think are going to far exceed some of the numbers that we would have looked at in the past because the build cost is higher.

是的。關於時間，你看，我想——我敢肯定你已經從其他所有餐廳公司那裡聽說過，但是在與政府等部門通過某些行政程序所需的時間似乎已經成為一種新常態。因此，我們為所有這些東西投入了更多的時間來獲得許可。在我們控制之下的事情，我們感覺很好。我們越來越好。我們變得越來越聰明。我們越來越快了。我們建造的餐廳中有 3 家是首次與國家級總承包商合作。那就是我們必須要做的。我們必須成為一家有規模的建築公司。因此，我感覺很好，因為我們學到了很多東西，而且當我們認為事情將要開放時，我們會更加務實和有計劃。這是老實說的，這就是為什麼 23 年的後半部分負載如此之大的原因。我永遠不希望它在完美的環境中半載。所以我的期望是 24 更接近明亮，然後 25 應該是完美的。我們應該 - 我認為對我們來說完美的是 60%，70% 的餐廳在前半部分開業，其餘餐廳在第三季度開業，第四季度可能有 1 家。這就是偉大的樣子。所以我們在 23 年並不出色。我們回來了一半，遠遠超過我的意願，但這既不在這裡也不在那裡。然後就建築成本而言，它已經 - 我會描述它，因為它已經逐漸減少了一點。它還沒有回到地球。我不知道會有多少。我不知道有多少不會。我們以前談過這個。這對我們來說意味著什麼，因為我們仍然非常致力於實現我們設定的財務目標。所以這意味著，米歇爾和我只批准我們認為將遠遠超過我們過去考慮的一些數字的餐廳，因為建造成本更高。

We're also being very thoughtful about how much money we're spending to build our restaurants. We've talked about the restaurant of the future. I think in the class of '24, we'll start building restaurants that are smaller, more versatile and have the ability to generate the plus-size volumes that we want. And so I think we've got to skin this cat in those 2 ways. We've got to be more thoughtful and frugal in how we're building, still want a great experience for guests. But build a lower cost building. I don't like to work cheaper. So it's got to be lower cost for silogorgeous inviting, engaging building. And we have to be thoughtful that the restaurants that we're signing up for that the revenue will still great greatly achieve all of our aspirations for returns. Michelle, anything.

我們也非常仔細地考慮我們要花多少錢來建造我們的餐廳。我們已經討論過未來的餐廳。我認為在 24 年的班級中，我們將開始建造更小、更靈活並且能夠產生我們想要的大尺寸餐廳的餐廳。所以我認為我們必須以這兩種方式給這隻貓剝皮。我們必須在建設方式上更加周到和節儉，仍然希望為客人提供良好的體驗。但是建造一個成本更低的建築。我不喜歡便宜的工作。因此，建造引人入勝、引人入勝的雙人建築必須成本更低。我們必須考慮到，我們簽約的餐廳的收入仍將大大實現我們對回報的所有期望。米歇爾，任何東西。

Yes. No, you said it all. We're committed to the cash-on-cash returns we've laid out there, and that's what we look at when we put new restaurants.

是的。不，你都說了。我們致力於我們在那裡制定的現金回報，這就是我們在開設新餐廳時所關注的。

Yes. Very helpful color there. Just one other one, helpful commentary on the delivery strength there. I'm curious though if there's anything else to touch on as far as what you're seeing from customers recently changing behaviors across any metrics, channel utilization, et cetera?

是的。那裡的顏色非常有用。只是另外一個，對那裡的交付強度有幫助的評論。我很好奇，就您最近從客戶那裡看到的改變任何指標、渠道利用率等方面的行為而言，是否還有其他要談的？

It's -- there is a structural shift that is undeniable. Like if you go back to 2019, 53% of our sales were inside the restaurant in '22, 42% was inside. 2019, all the delivery channels were like 6%. Now they're 14%. Drive-throughs remain roughly the same. And so it's just a question of that inside the restaurant, how much of that keeps coming back? And where does it come from? So delivery continues to grow, and I think everyone is aware that the price points on a third-party delivery are materially different than if you go through the drive-through you pick it up in the restaurant, there's fees, et cetera, and tip and all those things add up. But that consumer sort of defies any price elasticity and continues to be very robust and continues to order from us. So I think I would be guessing, Dennis, I'm still surprised that dine-in hasn't picked up more, but it could just be that that's been a structural change that is here to stay.

