Noodles & Company first-quarter same-store sales dipped slightly on negative but improving traffic systemwide, the company said Tuesday.
“I am pleased with the progress we made in the first quarter, with results in line with our internal expectations, as we continued to improve our underlying traffic trends and narrowed the gap in our year-over-year restaurant margin performance,” Kevin Reddy, Noodles & Company chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
Initiatives like the “Made. Different.” brand positioning launched earlier this year, the growth of off-premise sales, and key operational improvements were sparking momentum, he said.
The Broomfield, Colo.-based fast-casual operator reported a net loss of $2.4 million, or a loss of 9 cents per share, compared with a loss of $2.8 million, or a loss of 9 cents per share, a year ago.
Same-store sales for the quarter ended March 29 decreased 0.1 percent systemwide, with company restaurants flat and franchised units down 0.5 percent.
Traffic at company-owned locations declined 0.7 percent, normalized for the Easter holiday shift, but the company noted that was a 60-basis-point improvement from the fourth quarter of 2015.
Revenue increased 7.8 percent, to $114 million, compared with $105.8 million the previous year.
Noodles & Company added 15 new restaurants, including 14 company-owned locations and one franchised unit, for a total of 507 restaurants at the end of the quarter, 436 of which were company owned.
For the full year, Noodles & Company expects to add 50 new restaurants, and revenue is expected to be between $505 million and $515 million, with low-single-digit same-store sales growth.
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