The good, bad, and meh of restaurant earnings, featuring Burger King, Texas Roadhouse, Wendy’s, and more

Speaker A: Stratus Foods is the industry partner you

Speaker B: can depend on when you're looking for the very best in fats and oils. Our team of expert researchers, developers, and innovators have helped countless businesses just like yours bring their delicious menus to life with products that are reliable, sustainable, and ready to meet any challenge. You can fry, bake, saute, and grill with confidence. Stratus Foods, we've got you covered.

Speaker A: Is Burger King the hottest chain in America? Are salad chains toast because of cyclospora? Uh, and how far will the major pizza chain fall? Welcome to Extra Serving, a podcast from Nation's Restaurant News. I'm Sam Okas, editor in chief of nrn, joined by my colleague, executive editor Alicia Kelso. Alicia, are you alive? This week was, like, murderous. Holy cow.

Speaker B: I'm probably gonna have a drink after we're done recording this.

Speaker A: Just to Note, it is 11:15am for those who need to know. But you know what, Alicia? You earned that.

Speaker B: It's Friday. We're recording this on Friday.

Speaker A: So we should have had a drink live on this podcast. That's what we should have done. But I, I say that, and I just am in awe of how much you guys are cr. Cranking out the stories. You guys are on top of all the news and God knows there was a lot of it this week. I think we got to just jump right in. Alicia, let's start with. I would say this is the biggest news of the week, but there's like eight headlines to choose from that are like, normally the biggest news of the week, and they all happen in the same week. I think we do have to start with Salad and Go. Salad and Go, the drive thru salad chain that really wanted to disrupt QSR Salads, uh, by offering salads at a value price point with a vertically integrated supply chain done in a drive thru only model, folded up, it closed all locations and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. We all knew Salad and Go was struggling. They had closed a lot of their locations earlier this year. But, Alicia, were you surprised to see them just completely shut down?

Speaker B: Yes. I mean, this was a late Tuesday email. This was, I think it was 8:30 at night, uh, when I, when we all got the email about this move and there were 70 locations remaining, uh, and this. So this was absolutely shocking. I remember being at ICR in Orlando in early 2024, uh, when Charlie Morrison was still leading, uh, this company and they were opening a location a week. Their aspiration was to get into the thousands. They had gotten to about 150 locations. Uh, but as we know, um, you know, uh, there was new leadership, leadership that came on board earlier this year in Mike Tattersfield from Krispy Kreme. And one of his first moves was to shut down. I think he shut down about half the system, um, and exited markets altogether, like in Texas, uh, for example. So, uh, it was about 150 at the end of 2024 and about 7. It was exactly 70 locations at the end of 2025. To give you an idea of that retrenchment, I had an interview with Mike, um, shortly after he came on board and talked about his plans to sort of right the ship here, uh, including, you know, he, he, he was kind of, he kind of skewered the growth, the over expansion and said that they were growing just for growth's sake. I do think it's important to note that Volt, uh, uh, private equity firm, acquired the brand from its founders in 2021 and their directive was to aggressively grow because they didn't see, they saw a lot of white space because there wasn't anything really like this out in the market. That drive thru salad concept at a $7 ish price point, including protein, has not really been done before. And so, you know, Mike Tattersfield's goal was to basically take a beat on expansion and, and focus more on the menu and the marketing and things like that, the foundational stuff. Um, but I guess that just proved too big, uh, of a hump to overcome and completely uh, shut down this week, which again, shocking. Shocking.

Speaker A: Ah, I can't think of a parallel. Can you think of a chain that went from 150 locations to zero in the span of like a year and a half? I can't think of another one that did that.

Speaker B: I, I mean that, that, that would imply that I can retain any information and I'm not going to put that

Speaker A: out there or, you know, or something. I don't know.

Speaker B: Well, I think there's, there's a difference between remembering, writing stuff down and you

Speaker A: know, sure, we'll get, we'll get right on that. We'll, we'll double check that. I mean, but that is just for context, like the, the swiftness. I mean, you know, you have your subways which sort of, you know, close like a thousand. Quiznos certainly fell from grace and I'm sure was regularly closing hundreds every year. But yeah, I mean, I think Quiznos and Subway still exist. Right. Salad and go went from 150 and we're all buzzing about it, to completely gone in the space of 18 months. Which, it kind of blows your mind. But, I mean, a couple of things to pick up on there, Alicia. You know, the first thing is that value price point. Right. They wanted to disrupt QSR salad by really leaning into the value price point, which was seven or eight bucks. And I completely respect that. But when you look at what's going on around us and you see how much other restaurant companies have been forced to increase the price of their, of their menu items, I mean, there's, there's good reason for that. Menu costs, food costs have gone up 30, 40%. So how can you keep that value price point while also dealing with all these increased costs? Now, they said it was because of that vertically integrated supply chain. That was where I think they really hung their hat, was that they were really kind of owned the supply chain in a way that most other chains did not do. But, you know, there's a lot to that, too. There's obviously a lot of expense required in maintaining that supply chain that I'm sure was untenable. And then layer on top of that, I don't. I mean, obviously this is all so new. So I don't know how much it had anything to do with it. But, Alicia, I have to imagine cyclospora was just the final nail in the coffin.

Speaker B: It was. Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, for goodness sake, they probably, this decision was probably going to come regardless. But cyclospora, I'm sure, just expedited it.

