One Group Hospitality Inc (STKS) 2025 Q3 法說會逐字稿

(audio in-progress). At STK we are introducing a new premium holiday menu focused on Wagyu and premium seafood, aligning with today's selective diners who are more intentional about what they choose to dine. At Kona Grill, we are strategically expanding our menu to reduce reliance on categories facing current market pressures.

The brand has historically been centered around seafood, sushi, and our distinctive bar experience, but we are seeing headwinds across those core areas. Our menu diversification introduces broader culinary options that appeal to more frequent dining occasions and are less sensitive to economic fluctuations. Our Friends with Benefits loyalty program continues to gain momentum with over 6.5 million members. During the quarter we added over 200,000 new members.

Newly enrolled guests are showing the most repeat participation in the program. We are focused on growing a best-in-class program that fuels long-term business growth. Our key objectives of the Friends with Benefits loyalty program are maximize membership size by converting members from other STK marketing programs, drive organic signups through increased awareness and engagement, and increase member engagement within the program to strengthen brand connection and repeat visits. We have also upgraded our brand websites.

Benihana, STK, Kona Grill, and RA Sushi now feature fresh, mobile-optimized designs that are increasing both traffic and conversion rates. These digital enhancements combined with our loyalty platform position us to compete effectively as national chains ramp up promotional activity.

Priority 2, capital-efficient growth. The newly redesigned Benihana location we opened in San Mateo, California earlier this year has become the top-performing restaurant opening in the brand's sixty-year history.

This outstanding start validates the effectiveness of our redesigned Benihana format. In this redesign, we made several meaningful changes to the Benihana footprint. We relocated the sushi station to the back of the house to create more teppanyaki table capacity, expanded the bar seating area, modernized the interior with a brighter, more contemporary look, and created a dedicated takeout station that improves overall restaurant flow.

We are now implementing these learnings system-wide, adding 2 to 3 teppanyaki tables per restaurant to create meaningful capacity increases that directly boost revenue potential. This success gives us confidence that future locations can achieve $8 million in annual sales with profit margins in the mid-20% range. Franchise momentum continues to accelerate.

We opened our second Benihana Express location in Miami in the second quarter with more in development. The express format offers the full menu without teppanyaki tables, generating strong franchise interest while enabling asset-light expansion.

Over time, we expect franchise, licensed, and managed locations to represent over 60% of our total footprint. We are also expanding Benihana into more non-traditional venues. We currently operate in 3 professional sports stadiums, generating 9 million fan impressions annually, with additional airport and arena opportunities under discussion.

Across our portfolio, we have opened 4 company-owned venues and 1 franchise location year-to-date, with additional 4th quarter openings planned, bringing our total 2025 openings to 5 to 7 new venues. In the 4th quarter, we already opened an STK in Scottsdale, Arizona, and plan to open a company-owned STK in Oak Brook, Illinois, and a Kona Grill San Antonio relocation.

Relocations remain a key strategy to unlock strong returns in existing markets by prioritizing nearby high-quality real estate opportunities in areas that are ready to embrace our brands, we can increase capacity, optimize traffic, and better position our brands for long-term success.

For example, our recent relocation of Westwood STK has delivered marginal improvement over the previous location. Remodels are also showing promise and success.

During the 3rd quarter, we remodeled our dated Tampa Bay Kona Grill. With modest capital investment, it has delivered a significant turnaround in same-store sales performance. Priority 3, portfolio optimization. We have taken decisive action to strengthen our portfolio quality through strategic location optimization. After conducting a thorough evaluation of our RA Sushi portfolio.

We closed 6 underperforming locations in the second quarter and 1 additional location in the 3rd quarter within challenging trade areas. These were primarily older units, which would have required substantial capital investment.

Looking ahead, we have identified up to 9 additional RA Sushi locations to convert to either Benihana or STK formats through the end of 2026. These conversions represent an excellent capital allocation opportunity. They require about $1 million in capital investments, and the average STK generates over $1 million in annual EBITDA.

Our first conversion of a RA Sushi location to an STK location has already happened in Scottsdale, Arizona, which opened at the end of October. After completing all planned conversions, we will operate all profitable locations that we expect to generate approximately $10 million in incremental EBITDA and over $100 million in revenue, with all units maintaining positive cash flow.

