Business
BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. Provides Business Update and Reports Fiscal 2020 First Quarter Results
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., May 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ: BJRI) today provided an update of certain business and financial
About this update from Bj's Restaurants, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., May 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ: BJRI) today provided an update of certain business and financial metrics given the current COVID-19 environment and reported financial results for its 2020 first quarter ended Tuesday, March 31, 2020.\n “I am extremely proud of the amazing dedication, creativity and grit of our team members as they continue building sales and taking care of our guests during these difficult times for our country,” commented Greg Trojan, BJ’s Chief Executive Officer. “As our country and the communities in which we operate slowly re-open, we are ensuring that we have gold standard safety and social distancing protocols in place to allow our guests to return to our restaurants and safely enjoy BJ’s food and beverages. “Last week we re-opened the dining rooms in our Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee locations on a limited capacity basis and this week opened additional dining rooms in Florida and Kansas. Guests are now being served in dining rooms in more than a quarter of our 205 open restaurants. We are encouraged by early dine-in sales trends, as well as the continued elevated off-premise sales levels at our recently opened locations. As more BJ’s dining rooms begin to re-open with limited capacity, we believe that our large restaurants and flexible seating layouts provide us a strong advantage to take care of our guests’ needs and grow sales as we transition back to more regular operations.” Current Trends and Business Update Comparable restaurant sales are down by 67.6% for the week ending May 5, 2020, which is a 1,410 bps improvement since the week ending March 24, 2020, when sales declines peaked at 81.7%. This recent improvement has been driven by growth in the Company’s off-premise sales from both take-out and delivery channels and more recently the re-opening of certain dining rooms. For the week ending May 5, 2020, off-premise sales continued to grow, improving to $31,688, or 4% over the prior week, even with dining rooms beginning to re-open. Recent sales on a weekly basis through May 5, 2020 were as follows: Week Ended 3/17/2020 3/24/2020 3/31/2020 4/7/2020 4/14/2020 4/21/2020 4/28/2020 5/5/2020 Comparable Restaurant Sales -34.3% -81.7% -81.0% -77.5% -74.8% -70.9% -72.9% -67.6% Weekly Sales Average$78,361 $21,343 $21,563 $24,667 $27,981 $31,716 $30,582...