Denny's Corporation (DENN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody. My name is Todd Brooks, the restaurant analyst at Benchmark. And I'm pleased to be hosting today's fireside chat with Denny's, which is a buy-rated stock at Benchmark. Joining us from Denny's is the company's CEO, Kelli Valade. Kelli and the entire Denny's team have reinforced the core brand equity that Denny's has long delivered to customers, delivering really great value in a 24/7 operating model, continues to meet the needs of today's economically stretched consumer. While working to stabilize the brand in a post-pandemic environment, the company has readied its second growth brand, Keke's Breakfast Cafe to become a rapidly growing competitor in the daytime dining category. Kelli, thanks for joining us today at the ICR conference.

Thanks, Todd.

I'd love if you kick off the conversation, just how do you reflect on the solid Q4 results that the company have posted yesterday and take a few minutes to level set maybe where the Denny's brand stands going into '25?

Absolutely. Thank you, Todd. And thanks to everyone here that took some time to be here, and thank you for your interest. Thank you for making some time. It's a busy, busy conference and a great conference so far. So I look forward to a great conversation. Forward-looking statements, be mindful of those. And as I talk about Q4 and really what we were able to produce, we're pleased. We're proud. We're pleased. We've had a lot of questions about how much of this is -- the environment is getting a little bit better? Look, I think that clearly plays into it. We feel like a consumer that maybe is stabilizing along with a value play that is absolutely resonating with our guests and the things that we had been doing and working on for many, many months and quarters, frankly, that have been tested, tried and true, working hand-in-hand with our franchisees to bring them to life, they came to life really in the back half of the year. And so the things that you see here, obviously, for Denny's is a 1.1% positive comp store sales. We're thrilled with that, but also the sequential improvement throughout the year is notable and important. And so again, those initiatives that we had that you see here, $2-$4-$6-$8 launched in August. And that's a back to the future kind of story for us because $2-$4-$6-$8 is absolutely something that resonates with our guests. We were able to look at it and reengineer it so that it was profitable for our franchisees and for our system. So we brought it back I think, in a really smart way. And again, it's resonating once again with our guests, and we're being -- it's being called out as something kind of thank you for bringing back something that we know is a great value. People do count on us for that. So we've got that. Banda Burrito, virtual brands are still something for us, and this was important to the back half of the year for us as well. So we have 3 virtual brands now while others may zig for us with fixed costs and being predominantly a 24/7 brand, as you noted, Todd, this is still important because we can leverage the labor. We have less than 1% overlap between the guests that come in and use us for those virtual brands at Denny's and the guests that are in the dining room. So we don't struggle with is that incremental. We actually know it's not. And 75% of the guest ordering from our virtual brands and off-premise is in the evening and late-night daypart, dinner and late night daypart. And then finally, part of what was really critical for our fourth quarter, we're ready now with a remodel program, I'll speak to it in a minute in more depth, but a remodel program that actually is delivering big for us. We remodeled 23 locations this last year, and we're ready to go and get that flywheel turning on the remodel program that's giving us a 6.5% lift in traffic and that has a spend that well returns for our franchisees. We've got incentives and stimulus and working again, hand-in-hand with the franchisees to help them get these underway because we know how much it can deliver for us in our model in '25 and beyond. So there's lots of things that went our way for the Denny's brands, things that we put into play, tested in the first half of the year came to fruition in the back half of the year. For the Keke's brand, so we're thrilled. Keke's delivered 3% comp sales. Clearly, stole with -- both brands stole share in the category, but the Keke's improvements and the momentum that we see with the Keke's brand right now is pretty exciting. The sequential improvement, this was 3% comps on a negative 110 basis point because of Hurricane Milton. So could have been even higher, would have been even higher had it not been for the hurricane. And so what we've seen Keke's do, we spent a couple of years integrating this into our system, understanding what the brand is about, doing brand ethos work and really being smart to protect what was really special about this brand, and now it's ready to go. So the things that we're able to do that Dave Schmidt and the team, Dave is here, we're able to do all throughout the year leading up to this really strong quarter. It's just going to carry forward into '25 and beyond, an alcohol program that is resonating and doing really well, a remodel program, a brand-new design. This is a beautiful brand-new design. So the old Keke's on the left there that you -- if you're in Florida and you've been to some of them, this is what it used to look like. But for us, it was really important. We had something that when we're ready to scale it, is relevant, it's bright, it's light. It harkens to our roots in Florida, which we're really proud of, but it's a beautiful new design. And then a remodel program now for Keke's is underway. We've done it in 3 Keke's locations that are company-owned here in Florida, great returns on this remodel program as well. So you've got a fleet of locations and cafes for Keke's that once they get that facelift, we know that will also be really accretive going forward. So exciting all the way around. And I think for the Denny's Corporation, we laid out a 5-year model. We've been diligent and some of the things you've seen us pull forward in Q4 that were helpful in Q4 are part of that 5-year model that we were able to outline at our Investor Day. And we did that very intentionally to be able to say, hey, look, coming out of COVID, a reset, a turnaround, a transformation strategy was needed and in play for Denny's to stabilize the brand and get back to net growth. And then for the Keke's brand, it was all about unlocking the growth and then getting great momentum to the point where we are now where they went from 1 to 6 states and 12 cafes, 8 of them in the last quarter. So just really starting to hum for that brand. And this is -- we were very protective of what was special and unique about both brands, working on that playbook the last couple of years and then just working on the core for both brands. So they're similar in a lot of ways, but they're very unique and different in how we look at them, all kind of anchored by the CRAVE strategies you see on that slide.