Priority 4 balance sheet strength. With approximately $45 million in liquidity, we have the means to invest in growth while maintaining discipline. Our board authorized a $5 million share repurchase program last year, and we view our stock as an attractive investment. Additionally, we expect to further reduce discretionary capital expenditures in the coming year across all of our brands, allowing us to strengthen our balance sheet while enhancing financial flexibility.

Finally, I'm optimistic about our 4th quarter. This is historically our strongest period, and we are better positioned than ever to capitalize on that strength. 2024 marked our first holiday season with Benihana in the portfolio, and we set records across every holiday with exceptional demand. This year we have made targeted investments to capture even greater holiday demand.

Our enhanced reservation technology, streamlined operational flow, and comprehensive team training initiatives position us to execute flawlessly during our busiest periods. A key operational focus is optimizing Benihana table efficiency. We are targeting a reduction from 120 minutes to 90 minutes table turns throughout the fourth quarter, which will significantly expand our capacity to serve more guests during the busy dinner periods.

The items that I have outlined today are fundamentally execution-driven and within our direct control. We are not relying on macroeconomic recovery or waiting for consumer sentiment shifts. Instead, we are focused on strategic initiatives that position us to deliver strong results regardless of broader economic trends.

Before I turn it over to Nicole for the financial details, I want to thank our teammates. Every day they live our mission of creating great guest memories by operating the best restaurants in every market that we operate, by delivering exceptional and unforgettable guest experiences to every guest every time. They are the foundation of everything we do. With that, I'll turn it over to Nicole.

Thank you, Manny. As a reminder, beginning this year we're reporting financial information on a fiscal quarter basis using 4 13-week quarters with the addition of a 53rd week when necessary. For 2025, our fiscal calendar began on January 1st, 2025 and will end on December 28, 2025, and our third quarter contained 91 days.

Let me start by discussing our 3rd quarter financials in greater detail before updating our outlook for 2025. Total consolidated GAAP revenues were $180.2 million decreasing 7.1% from $194 million for the same quarter last year. Included in total revenues were our company-owned restaurant's net revenue of $177.4 million which decreased 6.9% from $190.6 million for the prior year quarter.

The decrease was primarily due to a 5.9% reduction in consolidated comparable sales and the closure of underperforming restaurants from the prior year period.

Management, license, franchise, and incentive fee revenues decreased to $2.8 million from $3.4 million in the prior year. The decrease is attributed to lower management, license, and incentive fee revenue at our managed STK restaurants in North America and reduced franchisee revenues due to exiting two license agreements.

It is important to note that our sales at our managed STK in Las Vegas have notably improved quarter to date. Additionally, we exited our management deal with STK Scottsdale and converted a former RA Sushi to a company-owned STK.

Now turning to expenses. We continue to implement targeted cost management initiatives, including strategic adjustments to our protein sourcing to reduce costs and a temporary hiring increase to optimize our labor structure.

Company-owned restaurant cost of sales as a percentage of company-owned restaurant net revenue increased slightly to 21.1% from 20.9%. This was primarily due to sales deleveraging coupled with higher than anticipated inflation in certain commodity costs. This was partially offset by additional integration synergy from our Benihana acquisition.

Company-owned restaurant operating expenses as a percentage of company-owned restaurant net revenue increased 140 basis points to 67.6% from 66.2% in the prior year quarter. This is primarily due to investments in marketing, general cost inflation, and fixed cost deleveraging driven by a decrease in same-store sales.

Restaurant operating profit decreased to $20.1 million or 11.3% of owned restaurant net revenue, compared to $24.5 million or 12.8% in the prior year quarter. On a total reported basis, general administration costs increased $500,000 to $13.3 million from $12.8 million in the same quarter prior year, driven by increased marketing expenses.

When adjusting for stock-based compensation of $1.2 million adjusted general and administrative expenses were $12 million compared to $11.2 million in the third quarter of 2024. As a percentage of revenues when adjusting for stock-based compensation, adjusted general and administrative costs were 6.7% compared to 5.8% in the prior year.

