Citing the company’s 2nd quarter 2024 earnings call on Dec. 15, OBJ reports that things are Darden Restaurants Inc. plans to open 50 to 55 new locations in the coming year. The report comes as a recent plan review states that a Longhorn Steakhouse facility will be coming to 1000 Darden Center Dr.
“We opened 17 restaurants during the quarter. Fiscal year to date, we have opened 27 restaurants in 16 states, four of which were re-openings,” said CEO Rick Cardenas per OBJ.
“Barclays Capital analyst Jeffrey Bernstein noted that typically when Darden has changed plans for openings, ‘it was to tweak lower’ but the fiscal 2024 guidance was ‘actually tweaked higher, which is somewhat unusual,’” the report adds.
Bernstein asked Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer at Darden Restaurants Raj Vennam to explain the uptick in unit openings.
“We were able to open some restaurants that we thought would be after the holidays, before the holidays. We got burned the last two years in terms of having some rosy projections. And so, we probably were a little bit more conservative in terms of how we thought about the timeline. That was built based on the actuals last two years. That timeline is getting a little bit better. That’s helping us deliver a little bit more,” said Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer Raj Vennam, explaining the uptick in unit openings.
No further details on the Darden Center facility have been announced.