Just great progress seen over the course of '24. And it's the first time in a while that we can talk about Denny's going into a year with a stack of company specific initiatives that are going to drive at least same-store sales traffic growth. And the reality is you'll have 3/4 of $2-$4-$6-$8 as an incremental driver that you said was a 200, 250 basis point driver in Q4. You'll have 3 quarters of the Banda rollout. You'll have the remodels, which have historically provided a nice kind of mid-single-digit type of tailwind. What do you think you're carrying into the year when you think about company-specific tailwinds that then help to offset whatever the macro is and you talked to it stabilizing and even a slightly improving consumer?

Yes. You nailed it. We've got a lot of those things already in motion that we'll get the benefit of certainly in the first half of the year or full 3 quarters into this year. We also added incremental media spend last year, and we did that halfway through the year. It came to fruition in July, August time frame. So we get the benefit of that. We added the co-ops back in. So there's local media spend with our match through our ad fund. That's going to benefit us as well. But really just a new fresh look at what we're doing with marketing, using that extra media and really leaning into craveable food innovation, but doing it in a way with value as the front and center and as what people can count on us for. So we've got things like that happening, the remodels happening for Denny's that will be accretive and will really get moving in 2025. We have a new digital platform, a new tech stack that we're working on that will bring our current loyalty program, our current CRM program into, I think, the -- really start to see something big from us. We've got a decent loyalty program today. We've got 5 million people in the database. We can speak to them. We can see that they actually are more frequent guests. They're more loyal. That's what you want. We're really going to get into with a new digital team. We made significant investments this last year. We'll launch this new program, enhanced program. It will really get into the one-to-one personalized journeys and marketing, and we know that will work, and we know that will resonate with our guests. So those are levers all throughout the year that we'll start to pull. They've been tested, tried and true. These are not in the early innings. None of them are in the early innings. We are ready to bring those out and have them be impactful in '25 and beyond.

There was a reality coming out of the pandemic, just survive in advance and then stabilize, get restaurant staffed, deal with inflation. You guys did make a decision that you communicated at the Investor Day of, okay, if we look at our kind of bottom tranche of units, there's probably 150 of these that we need to move on from. Trade areas change, never return to a 24/7 model for a variety of reasons. And instead of kind of bleeding it out over multiple years, you guys made that -- I'm telling you it's ripping the band-aid off. It's like, okay, 150 units that we think we need to close, lower volume units, so not a big EBITDA impact to Denny's corporate from doing it. The progress was strong in this first year. You got over halfway through the 150 units. So as you're looking towards this process getting done, that road map to get back to -- I always say get back -- let's get back to flat first. I know you guys are talking about slightly positive growth, but what's that kind of timing that you're seeing based on the progress we've made this year?