這是——不可否認的結構性轉變。如果你回到 2019 年，22 年我們 53% 的銷售額在餐廳內，42% 是在餐廳內。 2019 年，所有的交付渠道都在 6% 左右。現在他們是 14%。得來速保持大致相同。所以這只是餐廳內部的問題，有多少會不斷回來？它從哪裡來？所以送貨持續增長，我想每個人都知道第三方送貨的價格點與你通過得來速在餐廳取貨有很大不同，有費用等等，還有小費所有這些加起來。但這種消費者有點無視任何價格彈性，並且繼續非常強勁並繼續向我們訂購。所以我想我會猜測，丹尼斯，我仍然對堂食沒有增加感到驚訝，但這可能只是一種結構性變化，而且會持續下去。

Our next question is from Andy Barish with Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Andy Barish。

Just wanted to dig into a little bit more on the margin discussion, just from an operational improvement efficiency perspective, I know you guys have done some good work around that over the last 1.5 years, 2 years. Is this something we should think about as kind of annually an opportunity to drive more productivity in your business? And then secondly, just I know you're working on a new kitchen 2023 design. How does that roll into the restaurants for this year's builds?

只是想深入探討一下利潤率的討論，只是從運營提高效率的角度來看，我知道你們在過去的 1.5 年、2 年中圍繞這個問題做了一些很好的工作。我們是否應該將此視為每年一次提高企業生產力的機會？其次，我知道你正在研究 2023 年的新廚房設計。這如何融入今年建築的餐廳？

Yes. Andy, good to hear from you. So here's what I'd say. We aspire to be a great company and be a great operator. And that means that you're always trying to get better and improve. We're -- while we're a 60-plus-year-old brand with a great legacy, there's a lot of things that we can get better at operationally. And so I think operational improvement is a thing that's going to be around a Portillo's for quite a while. And we had fantastic efficiencies -- we had fantastic efficiencies last year. We, I think, did a really good job of becoming more dynamic and efficient. We're doing things that I think will continue to enable that. So one of the investments that Michelle alluded to with labor is what we call the step-up program. So if Andy is my Rockstar beef maker, but that's all he's done, and he's getting to a certain hourly wage, you can go and cross train. You can learn how to make hot dogs at the station we call table, you can turn around and work broiler. And every new station that you learn, we pay you more. And every new station that you learn, you're creating flexibility for the company in terms of staffing and utilization. So that's a gift that's going to give and that we're figuring all the details of that on, our goal is to deploy the step-up program in the second half of the year. You referenced Kitchen 23, which we saw a significant savings where we tested it. It requires a little bit of CapEx and a little bit of a pain to redo the restaurant. But we think we've got a really good idea on how to do that, and we're retrofitting. We're going to target 15 to 20 restaurants in the Chicago area to retrofit towards Kitchen 23 for this year. That will generate savings. And then on an ongoing basis, we carefully look at our items per labor hour, it's a productivity metric. We look at the spread between the top quartile and the bottom quartile. We look at productivity by day by day part. And there's a lot of there there. There's a lot of opportunity for -- we have some restaurants that perform at ridiculously high productivity levels, and there's some learnings there that we can and should be applying to restaurants that are a little less productive. So I think that we have a lot of room to improve, and it's a multiyear journey. But it's also predicated on taking great care of your team members, right? You want happy productive team members who are cross-trained, eager to work, and that's when everything works really well.

