Lucky Strike Entertainment Corporation (LUCK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining, and welcome to Lucky Strike Entertainment First Quarter 2027 Earnings Conference Call. After today's preparatory remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Bobby Lavan, Chief Financial Officer. Bobby, you may now go ahead.

Good morning to everyone on the call. This is Bobby Lavan, Lucky Strike's President and Chief Financial Officer. Welcome to our conference call to discuss Lucky Strike's first quarter 2027 earnings. Today, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the period ended September 27, 2026. A copy of the press release is available in the Investor Relations section of our website. Joining me on the call today is Thomas Shannon, our Founder and Chief Executive Officer. I would like to remind you that during today's conference call, we may make certain forward-looking statements about the company's performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, one should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements are also subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed. For additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in our forward-looking statements, we refer to the cautionary statements contained in our press release as well as the risk factors contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lucky Strike Entertainment undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after today's call. Additionally, during today's call, the company may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. The GAAP financial measures most directly comparable to each non-GAAP financial measure discussed and the reconciliation of the differences between each non-GAAP financial measure and the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Tom.

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. Lucky Strike's fiscal first quarter revenue grew 3.5% to $302.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $72.1 million, essentially flat with last year. The water parks performed well. The same-store bowling comp improved each month, and we kept costs under control, which helped protect earnings. July comps were down 4%, meaningfully impacted by the World Cup. August was down 3% and September was up 2%. So we saw sequential improvement throughout the quarter. Cumulatively, same-store revenue was down 2.6%. October is still preliminary, but we were tracking positive until the last weekend when Halloween fell on a Saturday instead of a Friday last year and losing millions of dollars on that Saturday was enough to push the month slightly negative. Event sales have been encouraging with revenue at or above prior year for 6 consecutive months through October after several years of declines. First quarter event sales growth was 3% and bookings for October through December are tracking up on a comparative basis, led by corporate events. League revenue grew for the quarter even with September down because Labor Day fell a week later and pushed back the start of the fall leagues back by a week. For the fall, our recurring revenue league business looks to be up 3% to 4%. Food and nonalcoholic beverages grew while alcohol was down, consistent with what the restaurant industry is seeing. California, which has been our weakest market for quite some time, was down mid-single digits for the quarter, but the gap with the rest of the company narrowed from 6 points in July to 5 in August and less than 2 in September when California turned positive and the leadership changes we made over the summer are gaining traction there. On the cost side, we did what we said we would do. Payroll hours at comparable centers were down 5%. Total labor costs decreased by $1 million even with a $1.2 million increase in health care costs and operating expenses fell $3 million, which is how we were able to grow same-store EBITDA on a slightly lower revenue. Our water parks generated $25 million in EBITDA, up $9 million from last year. It was the first full summer under our ownership of our 2 largest water parks, Raging Waters in California and Emerald Point in North Carolina. With the parks now closed, we're working on next season's pass sales and pricing with ambitious sales increases targeted. On marketing, every dollar has to earn a return. We held working media spending flat, cut awareness advertising to a small share of spending and move dollars towards channels that convert. Platform reported paid media returns improved to 3.2x from 2.7x last year and web sessions were up 22%, which is encouraging. Food and beverage sales represent about 1/3 of our revenue, and we have to keep up with how people's habits are changing. Fewer adults are drinking alcohol, and there's a significant adoption of GLP-1s. We're seeing food sales increase while alcohol sales decline, and we're adjusting our menus with simpler, hands-free food, zero-proof drinks and attractive limited time value offers. Capital spending in the quarter was $21.5 million, down 17% from the same quarter a year ago and the lowest quarterly spend we've had in 5 years. We expect to spend roughly $90 million of CapEx this year compared with $114 million last year and $194 million at the peak. We ended the quarter with $1.817 billion of debt and $38 million of cash, essentially unchanged from June. Our priority for fiscal 2027 is deleveraging. Leverage is 5.5x last year's adjusted EBITDA. And with CapEx at roughly half its peak, lower litigation spending, the sale of a small number of noncore assets and free cash flow, we endeavor to put roughly $100 million towards debt reduction over the next year. At the midpoint of our EBITDA guidance, that would bring leverage down to about 5x. As part of our deleveraging efforts, the Board has decided to suspend our quarterly dividend, bringing up about $35 million of cash a year, and we'll revisit the dividend as leverage comes down. Our view of the long-term earnings power of this business has not changed. We're reaffirming fiscal 2027 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $340 million to $360 million. Nothing we saw in the first quarter changes that outlook. With that, let's open it up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Steven Wieczynski of Stifel.

This is Jackson Gibb on for Steve Wieczynski. Just wanted to get a little more color, if possible, on the same-store sales comp and some of the moving pieces underlying that metric. I think on the last call, you mentioned July was down low single digits. August could have gone either way. And then in the release, you noted September was positive. It sounds like August ended up similar to July. And if so, what drove that? And then any more detail around the retail walk-in softness you're seeing? And is that more tied to the low end? And have you seen that recover at all in October?

Yes, we talked about on the last call. So July was World Cup, right? And August was we actively sold less summer passes this year, which is something that we're evaluating for next year. So August is going to be our slowest month of the year. September is when you don't have World Cup, you don't have water parks, don't have summer passes, it's the cleanest month you have. And in that month, we were up to. On -- as it relates to retail, gas prices are going to spook people. So that is something we're focused on, but we're not seeing that on our leads business, we're not seeing in our events business. So ultimately, there's a little bit of transition going on in the economy. And as the comps, frankly, get easier throughout the year, that should balance out.

And then for my follow-up, I just wanted to dig in a little bit on the events business and see if you can give any more color on how that's been trending. On last quarter's call, you mentioned that December backlog was tracking up around 10% on a comp of down 30% the year before. Could you just give us an update on how that's trended over the past 3 months or so, factoring this incremental softness you're seeing on the smaller, more price-conscious event side, which I would assume is more tied to birthday parties and the like?

So if you think about our mix of our events business, it's really 2/3 corporate, 1/3 kids and adult parties. The corporate parties are going to be the ones that book early. Corporate is up double digits for us, while, as Tom said in his comments, adult and kids parties are a little bit under pressure. So that 10% has come down, but it's still positive going into the holidays.

Your next question comes from the line of Ian Zaffino of Oppenheimer.

I just wanted to kind of key into the alcohol comments. Do you think it's a pricing thing where it might be -- you're able to fix it with promotions? Or is it just cultural and there's not a whole lot you could do as it relates to that? And you think it's also maybe like GLP-1 related? And if so, it doesn't seem like food is tracking with alcohol, but maybe any of your thoughts there and maybe how you address it or if there's anything in your power to kind of do anything.