Yes, I appreciate that. I appreciate the fact that we absolutely did pull those forward and got really aggressive with it. This started a year to 1.5 years ago as we were working against this long-term 5-year plan, long-range plan to stabilize Denny's and unlock this incredible growth for Keke's. So we took them both separately. And as you mentioned, for the Denny's brand, the stabilization, the reset that was needed coming out of the pandemic was really critical. So we started talking to all of our largest franchisees way back when and evaluating the portfolio. We evaluated it every way you can imagine from AUVs to profitability to trade areas to operational metrics. We have a balanced scorecard, and we know more about every single location from the consumer standpoint to the operator, to the guest. And so in looking at all that, yes, we identified restaurants that probably could not be rehabilitated. We are rehabilitating a lot of those lower-volume units, but we did identify a collective group of 150. That was kind of misunderstood, if you will, coming out of the Investor Day, which was a great day for us to really talk about this 5-year long-range outlook. And what I want to make clear, you said it, we are already through. We just communicated and released 88 of those 150 are already closed. So we got this message out at a time where we knew we were going to deliver on that, and that's not always something to get excited about. So we're mindful of this is the tough work that we have to do, the bold work that we know we have to do. And we're doing it in partnership with our franchisees, talking to them about their portfolio, how these closures may help, which ones we want to help them rehabilitate, and it's working. And again, we want to get to in -- the goal is by '26 net growth, flat to then, yes, net growth for the Denny's brand and then really take off. You can see the CAGR and the growth for the Keke's brand that will follow. So collectively, this chart really does outline what we discussed in that long-range plan and in that Investor Day to just really get out in front of it and talk about this company today. It's different than it was before the pandemic. We're all a little bit different. But we wanted to get in front of it and say, this is how we're looking at our business. And this is why we believe, and you should too believe this is doable for us, right, to stabilize the brand and then grow the fire out of Keke's.

A stabilizing Denny's, a stabilizing consumer, how do you feel your competitive position is with the reintroduction of $2-$4-$6-$8 just an inherent brand equity from a value standpoint in an environment where a lot of other competitors are reaching to try to figure out how to deliver value. How do you feel about that competitive position going into '25 for Denny's?

I feel -- we feel really good about it. We can see, again, share gains, we can see acceleration in the gaps in many cases, California, which is a tough market for a lot of folks and a lot of restaurants, is performing really well with $2-$4-$6-$8. The $6 and the $10 categories actually performed the best. So we added that $10 category, although $2-$4-$6-$8 is still the -- that's the message. Everything is anchored around the $2-$4-$6-$8 messaging because it's catchy, because it's a cheer and it's uniquely Denny's. But that $10 category has been working really well for our franchisee to protect -- and our company restaurants to protect our profitability. So we feel really good. We're not trying to chase someone else's platform. This is uniquely Denny's, and it started in 2010, and we brought it back all these years later. So we're excited about it.

Turning to Keke's. You've been working hard on that brand for 2 years to position it to be ready for growth. We went from a Florida-only footprint at the start of this year to -- remind me, 5 or 6 states [indiscernible]...

Yes, 6 total now from 1 to 6, yes.

So kind of walk me through the excitement around that brand internally, but also the excitement within the existing Keke's franchisees and the Denny's franchisees who see this as an opportunity to continue to grow with Denny's corporate, but to add a second vehicle on their existing targets.

That's right. This was exactly the idea behind this strategic acquisition for the Denny's Corporation. It was about this was the fastest-growing segment within a segment, still kind of within a segment of family dining in the industry. And so having seen that, watched that, observed that, this was a great move to bring in a small but mighty little brand with so much potential. It's got like a cult Lake following here in Florida, has done amazing -- is really an amazing brand, amazing food. Again, we leaned into what's made this brand special. And that took a minute, right, to really integrate the systems in, to put those right things in place. But then it just has started to hum. And frankly, we have a lot of Denny's franchisees. It was an opportunity, as you said, to give them another growth vehicle. Many of our largest franchisees have multiple brands. One of them is in the room right now. But we also -- our franchisee here, John Metz, is opening a Keke's soon. So we have a lot of excitement from the Denny's franchisees and Keke's franchisees who have been around for a while and are really excited around the support that they've been getting, what Dave Schmidt and the team have been doing to listen, adding alcohol was us leaning into the brand ethos understanding what people want from a daytime breakfast cafe restaurant. It's what they want. So we really leaned in, listened to the franchisees and then started to really put things in motion. And that's been pretty incredible along with really grassroots marketing that has helped. So those 12 cafes, 8 in the last quarter, amazing effort by the team to get out there and really put some stakes on the ground on what we can do going forward. So it's really exciting.