是的。安迪，很高興收到你的來信。所以這就是我要說的。我們渴望成為一家偉大的公司，成為一家偉大的運營商。這意味著你總是在努力變得更好和提高。我們 - 雖然我們是一個擁有 60 多年曆史的品牌，擁有悠久的歷史，但我們可以在很多方面做得更好。因此，我認為運營改進將在 Portillo's 周圍持續很長一段時間。我們的效率非常高——去年我們的效率非常高。我認為，我們在變得更有活力和效率方面做得非常好。我們正在做我認為會繼續實現的事情。因此，米歇爾提到的勞動力投資之一就是我們所說的升級計劃。因此，如果安迪是我的 Rockstar 牛肉製造商，但他僅此而已，而且他的時薪是固定的，那麼你可以去交叉訓練。你可以在我們稱之為餐桌的站學習如何製作熱狗，你可以轉身去做烤肉。您學習的每一個新電台，我們都會付給您更多的錢。你學習的每一個新站，你都在為公司在人員配置和利用方面創造靈活性。所以這是一份禮物，我們正在計算所有細節，我們的目標是在今年下半年部署升級計劃。您引用了 Kitchen 23，我們在測試時看到了顯著的節省。重做餐廳需要一點資本支出和一點痛苦。但我們認為我們已經對如何做到這一點有了一個非常好的想法，並且我們正在進行改造。我們打算在芝加哥地區將 15 到 20 家餐廳改造為今年的 Kitchen 23。這將產生儲蓄。然後在持續的基礎上，我們仔細查看每個工時的項目，這是一個生產力指標。我們看一下最高四分位數和最低四分位數之間的差距。我們逐日查看生產力。那裡有很多。有很多機會——我們有一些餐廳的生產力水平高得離譜，我們可以而且應該將那裡的一些經驗應用於生產力較低的餐廳。所以我認為我們有很大的改進空間，這是一個多年的旅程。但這也取決於照顧好您的團隊成員，對嗎？您需要快樂、高效的團隊成員，他們接受過交叉培訓，渴望工作，而那時一切都非常順利。

And Michael, just real quick on the other operating expense, you mentioned NROs in the 4Q. What specifically is that? And was there anything else that moved it up to 12%? I imagine utilities were probably pretty high in paper and packaging as well with catering and things like that. But just kind of wondering if this is a new run rate at about 12% of sales or so.

邁克爾，關於其他運營費用，你在第四季度提到了 NRO。那具體是什麼？還有什麼其他因素可以將其提高到 12% 嗎？我想公用事業在紙張和包裝以及餐飲等方面可能相當高。但只是想知道這是否是一個新的運行率，大約佔銷售額的 12% 左右。

Yes, Andy, we have some catch-up on repairs and maintenance that I called out in my remarks. Outside of that, obviously, year-over-year, when you layer in new restaurants, right? You're going to have some of that in there, which is what I called out on the new restaurants. The only other thing that I think I would call out to you that would be an outlier, again, would be some catch-up that we did on the repairs and maintenance expense in Q4. But in terms of a run rate, again, I'm not going to get into future numbers, but that's what I call it for Q4.

是的，安迪，我在發言中提到了一些維修和保養方面的進展。除此之外，顯然，年復一年，當你在新餐廳分層時，對吧？你會在那裡吃一些，這就是我對新餐廳的要求。我想我要告訴你的唯一另一件事是異常值，再次是我們在第四季度對維修和維護費用所做的一些追趕。但就運行率而言，我不會再談未來的數字，但這就是我對第四季度的稱呼。

Our next question is from Chris O'Cull with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自 Stifel 的 Chris O'Cull。

Congrats on the recent store openings, very impressive. Michelle, given the comp trajectory in the first quarter, how should we be thinking about traffic or on trade count growth as comparisons start to normalize?

祝賀最近的商店開業，非常令人印象深刻。米歇爾，鑑於第一季度的競爭軌跡，隨著比較開始正常化，我們應該如何考慮流量或交易數量增長？

 I think, Chris, Michael called out that we've seen positive transaction growth year-to-date, so that's through the first 2 periods. The thing that we continue to see is -- and I've even talked to you and others about this before is, as we looked throughout '22, particularly in the back half of the year, we continue to see a negative impact from mix, right, which was that attachment or that items per transaction. My expectation is I don't expect that to immediately turn around as we continue to live through this recessionary-like environment. So we're still seeing that as well as we come into '23.

