Ark Restaurants Corp. (NASDAQ:ARKR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
Ark Restaurants Corp. (NASDAQ:ARKR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript February 13, 2024
Ark Restaurants Corp. isn't one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to Ark Restaurants First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Christopher Love, Secretary. Thank you. Mr. Love, you may begin.
Christopher Love: Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our conference call for the first quarter ended December 30, 2023. My name is Christopher Love, and I am the Secretary of Ark Restaurants. With me on the call today is Michael Weinstein, our Chairman and CEO; and Vinny Pascal, our COO. For those of you who have not yet obtained a copy of our press release, it was issued over the Newswires yesterday and is available on our website. To review the full text of that press release, along with the associated financial tables, please go to our homepage at www.arkrestaurants.com. Before we begin, however, I'd like to read the Safe Harbor statement. I will need to remind everyone that part of our discussion this morning will include forward-looking statements and that these statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed on them.
We refer everyone to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the risks that may have a direct bearing on our operating results, performance and financial condition. I'll now turn the call over to Michael. Thank you.
Michael Weinstein: Hi everybody. This quarter was a relatively clean quarter in terms of comparisons. We had no additional restaurants on working for us as compared to last year's first quarter. And there were no restaurants that were closed compared to last year's first quarter. So it's relatively clean. Revenues were flat. I'm sure you saw the press release. EBITDA was $2,572,000 versus $3,018,000. Our balance sheet remains really clean, $12,122,000 in cash. Total debt at the end of 12/30 was $6,742,000. The business within having relatively flat sales has shifts, obviously some restaurants are up, some are down. We are experiencing through 12/30 very strong revenues in Las Vegas. But we also have rents that are much higher than they were in the comparative quarter last year.
The Alabama restaurants are doing well both in sales and in cash flow. The Florida restaurants are our biggest problem right now, the full-service restaurants, which include JBs, Rustic, Blue Moon, and Shuckers. There is some weather issues there, but there are always weather issues. Volumes are down in those four restaurants roughly 10%. That means two things. Their customer counts are down, or where they're not down as much as revenues, people are sharing entrees, so we're finding just -- we're just not making any headway in terms of increasing revenues in those restaurants. Washington, D.C., has been problematic because the city is problematic. New York has been very strong in all categories including election. Our biggest problems as a company have nothing to do with customer experience.
See also 13 Overlooked Tax Deductions for Retirees That Could Save Them Money and 20 Popular Brands That Use Shopify.
To continue reading the Q&A session, please click here.