And maybe let's roll into the growth vision for Keke's that you were laying out in the 5-year plan. Where do you want this to accelerate to? What can the operations support now?

What can the operation support? They -- it's still a small but mighty team supported -- obviously, all the shared services that support them. We're all with them along the way, but they are a small team doing really great things. So the long-range plan is significant growth, as you can see. It's about leveraging -- so we're going to states like we've been in California. We went to California this year. We went to Colorado this year, Texas this year. Tennessee was big for us. And so the strategy really here is to grow this thing and use a little bit of our capital, right, with the seed and feed strategy that's listed on the slide to really get some of these things open, get to these markets and then leverage the Denny's franchisees in those key markets. The franchisees on the Denny's system that are opening Keke's are the best Denny's franchisees we have. So we're able to go to those that really are prime for growth, are doing well, have multiple brands and then give them another growth vehicle. So it's aggressive growth for this Keke's brand. And given that they just delivered that kind of -- those kind of openings and cafes in the last quarter, just sets them up. They're busy right now. As soon as we're done here, they have to go back and open more cafes. But it's really exciting. They get a vacation like in March, I think, after the holidays. So really exciting, and it's aggressive growth, but we're putting all the right pieces in place.

You talked about the daytime dining subsector as being a fast growth, a lot of participants right now, a lot of scaling brands right now. Can you maybe talk about the secret sauce that you would have with your Denny's franchisees and the success they've had in the California market. And the fact that they know how to operate in that market, how does that translate to a single shift type of model where you can still drive the returns because that's a relatively open playing field relative to a lot of the states in daytime dining.

It absolutely is. And what you see across the country, you mentioned all the -- look, there's been a lot of units -- unit growth. There's not a lot of large players of scale, another reason for this to be a prime opportunity for the Denny's Corporation. So we get really excited. In California, they know how to operate. They know that environment. We still have 20 locations in California as well. But our franchisees know what they're doing, and we're even following the lead in with the franchisee that's opened in Sunnyvale, California, they're testing things for us that we'll use for the rest of the fleet. They're testing lattes and different espresso drinks. They're testing further alcohol offerings that we don't have. So they're ready to go in and go in big with us and their scale and their size and their sophistication is really helpful to the Keke's system overall.

One of the big unlocks for further building out of the pipeline there is the seed and feed strategy that you talked about. I think there's 140-plus agreements signed in the pipeline. You went to Tennessee early in '24. You now have 3 units open there. I know that there's a maturity curve that you guys were thinking kind of 18 to 24 months might be the right time. But I do get questions about a capital trap as some of these corporate markets are built out. And I don't think people appreciate the velocity that you plan to put these units back into the market into a franchisee's hand and free up that capital for the next corporate growth opportunity?

Yes. Yes, I love -- I love the way you've set that up because we can do a lot and we can balance those requirements and those needs. So the seed and feed strategy, what we said was if we can get into a market like Tennessee and get -- have a kind of first-mover advantage with this brand in that market. Let's do that. Let's leverage our balance sheet, leverage our position to do that. And yet, 18 to 24, it could be much sooner than that because we do have -- as soon as we've started to prove these things out, we then are having very different conversations with our franchisees, both on the Denny's side and Keke's and even new franchisees wanting to come into the Keke's system. So the seed and feed strategy, it doesn't preclude us from being back out in the market buying shares. We will do that. We'll be able to do that. This is a balance of initiatives, and it's really important. It was really important for us to get out and prove this out outside of Florida. And so we put it on ourselves. We put it on Dave and the team to be able to do that. And now that we've proven it, we've got much more attention in a lot of markets already where it probably won't be 8 to 24 months, right? It could be much, much sooner, but it shouldn't be any longer than that. And once we start to flip 1 or 2 of those markets, the capital -- the intensity of it is just -- we'll be able to balance and do a lot of good things and buy back shares at the same time.