我認為，克里斯，邁克爾指出，今年迄今為止我們已經看到了積極的交易增長，所以這是通過前兩個時期。我們繼續看到的是——我什至之前和你和其他人談過這個，當我們回顧整個 22 年，特別是在今年下半年，我們繼續看到混合的負面影響，對，這是每個交易的那個附件或那個項目。我的期望是，隨著我們繼續經歷這種類似衰退的環境，我不希望這種情況會立即好轉。所以我們仍然看到了這一點，就像我們進入 23 年一樣。

Okay. And then it sounds like you expect to expand margin this year despite more new store drag, I guess, this year than last year. Other than pricing, what do you think are going to be the primary drivers of that improvement?

好的。然後聽起來你希望今年的利潤率會增加，儘管我猜今年比去年有更多的新店拖累。除了定價之外，您認為推動這種改進的主要因素是什麼？

Yes. Pricing is definitely a lever, Chris, that we're going to be looking to pull as the primary lever. And again, I mentioned, we put in the 2% in January. There's nothing else that Michael and I have aligned on moving forward. We're going to, again, continue to see how the environment looks. But then I would just point to exactly what Michael just said when he was talking to Andy about the improvements that we're looking at in terms of Kitchen 23, our step-up program. And then as we look at our items per labor hour, which is our efficiency metric that we measure in our restaurants, so we're going to be looking, can we make some improvements there. So those are the 2 things, but pricing would be the primary lever.

是的。定價絕對是一個槓桿，克里斯，我們將把它作為主要槓桿。我再次提到，我們在 1 月份投入了 2%。邁克爾和我在前進的道路上沒有其他一致意見。我們將再次繼續觀察環境的情況。但是我只想指出 Michael 在與 Andy 談論我們在 Kitchen 23（我們的升級計劃）方面正在研究的改進時所說的話。然後，當我們查看每個工時的物品時，這是我們在餐廳衡量的效率指標，所以我們要看看，我們能否在那裡做出一些改進。所以這是兩件事，但定價將是主要槓桿。

And just as a follow-up to that labor question. I think you said there's some labor investments planned for this year. Can you remind us what the magnitude and timing of those investments are expected to be relative to when you start to lap the investments you made in '22?

就像勞工問題的後續行動一樣。我想你說過今年計劃進行一些勞動力投資。你能提醒我們這些投資的規模和時間預計與你開始對你在 22 年所做的投資進行重疊的時間有關嗎？

Yes. We don't -- as Michael mentioned, Chris, we haven't determined exactly when we're going to put in place the step-up program, for example, and the labor decisions haven't been made fully. We put in place last year in Q3, the beginning of Q3, a round of increases into our restaurants. And so that's when you'll start to lap some of those increases this year. But TBD on what we're going to do in '23, we haven't made all those decisions.

是的。我們沒有——正如邁克爾提到的那樣，克里斯，我們還沒有確切地確定何時實施升級計劃，例如，勞動力決定也沒有完全做出。我們在去年第三季度，即第三季度初，對我們的餐廳進行了一輪增資。所以那時你將開始享受今年的一些增長。但是 TBD 關於我們在 23 年要做的事情，我們還沒有做出所有這些決定。

Our next question is from Gregory Francfort with Guggenheim.

我們的下一個問題來自古根海姆的 Gregory Francfort。

Can you talk just a little bit about the recent sales trends you're seeing to start 1Q? I mean the -- particularly January number is really strong. And I think the whole industry has had a little bit of a pickup, but the industry may have easier comparisons, and I think you guys have tougher comparisons. So can you maybe talk about that dynamic? And is there anything regionally that you're seeing or just thoughts on the consumer strength as a whole?

你能談談你看到的第一季度開始的近期銷售趨勢嗎？我的意思是 - 特別是一月份的數字非常強勁。而且我認為整個行業都有一點回升，但行業可能有更容易的比較，我認為你們有更嚴格的比較。那麼你能談談這種動態嗎？您在區域上看到了什麼，或者只是對整體消費者實力的想法？