Depreciation and amortization expenses was $11.5 million compared to $9.4 million in the prior year quarter. The increase is primarily related to depreciation and amortization of new venues and capital expenditures to maintain and enhance the guest experience in our restaurants.

During the quarter we completed our regular assessment of the recoverability of the net book value of our fixed assets. A non-cash loss on impairment may be necessary when the net book value exceeds the future expected cash flows of the restaurant and can happen due to economic factors, end of lease, or restaurant performance.

As a result of this assessment, we identified five restaurants that required impairment charges that total $3.4 million. Mostly related to RA Sushi that we plan not to extend the lease on. Pre-opening expenses were approximately $700,000.

Primarily related to the pre-open rent for restaurants under development and payroll costs associated with the pre-opening training team as we prepare restaurants scheduled to open in the 4th quarter of 2025. Pre-opening expenses decreased $1.4 million compared to the prior year period.

Operating loss was $7.9 million compared to an operating loss of $3.6 million in the third quarter of 2024, mostly impacted by the $3.4 million in non-cash loss on impairment. Interest expense was $10.5 million compared to $10.7 million in the prior year quarter.

Provision for income taxes was $59.1 million compared to a benefit of $4.9 million in the prior year quarter. The increase in income tax expense is primarily the result of the establishment of a full valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets during the 3rd quarter.

This is a non-cash income tax expense item that was reported because of management's assessment of the future usability of our deferred tax assets and liabilities.

Net loss attributable to The ONE Group Hospitality was $76.7 million compared to net loss of $9.3 million in the third quarter of 2024. The 2025 loss was primarily driven by the non-cash loss on impairment and non-cash recognition of the valuation allowance.

Net loss available to common shareholders was $85.3 million or $2.75 net loss per share compared to $16.4 million in the third quarter of 2024 or $0.53 net loss per share. The previously discussed non-cash loss on impairment and establishment of the deferred tax asset valuation allowance represent $2.02 of the third quarter 2025 net loss per share.

Adjusted EBITDA attributable to The ONE Group Hospitality Inc. was $10.6 million compared to $14.9 million in the prior year, a decrease of 28.9%. We finished the quarter with $6 million in cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash. We have $28.7 million available under our revolving credit facility. And as the quarter end, we had $5.5 million outstanding on a revolver credit facility. Under current conditions, our term loan does not have a financial covenant.

Now I would like to provide some forward-looking commentary regarding our business. This commentary is subject to risks and uncertainties associated with forward-looking statements as discussed in our SEC filing. We remind our investors that the actual number and timing of new restaurant openings for any given period is subject to factors outside of the company's control, including macroeconomic conditions, weather, and factors under the control of landlords, contractors, licensees, and regulatory and licensing authorities.

Based on the information available now and our expectations as of today, we are updating the following financial targets for fiscal year 2025. Please note this does not include the potential impact of tariffs on broader economic conditions.

We project total GAAP revenues of between $820 and $825 million which reflects our anticipation of consolidated comparable sales of negative 3 to negative 2%. Managed franchise and license fee revenues are expected to be between $14 million and $15 million. Total company-owned operating expenses as a percentage of company-owned restaurant net revenue of approximately 83.5%. Total G&A excluding stock compensation of approximately $46 million.

Adjusted EBITDA of between $95 and $100 million. Pre-opening expenses of between $5 and $6 million. An effective income tax rate of between 1 and 4% when excluding the valuation allowance and the items subject to valuation allowance. Total capital expenditures, net of allowances received from landlords of between $45 and $50 million. And finally, we plan to open five to seven new venues. I will now turn the call back to Manny.

Thank you, Nicole. Before we open it up for questions, I want to emphasize how excited we are about the future of our business. Although the current environment is challenging, our future looks bright. With our strengthened portfolio and our expanded franchise capabilities, we are well positioned to capture the significant opportunities ahead of us. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to sharing our progress in the quarters ahead. Nicole and I look forward to your questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions)

Joe Gomes, Noble Capital.

Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions.

Hi, Joe.