Perfect. Final question on Keke's, where it's a newer concept for people.

Yes.

The economics are surprisingly similar to a Denny's Box. Denny's Box is doing it in a 24/7 operating model. Keke's is doing it in an 8-hour operating model. Can you talk about growing with franchisee partners and the return profile of growing with Keke's. And then you hit on the work the team has done over the last couple of years, but where Denny's has been optimized over decades, Keke's really has the opportunity for systems and tools to really unlock higher AUVs than the $1.8 million, $1.9 million that you generate now.

Correct. So right now $1.8 million, $1.9 million, the units and the cafes opening outside of Florida are already outperforming in terms of those AUVs. So that's good news. And we saw that immediately when we went to Tennessee, first market outside of Florida. You can see it here, upper teens is what we're looking for in company margins as a target. We learn more all the time. There were no systems in place. There were no systems. It was founder-led, again, an amazing brand with an amazing following, incredible food, incredible quality. So, so much to work with and yet there really weren't a lot of systems for labor or inventory or just management in general, a lot of tools for just managing your business and the 4-wall economics. So that is just another thing that can unlock growth along with the remodels, along with patios and different things that we'll be able to do. We're still -- we still haven't unlocked all those things yet, and they are on the horizon and they are imminent. So that's going to really help. And so yes, for franchisees of Denny's, the volumes, I guess, coincidentally are exactly -- they've become exactly the same even in this growth model, this 5-year model, but the potential there for Keke's in margin and in top line growth is pretty strong. And again, for Denny's franchisees, they're not saying we don't love the 24/7 model. They love that just as much, but it's a great new opportunity to be in this fast-growing space.

And you spoke to just remodel as an opportunity in the Florida base. And you've touched 3 corporate-owned stores. I think the lifts are even higher than what you see when you do a Denny's remodel. If you're getting high single-digit type of lifts, what's the pace that we can work through the 50-something stores that are remaining to be done in Florida...?

We plan to go as fast as we possibly can in remodeling. So we've got 3 of the company-owned. There's only 4 more in the company fleet in Florida to do. Once we touch those and you see the difference between before and after, it's pretty remarkable. So we'll go as fast as we possibly can in getting that -- we want to test this out, it was really -- really the team went fast to get even to the 3. And those 3 being done with that, the kind of returns are fabulous, as you noted. So we'll go as fast as we can in partnering with our franchisees to bring those -- to bring the Florida market kind of up to date.

Okay. Great. We talked about just the long legacy in California for Denny's. I'd be remiss not to ask you how your teams, your people doing out there. It's obviously a horrific situation, but hopefully, everybody is safe and well on the ground.

It's changing day by day. The news this morning didn't look great with high winds again. So our hearts are with them, our prayers are with them and our President of the Denny's brand that was going to be here, Chris Bode, he's with them. So he -- we said, we got this. You go out and be with our franchisees in California. So we only have -- I think as of yesterday, there was restaurant closed for just power, not having power. We obviously haven't lost any. There's 125 locations for Denny's in L.A., but this is so far isolated to Pacific Palisades and Eaton. And so therefore, didn't have a ton impacted directly, thankfully. But we're headed out there also with our mobile relief diner. So that's our 53-foot restaurant on wheels. It's about to go from South Carolina all the way to California to feed anybody that wants it, anybody that wants a free meal and some comfort and a little bit of hope and good conversation. It's -- when we do some of our best work, it's helping out in the communities.

That's fantastic.

Yes.

So we're bumping up against the end of the time. I do want to point out management is going to be hosting 2 breakout sessions today, one at 11:30 in Mediterranean 6 and one at 3:00 in Mediterranean Session. So Kelli, thanks for doing that.

Thank you, Todd.

And thank you, everybody, for joining us today.

Thank you. Thank you.