In light of the board's insatiable interest in all things Olive Garden, I'm taking the trouble to bring you up to date on their parent co's., Darden's, (DRI), 2nd fiscal quarter earnings which were reported this morning. Thankfully, our goal for Olive Garden to succeed and continue their pursuit to up the world's collective palate and spread gustatory excellence throughout the known universe in perpetuity is on track, because the earnings report is positive:
Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) reported that total sales increased 9.7% to $2.7B in FQ2, driven by a blended same-restaurant sales increase of 2.8% and sales from the addition of 78 company-owned Ruth's Chris Steak House restaurants and 45 other net new restaurants. The 2.8% same-restaurant sales mark for the quarter beat the consensus estimate of +2.7%.
The same-restaurant sales growth was led by a 4.1% gain for the Olive Garden chain and 4.9% rise for the LongHorn Steakhouse chain, which offset a 1.7% for the company's fine dining restaurants.
EPS for the quarter was $1.84 vs. $1.74 consensus and $1.52 a year ago.
Segment profit: Olive Garden $262.5M from $218.9M a year ago, LongHorn Steakhouse $111.8M from $85.6M a year ago, and Fine Dining $56.6M from $38.9M a year ago.
