Dine Brands executives touted the brands’ successes during Wednesday’s second-quarter earnings call. And there was much to celebrate for the Glendale, Calif.-based parent company of Applebee’s and IHOP.
“Our broad-based growth plans to drive sustainable positive performance have gained solid traction,” said CEO Steve Joyce during the call. “While we are pleased with the results, we know that there is more work ahead of us as we execute on several initiatives.”
During the quarter, Dine Brands saw $12.3 million in net income and revenue of $184.5 million in the period. Applebee's domestic system-wide comparable same-restaurant sales increased 5.7 percent, while IHOP's comparable same-restaurant sales rose 0.7 percent.
Executives credited advances in technology and to-go operations for the positive quarter.
“I'd like to point out that each brand's strong off-premise business is highly incremental and a direct result of several enhancements made over the last year,” Joyce said.
“These include upgrading our guest-facing technology, improvements to our websites and developing to-go packaging to ensure that our food is easily portable and remains warm.”
Applebee’s and IHOP's to-go sales grew just over 30 percent in the second quarter.
Both presidents noted that their brands outperformed results in their respective categories.
“According to Black Box, Applebee's has outperformed the casual-dining category, excluding Applebee's by 465 basis points on comp sales and 685 basis points on comp traffic,” said Applebee’s brand president John Cywinski. “So, it's certainly apparent to me and our franchisees that America has rediscovered its love for Applebee's. While still early, we plan to build upon this momentum one guest, one step, one quarter at a time.
In June IHOP pushed a promotion centered around the IHOb name change and an expanded burger line. While it certainly garnered press and social media attention — IHOP brand president Darren Rebelez noted that 20,000 media stories were generated from the promotion — IHOP’s same-store sales did decline slightly from the previous quarter where the brand saw an increase of 1 percent.
Still, the promotion launch in mid-June and the quarter end on June 30th, and Joyce noted that “the lunch and dinner dayparts experienced a significant lift in both sales and traffic immediately following the very successful launch on June 11 of IHOP's all-new Ultimate Steakburgers platform.”
Applebee's and IHOP together have more than 3,600 restaurants in 18 countries.
Expectations for the closure of Applebee's restaurants was revised to approximately 80 to 90 domestic Applebee's restaurants and 10 international restaurants, compared to previous expectations of roughly 60 to 80 domestic and international Applebee's restaurants combined.
Contact Gloria Dawson at [email protected]
Follow her on Twitter: @GloriaDawson