So I want to start out the last couple of quarters you talked about Benihana having two quarters in a row of same-store sales growth and STK three quarters in a row of positive traffic, and I might have missed it, but I didn't hear that discussion today. I was wondering if you could kind of give us a little update on those.

I mean, I think probably the best thing to do is talk about maybe our traffic overall as a company. I think if I look at the 3rd quarter 2025, I think that's been our best quarter in traffic actually for the whole year as a consolidated company. I think we were down 6.9% in traffic for the third quarter, whereas in the second quarter we were down 7.5% and in Q1 we were down 7.8%.

So the third quarter this year was by far our best, or better traffic quarter. The big difference for us in the third quarter though is that until the end of the second quarter, beginning of the 3rd quarter, we had about 7% effective pricing in there, so that offsets part of the traffic experience that we were having and then going into the middle of the 3rd quarter around August, we began lapping some pricing from last year and we just saw a lot of noise in the middle of August in traffic so we decided to just hold off on the pricing and so our pricing in the third quarter was only plus 4% for the quarter, so we effectively lost about 3 points of pricing in the third quarter.

So I would say from my perspective or our perspective we made significant or we're doing improvements on traffic, which is one of the reasons why going into the 4th quarter, and we put some pricing in effect right at the beginning of November, I think that we've basically put the pricing back on. And with the sequential improvement in traffic, I think we feel pretty good about the sales position going into the 4th quarter.

Okay, and what do you think is driving the traffic improvements, in the 4th quarter so far?

Well, on the 3rd quarter, I'd say the improvement, the sequential improvement in the 3rd quarter, I think is really a testament to the value proposition and the marketing that we've been doing. We also, as I mentioned in my prepared statements, do have some macro forces that haven't really supported sales.

For instance, if you look at our cost of our portfolio, our concentrations of restaurants are in California, Arizona, Florida, and Texas, and then we have the other, which is about 50% of our concentration of sales. And if I just look in the third quarter alone, I think there was a lot of macro pressures, for instance, in our California sales.

Sequential between the second and 3rd quarter, actually got negative by 7 points. So there's some geographical pressures that came in that quarter. Since the 3rd quarter, we've seen some of that loosen up a little bit, but certainly in August and September we saw a lot more pressure in our traffic in California, which is, by the way, one of the reasons why we put the pause on our pricing actions just because we saw the traffic in there.

So again, I think that the combination of the sequential improvement in traffic on the quarters, and now I feel as if California is getting slightly better, and last but not least, as I mentioned also in my prepared statement, in the month of December, taking the turn times at Benihana from 120 minutes to 90 minutes creates a significant lift in availability and tables and capacity to take more business.

Okay, and then one more for me if I could sneak one in, and maybe just can you give us a little color on your efforts on the Benihana franchising side? I know that's something that you’re hoping to see a little faster growth, so just want to get an update there.

Yeah, so I mean we did open one in the second quarter in Florida and then our activities on the franchising side have also yielded results. We now have a deal that's almost done for some Benihana Express type operations in California and we also have a potential franchise deal for the Bay Area that's also shaping up.

So we've made significant improvement on the pipeline, so now our team is out there working with these potential individuals and closing these deals down. We've also made some improvements on our pipeline for licensed sites for STKs. So we do have both the franchising move forward on the pipeline for Benihana and also STKs. We've gotten some more leads and actually we are getting very close to announcing some additional license deals for STK.

Great, thanks for that update. I'll get back in que thank you.

Thanks, Joe. Take care.

Anthony Lebiedzinski, Sidoti & Company.

Yes, good evening and thank you for taking the question. So, Manny, I think that also last quarter you called out Las Vegas as being a market where you saw some softness. Can you comment on that? Did you see that as well? And have you seen any improvements 4th quarter to date?

Yeah, so I will caveat my response on Vegas on the fact that it's our experience. We only have, let's call it 3 or 4 restaurants in that market, actually 4 in total, but our experience right now with STK is that it's actually improving for STK. So we've seen an improvement in our business on that side.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, part of that has to do with the shifting in the conference and convention schedule. I think if you follow Vegas, you probably are aware that there was a shift in the convention calendar.

