Business
BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. Provides Business Update and Reports Preliminary Fiscal 2020 Fourth Quarter Results
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., Jan. 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ: BJRI) today provided a business update and reported preliminary
About this update from Bj's Restaurants, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., Jan. 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ: BJRI) today provided a business update and reported preliminary unaudited financial results for its 2020 fourth quarter ended December 29, 2020. “BJ’s fourth quarter results were impressive in light of the increasing restrictions on our dining room capacity,” commented Greg Trojan, Chief Executive Officer. “October results were strong with weekly sales per restaurant averaging over $83,000 and comparable restaurant sales of -20.6%, despite being limited to only outdoor seating and off-premise sales at 34 of our 62 California restaurants for at least part of the month and dining room capacity limitations at our remaining 175 restaurants. Beginning in November, rising COVID-19 cases caused numerous states to rollback dine-in re-openings, while in December, California closed all outdoor patio seating, limiting our sales in the state to only delivery and take-out. As such, sales in November and December averaged $77,600 and $60,300 per restaurant week, respectively, which equated to comparable restaurant sales of -27.0% in November and -45.3% in December. Despite these challenges, the productivity and efficiency initiatives implemented at the start of the pandemic allowed us to generate positive cash flow from operations for the quarter. “Sales have been improving in the new year, which we believe reflects both high levels of pent-up guest demand and the easing of certain capacity restrictions,” continued Trojan. “Comparable restaurant sales improved significantly to -37.2% for the first three weeks of January from -45.3% in December. Notably, excluding California where most restaurants remain limited to only delivery and take-out, comparable restaurant sales improved to -22.5% for the first three weeks of January. In Texas, Florida and Ohio, our three largest markets after California, comparable restaurant sales improved to -14.3% in aggregate during this same period. Colorado and Pennsylvania, where we have 10 total restaurants, re-opened their dining rooms for limited seating starting in the first week of January and outdoor seating resumed last week at five of our California restaurants. Our teams are excited to continue re-opening dining rooms when conditions permit. As we experienced in 2020 when our dining rooms re-opened for a limited...