Yes. I think -- so Greg, here's -- I would just -- I think January was honestly a little bit of a bounce back, some pent-up demand from that last week of December that we missed out on. So that there's a chart in the supplemental that kind of, I think, clearly identifies that. Now even if you neutralize that, we're seeing a little bit more momentum in our business. I would tell you it's broad-based. It's not any individual market. It's broad-based momentum in our business. we feel really good about both the traffic trends as well as the sandwich count trends. And by the way, as our channel mix begins to stabilize, and I think traffic is probably more straightforward way to describe it. But like we feel really good about that. I know I sound like a broken record, but for the last 9 months, we've seen consistently improving guest satisfaction scores, speed of service scores, value perception scores. So I attribute our step-up in performance for the first 2 months that our price laggard strategy is working. We're providing great value to our guests. They're telling us that they find great value. They're satisfied with us. Our guest satisfaction scores are now at 3-year highs. And I think that our strategy is working. We've lagged a little bit on pricing. We've said this. We invested in our guests in '22, and that is generating a little bit of, I guess, beta when it comes to revenue performance at the beginning of '23.

是的。我認為 - 所以格雷格，這裡是 - 我只是 - 我認為 1 月份確實有點反彈，我們錯過了 12 月最後一周的一些被壓抑的需求。因此，補充中有一張圖表，我認為，它清楚地表明了這一點。現在，即使你抵消了這一點，我們的業務也會看到更多的動力。我會告訴你它的基礎很廣泛。這不是任何個人市場。這是我們業務中廣泛的動力。我們對交通趨勢和三明治數量趨勢都感到非常滿意。順便說一句，隨著我們的渠道組合開始穩定下來，我認為流量可能是更直接的描述方式。但是就像我們對此感覺非常好。我知道我聽起來像是一個破紀錄，但在過去的 9 個月裡，我們看到客人滿意度得分、服務速度得分、價值感知得分不斷提高。因此，我將前 2 個月的業績提升歸因於我們的價格落後策略正在發揮作用。我們正在為我們的客人提供巨大的價值。他們告訴我們他們發現了巨大的價值。他們對我們很滿意。我們的客人滿意度得分目前處於 3 年來的最高水平。我認為我們的策略正在奏效。我們在定價方面有點滯後。我們已經說過了。我們在 22 年對我們的客人進行了投資，我想這在 23 年初的收入表現方面產生了一些 beta。

And then just a follow-up question on the step-up program. I mean I kind of hadn't heard of any restaurant doing anything like this before of paying you a little bit more as you kind of add different capabilities as a worker. What drove the design of that? And I mean, is -- are workers today in your restaurants just less cross-functional than they were in the past and you're trying to get back to a certain level? Is this going to put you at a kind of a new level of cross-functionality of workers? I'm just -- any thoughts on that and kind of where the genesis of the idea came from.

然後只是關於升級計劃的後續問題。我的意思是，我之前從沒聽說過任何一家餐廳做過這樣的事情，因為你作為一名員工增加了不同的能力，所以會多付給你一點錢。是什麼推動了它的設計？我的意思是，今天你們餐廳的員工是否比過去更少跨職能，而你們正試圖恢復到一定水平？這會讓您處於員工跨職能的新水平嗎？我只是 - 關於這個想法的任何想法以及這個想法的起源。

 I think it's -- honestly, it's rooted in the concept of pay-for-performance pay-for-play. So the first thing is when we ask our team members what -- we want to keep people, you want to keep great people, you want them motivated, you want them happy. And it's undeniable that when people are learning new things that they're actually happier. They actually like being able to do different things. So the genesis of this truthfully, was that we want to keep our team members happy. We want them cross-trained. We want them to be able to work multiple stations, multiple shifts. It's probably more important to us than some other restaurant companies because we do have so many different stations within our restaurant. And it's a great way of rewarding that. So we can create a win-win dynamic. We can create really happy, engaged, excited team members because they're learning and growing. We actually can make our investors very happy because we can staff more efficiently and get labor productivity. And our guests are happy because they're getting high-quality team members who are super excited to be there. So it's kind of like it's a hat trick of wins for us.

