LEBANON Tenn. CBRL Group Inc., operator of the 577-unit Cracker Barrel Old Country Store chain, on Tuesday reduced its full-year profit and revenue guidance and said June same-store sales were below company expectations.
Citing “continuing negative pressures on consumers” for its softened results, CBRL lowered by about 8 percent its annual earnings per share expectations to between $2.77 and $2.87. The company's previous guidance, which was released in May, predicted per-share profit to be between $3.02 and $3.12.
The company also said it now expects total revenue for fiscal 2008, which ends in July, to increase 1.5 percent rather than previous expectations of a 2-percent gain. The company noted that 2007 included an additional, 53rd week that tallied sales of $46.3 million. On a comparable 52-week basis, CBRL said its annual revenue would rise 3.4 percent.
Annual same-store restaurant sales are expected to be up 0.5 percent, aided by a 3.6-percent menu price increase. Full-year same-store retail sales are expected to be “down slightly” compared with fiscal 2007, the company said.
CBRL had already lowered its expectations when it reported third-quarter results in May, which came in below analysts’ expectations. But the chain’s worse-than-expected same-store sales in June led to the additional cuts.
The company reported a 1.2-percent decrease in same-store restaurant sales for the four weeks ended June 27. The dip came despite a 3.7-percent menu price increase from the same period a year earlier, which helped to boost the average check by 3.8 percent. Same-store retail sales at Cracker Barrel increased 0.2 percent in June.
CBRL also revealed that the current fourth quarter’s same-store restaurant sales through June were down 0.6 percent. Same-store retail sales to date for the same quarter rose 1.3 percent.