So that's definitely now benefiting us in the 4th quarter, having a more robust conference schedule. I think the other restaurants though, I would say that it's more of a little bit of a mixed bag. So I haven't seen the kind of same improvement that I've seen on the STK business.

Got it. Okay. And then, you gave us some numbers on the loyalty program which it looks like it's doing well in terms of sign-ups. Can you give us maybe some details as far as like what's the average ticket or frequency or anything else you can share about the loyalty members versus non-loyalty members? What do you see in terms of behavior from them?

Yeah, a great question. So we have about 6.5 million people that are in the program. A lot of those members came through our conversion of memberships from other programs. So we had Benihana programs, we had Kona Grill, and RA Sushi. And so that's the case.

So we brought everybody into the same common program, if you will, and into that loyalty program. And since then we've done about 200,000 sign-ups of new members coming into the program. We're early, so I'm going to give you what I've seen so far because of all the brands we have, Kona Grill is the one that had been on the loyalty program much longer than anyone else because we were already utilizing Konavore, which was the legacy program from Kona, and for that particular brand it's actually been helpful.

So we've seen frequency increase on use of the program. So we feel very good, the early returns are very promising because we have members in that program who've been around for longer, and I think the new program and new activations that we're doing with it has driven a little bit more interest. But again, as I said earlier, it's early.

I think we've rolled it out only earlier this year. I think that we will continue to pick up momentum with it going forward, but again, I think that our overall, as I look at the overall story for the quarter, I think that the 3rd quarter being our best traffic quarter for the company, I think it bodes well for all the initiatives and the actions that we're taking with marketing and everywhere else.

Got you. Okay. And then I guess my last question before I pass it on to others, in terms of recent price increases, I know it's still early on, but, any sort of early read on the reaction to the price increases? Have you seen any customer pushback, to those higher prices, or you think that you'll be able to successfully pass those along?

Yeah, I mean, I think we started rolling out those price increases late October in some places and so we're really early on it, but I think again, the way that we did our pricing increase this time is we really tried to wait until we think the timing is a little better. I think we're now into what actually starts our seasonally better months, weeks, whatever you want to call it. Actually for the next 36 weeks is really kind of our high season periods for us.

So I think putting the price right at the beginning of the high season is actually a good strategy for us. Have we seen any noise in terms of feedback? The answer is no. We have followed obviously through all our listening tools and social and everything, so we have not seen anything above and beyond what we usually see on the pricing.

Got it. All right. Well thank you very much and best of luck.

Thank you, sir.

Mark Smith, Lake Street Capital Markets.

Hi guys, I wanted to, dig in a little bit more into, Benihana comps, here in the quarter. They came down more than we've seen here recently. Can you just talk about traffic and ticket at Benihana?

Yeah, I think for the quarter for Benihana, as I mentioned earlier we had pricing coming off. Benihana was the one that had 5 points of pricing, might have actually been a little higher than 5 points, that we did not replace in the quarter. So if I look at their differential in same-store sales year-to-date to what we performed in the 3rd quarter, I would attribute it mostly to the pricing, not taking the pricing action.

And again I want to reiterate this; if I look at our same-store sales by geography, California was by far the most impacted of all markets in our portfolio and the Benihana portfolio does have extra weight in the California market, some of our higher-volume restaurants. So again, I think that I would say that the two items in Benihana would be not replacing the 5 points in pricing that we came off and then the additional pressure in the California market. Okay.

And then just on the impairment that you took in the quarter, was all of that on RA Sushi Concepts or was there anything on any of the other brands?

Yeah, I think that the majority of the impact was on Kona Grill, and then we did have a very minor amount coming out of our STK in downtown New York just because that lease is up. We're in the last year of that lease and we're moving that restaurant, actually relocating that restaurant around the corner, so that will be a reload, but right now we just have some additional amounts in the books that we have to accelerate. And by the way, they were all assets that we couldn't move over to the new location because a lot of the assets may move to the new location.

Okay, and then just talking about kind of changing locations here, can you just walk us through a little bit more on maybe the economics of the conversions? I think you said kind of a million dollars maybe on spend, but just the economics there and then maybe your outlook of these that you plan on converting how many maybe to STK, how many to Benihana and I'm curious, sorry to throw a lot on you here, do these come with a new lease signing or do you typically keep the lease terms that you currently have?