我認為這是——老實說，它植根於按績效付費的概念。所以第一件事就是當我們問我們的團隊成員什麼時——我們想要留住人，你想要留住優秀的人，你想要他們有動力，你想要他們快樂。不可否認的是，當人們學習新事物時，他們實際上會更快樂。他們實際上喜歡能夠做不同的事情。所以說實話，這的起源是我們想讓我們的團隊成員開心。我們希望他們接受交叉培訓。我們希望他們能夠在多個站點、多個班次工作。這對我們來說可能比其他一些餐廳公司更重要，因為我們餐廳內確實有很多不同的站點。這是一種很好的獎勵方式。所以我們可以創造一個雙贏的動力。我們可以培養真正快樂、投入、興奮的團隊成員，因為他們正在學習和成長。我們實際上可以讓我們的投資者非常高興，因為我們可以更有效地配備員工並獲得勞動生產率。我們的客人很高興，因為他們得到了高素質的團隊成員，他們非常高興能在那裡。所以這有點像是我們獲勝的帽子戲法。

(Operator Instructions) And our next question is from Brian Mullan with Deutsche Bank.

（操作員說明）我們的下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Brian Mullan。

A question on the balance sheet. Congrats to the team on getting the refinancing done. Michelle, with that in the rearview mirror, could you just touch on the priorities after you fund the CapEx requirement for you for the growth of the business? Just philosophically, I'm wondering if you'd be inclined to want to pay down debt and deleverage a bit over time or whether you'd be more inclined to start to look at capital return over time. And then is there a target net leverage ratio or range we should keep in mind that you think is optimal?

資產負債表上的一個問題。祝賀團隊完成再融資。米歇爾，在後視鏡中，在為業務增長為資本支出要求提供資金後，您能否談談優先事項？只是從哲學上講，我想知道你是否傾向於隨著時間的推移償還債務和去槓桿化，或者你是否更傾向於隨著時間的推移開始關注資本回報。然後是否有一個目標淨槓桿率或範圍我們應該記住，你認為是最佳的？

Yes, Brian. Great questions. And yes, we're definitely excited to free up a bit more cash from the refinancing and have that in the rearview mirror. As I think you all saw during our Investor Day, we laid out where the CapEx is going to go. And so the vast majority of our cash is going to be to fund the new restaurants that we're going to build, put investments into existing restaurants and then continue to make investments in other things like technology, et cetera. We talked about digital menu words, those type of things. Outside of that, to the extent that we have excess cash, I mentioned on the call, we'd started to already pay down that revolver. So we had $15 million outstanding on the revolver. I'd like to get that paid down. We paid $5 million off of that a couple of days ago, and so we're at $10 million outstanding on the revolver. Outside of all that, I am open to whatever makes sense and is in the best interest of our shareholders, whether that's paying down debt or other avenues if Michael and I and the rest of the leadership team are comfortable with dialing up growth, then we will do that because, obviously, that's the best investment. It has a fantastic return. And so that would be the primary avenues we would deploy our capital. Yes. And just -- sorry, Brian, I didn't answer your question on do we have a targeted leverage ratio. I do not have a target ratio in my head. But I feel very comfortable that we can service the debt, invest in everything I just mentioned and continue to grow.

是的，布萊恩。很好的問題。是的，我們非常高興能從再融資中釋放更多現金並將其放在後視鏡中。正如我想你們都在我們的投資者日看到的那樣，我們制定了資本支出的去向。因此，我們的絕大部分現金將用於資助我們將要建造的新餐廳，對現有餐廳進行投資，然後繼續對技術等其他方面進行投資。我們談到了數字菜單詞，那些類型的東西。除此之外，在我們有多餘現金的情況下，我在電話中提到，我們已經開始付清那把左輪手槍了。所以我們在左輪手槍上有 1500 萬美元未償還。我想付清那筆錢。幾天前我們還清了 500 萬美元，所以我們在左輪手槍上有 1000 萬美元未償還。除此之外，我對任何有意義且符合我們股東最大利益的事情持開放態度，無論是償還債務還是其他途徑，如果邁克爾和我以及領導團隊的其他成員對加快增長感到滿意，那麼我們會這樣做，因為很明顯，這是最好的投資。它有一個驚人的回報。因此，這將是我們部署資本的主要途徑。是的。只是 - 對不起，布賴恩，我沒有回答你關於我們是否有目標槓桿率的問題。我腦子裡沒有目標比例。但我感到很自在，我們可以償還債務，投資我剛才提到的一切並繼續發展。

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.

我們的問答環節已經結束。今天的會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開您的線路，感謝您的參與。