Well, so very good question. So the first one we did at Scottsdale, it was a RA Sushi restaurant, and in that one we actually converted to an STK. It took us, I think from beginning to end somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks to do the full conversion. The cost of the conversion, I'm putting it at about a million dollars in round numbers.

It was a very effective refurbishing of the restaurant and we kept the majority of all the infrastructure, so it was very cost-effective in that. And the question on the lease is that one actually, we got an extension on the lease by choice, so we got another 5-year option just because we like the real estate. If you want to go to that property, you'll notice that it's in an A-plus I’m not going to give it A-plus, but we'll call it A real estate with very good lease terms and a good presence there, and we've already reopened it.

I would say that we just opened the door, we didn't really do much marketing. We're actually starting the marketing push in the next couple of weeks, and I've been so far very happy with what's happened there. Obviously, as our model for STK, brand-new STK is about $8 million in volume with margins around 20%.

So I would expect that STK to be in that range of value. It's in a market that we've already been in, so we have pretty good experience there. So I feel pretty good about that one.

Now we have other, I think up to 9 other sites that we're looking at converting and the cost should be around that same million-dollar price tag, and the conversion cycle should be relatively fast, and we'll do the same thing in terms of taking advantage of existing infrastructure and electrical, HVAC, kitchen, plumbing, et cetera.

So we think those will be very effective. Again, what really drives that decision is the quality of the real estate. That's one of the things that we're really happy about at The ONE Group we have great real estate and that's one of the things that having multi-brands like we do gives us a lot of flexibility and gives us an opportunity to really leverage the strength in the real estate.

Would there be much of a difference in the cost or maybe return metrics on converting to a Benihana versus STK?

I mean, again, another great question. I think the biggest difference between a Benihana and STK conversion is actually the mechanical cost because with the tables in the dining room we have to do more upgrading on the exhaust system and sometimes electrical systems if we add electrical cables, so it's a little bit more on the mechanical side and it may take a little bit more time because we actually have to have a lot more engineering and architectural work into it, so it's a little bit different of a process.

But our view on it is the cost will still be around a million dollars in either one and so we don't foresee a lot of cost incrementality there. Again, we have a lot of real estate in malls and other places that make a lot more sense for Benihana than STK, so that's part of our decision on Benihana, it’s a great concept for mall-type locations.

Okay, thank you.

Jim Sanderson, North Coast Research.

Hey, thanks for the question. I wanted to go back to the issue of pricing. I think you mentioned you exited 3rd quarter with a global price of about 4% points and that you took price in November. What should we expect as far as the impact of menu price on 4th quarter trend, 4th quarters for sales?

So I think the biggest, the bigger part of that increase was Benihana around 5, slightly above 5, points on pricing, so, that will weigh in heavily, and then STK and the other brands, we had about 22 to 3 points on pricing, so the other ones are very modest. I would call that just clean up, pricing. So I would say overall somewhere around 4.5 to 5.5 on a weighted basis would be the impact of the new pricing layer.

Very, and that probably will last for the next 36 weeks, give or take, is that the right way to look at that? That's right. Great, okay, great, could you talk a little bit more about bookings? I think you mentioned in the press release that you were optimistic given the love of holiday bookings. Maybe you can tell us any comparison with respect to last year this time.

Yeah, I mean, we actually just reviewed the books this morning. Nicole and I did a review of our bookings progress right now. I think this is, frankly, since COVID, if I look at the month of November looking into December, it has been one of the months where I've actually seen a significant amount of progress on the number of bookings that we've seen in events.

Obviously that also reflects a little bit of the fact that we have a very experienced, very good sales team, so that team has become very good at working in the current environment of sales and again the convention business, and a lot of the stuff that used to happen in the 3rd quarter last year also got moved into the 4th quarter this year, so definitely that helps bring up the books into the 4th quarter.

And can you remind us how, what like share of 4th quarter is related to the holiday bookings or special events, that type of thing?

I would say about 15 to 15% of our business comes from the group event business in the fourth quarter.

Gotcha. Also wanted to shift gears on Benihana. You mentioned a lot of changes taking place in the design of the store that you're going to be implementing. Can you give us a sense of when that change will be implemented across all Benihana stores and any feedback on helping us understand to quantify the increased capacity, how you think that potentially could benefit AUVs.

So, our planning for that is we typically say that our CapEx is about 1.5% to 2.5% of sales on existing stores. So we're not putting together a special allocation of capital for that. We will do that revamp within our typical allocated basket, if you will, of CapEx.

And so it will take a little bit of time to do that, but our changes will be more around our priority is, one is getting rid of smoke in the dining room. So we do have some things that can help with that. So we're working on that right now for a lot of our restaurants, HVAC, I think I've mentioned HVAC in previous calls.

And then the third priority is adding tables, because on Fridays and Saturdays we can really use more tables in the restaurant. So we'll be upping those tables as we go. And then I'd say the next level of priority, things like the artwork is pretty compelling. The new artwork that we put in the San Mateo location and we've defined for the brand is actually very cool.

So we really want to start working on that, and then over time it's just the key with Benihana is to continue a very strong maintenance program which we do have in place. We have a very high-quality facilities team that keeps these things maintained, but as time goes on, with our typical basket of capital we'll try to take care of that as you probably picked up on my prepared statements and on the press release.

We're also tightening down and keeping down the amount of CapEx that we're using because we want to work on the balance sheet. So it's all about balancing all those things and that's where we'll fund the capital for Benihana from my regular CapEx basket.

Right, and I need a bit of a follow-up question just to make sure I understood the lower cap x in 2026 that you mentioned. So how should we put that into perspective based on the, plan you have in place this year? How is that CapEx number going to change?

Just so we're, yeah, very good question. So we're focusing, our capital on the conversions which are about 1 million for restaurants. And then on brand-new restaurants in the world, we're only focusing on restaurants that we can do for $1.5 million or less on the whole cost of the restaurant.

So we're really working our low-cost real estate inventory and also the other thing too is we're not doing any new leases right now because we do have a pipeline of about 12 leases, so we stopped doing leasing and we're going to work through the existing pipeline of leases.

Alright, and last question for me, I just wanted to better understand the Benihana Express, I think you mentioned that could eventually become a sizable portion of your portfolio. Can you describe any changes with the AUVs are store margin, and how that's different from, let's say a larger Benihana?

Yeah, I mean the box will be much smaller, so we're trying to keep the restaurant, let's just for hypothetically right now keep it around 1,000 square feet, so the economics are different from a top-line perspective just because of size. And then there will be no tip on tables in the property.

All the food will be ordered and pick up and take away, and then we'll have some tables in the property and chairs, but we will be very limited seating and so it will be a much smaller compact box.

And so, expect revenues right now, Nicole and I talk about somewhere around $1 million to $1.5 million, but very low cost of build-out because there's nothing really to put in there, so you know we'll probably build that for around $500,000 to $600,000 in cost so it'll be a very effective box if you think of it most as a fast casual, grab and go take your food back home, or you may choose to eat there, but it'll be a more casual environment.

Just to follow-up on that, how do we look at the cash returns or the cash on cash returns that franchisees would be reviewing?

Yeah, I mean, we think that because of the lower cost of goods and the fact that we'll be able to be effective labor in that box, it'll be a very high ROI. I think the store level margins even after, royalties can be in the 15% to 20% range, so it'll be a very good, return vehicle for potential franchisees. The ones that we're talking to, they're super excited about it and, to testing that model out.

Very good. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. We have reached our a lot of time for questions. I will now turn the call back over to Manny Hilario. Please go ahead.

All right, thank you very much, [Brittany]. As I was, closing my calls here, I want to thank the team once again. I will, I'm very, impressed and very pleased as to how, the team, put above and beyond, effort and really, showed progress in the 3rd quarter, as our traffic numbers show, so I appreciate that. And we look forward to a great 4th quarter, in terms of traffic and sales, and as always, I appreciate your support of the one group, and I look forward to seeing you out in one of our restaurants. Everybody have a great day.

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.