Speaker B: Yeah, they cite it when they made this announcement Tuesday night. They cited that the company was ultimately unable to overcome sustained pressure on consumer demand, uh, past strategic growth challenges, which is that over that growth for growth's sake, that too fast, uh, that we talked about and rising costs. And then further quote, a cyclospora outbreak in July. Uh, important to note, Salad and Go is not implicated here, but it did weaken, uh, confidence across the industry and compounded the already existing challenges. There was something, Sam, real quick that I noticed, um, when I was doing the research too. As they were growing really fast, um, their average unit volumes just did not even remotely close to keep pace. Um, and so at the end of 2024, for example, when they had a bunch of locations, they were about 1.75 million. And at the end of 2025, when they shrunk, uh, you know, by half, their average unit volumes were 1.36 million. That, that's, there's a. Yeah, that's significant. And that's a writing on the wall thing. When you're, when you're, when your Average unit volumes are that much higher. Uh, when you have double the system, you know, then something. Something's amiss.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, you know, Charlie Morrison, who you mentioned, you know, was. Was CEO of this company for a couple of years and. And kind of famously stepped away from Wingstop to Go become CEO of Salad and Go, which at the time, I think a lot of us scratched our heads. But the narrative then, and I'm sure was true, was, you know, that he could possibly go from Wingstop to Salad and go and. And turn Salad and Go into the Wingstop of the salad industry, which is, you know, a, uh, streamlined, efficient operation with that kind of owns a category and leans into that sort of accessibility and convenience part of things, and value part of things, to scale it quickly. When Charlie Morrison left Salad and Go, there are a number of reasons why he wanted to walk away, you know, a big one, probably because he went and became CEO of Jersey Mike's. But, like, I have to imagine there was a point at which it was obvious like, you can't do this with salads. And I want to, um, point all listeners, by the way, to a great column from our colleague Leanne Zinsmeister, managing editor of nrn. She wrote a column over at Restaurant Business, um, about, you know, asking if consumers are to blame for Salad and Go's demise. Because the question was basically, like, is salad just an. Can you just not scale salad like we thought you could? And, you know, her premise in this. In the column is, well, no, consumers actually really loved Salad and Go. Data from Technomics shows that, like, this was. This was a popular brand, and it probably had a lot of other issues. So it's interesting because it's like salad as a concept, as a category, is still a viable. I think is still a viable lane to pursue. But as you see, Sweet Greens challenges, as you see, obviously from Salad and Go, it's just a different animal than something like chicken wings. And you cannot necessarily treat it at the same because so much hinges on this fresh produce. Um, the last thing I'll say, Alicia, uh, is, um. So this episode drops Monday, and then on Tuesday, my episode of Takeaway. My next episode is with Josh Smith, who's the founder and owner of Neon greens out of St. Louis. And, um, I. This was one of my favorite podcast interviews I've done in a long, long time. He's just a really smart dude, but this is just a one loc so far in St. Louis, and he's doing hydroponics. So the restaurant is attached to a, you know, A little farm essentially, and they send their greens over by conveyor belt to the kitchen. So there's a little bit of a show to it, which is fun. Um, but this was a really good time to talk to him because when you consider the, all the challenges in salad going on and then the cyclospora, you know, he made a couple of good points. The first of which was to say hydroponics, which has been around for, you know, a little while. And once upon a time, I think a decade ago, people thought it was like the future of farming. Um, you know, he made the point that like hydroponics is never going to be the total answer. He said there's always going to be one tool in the tool belt. This is always going to be a part of the solution when it comes to supply chain, when it comes to, comes to agriculture, but just one part of it. Um, and I think that, you know, the failure of hydroponics originally was because we, we imagined all these skyscrapers, growing lettuce that were going to, you know, feed us. But he stressed this point that our, our, our food system, our supply chain has become so centralized. And he quoted the number and I'm not, I, I haven't double checked this, but you know, again, we're reporters so maybe I could go do that. But he said that 98% of our lettuce comes from California and Arizona. And the point he was trying to make is that so much of our supply has become so centralized around just so many farms. Um, and that when cyclospora comes around this, it becomes such a big, big problem because we have not diversified the supply chain enough to protect against something like a, ah, foodborne illness. And I'm saying all that just to say that like the path forward, I think for salad brands, I think there's still that viable path. You can still be a successful, profitable chain. I think Sweetgreen, we'll talk about them in a little bit. But I think Sweetgreen, you know, they have a path that is going to include growth. But our supply chain, we've got to figure out so many things around the supply chain to make salad. Something that can be at a value price point, um, but also maybe probably not necessarily the star of the show at something like the Sweet Green, which again, we can talk about. Anyway, I think the point is it's just a very multifaceted problem and it was insurmountable for a salad.

Speaker B: I agree.

Speaker A: Okay, well, um, this may be a weird time to bring this up, but I also Want to point out that this week we posted our 100 under 100 report@nrn.com. um, I'm bringing this up because Salad and Go. I think another narrative to avoid here is that, you know, these emerging chains that get too big for their britches are, you know, just going to fail and crumble and fall away. Um, but our 100 under 100 report, which is posted, uh, I think is a good list of, uh, brands that are growing quickly, that are, um, that we think are going to be the next big thing. Now we use data to quantify who is belongs on this list. We, um, lean into our partners at Techonomic, uh, to track the growth percentage, the unit count, growth percentage, year over year between 24 and 25. To say these are the brands that are growing the fastest, that still have less than 100 locations. I just wanted to stress that because there are so many great success stories and some of them include salad chains. Um, so it's not, you know, it's not necessarily just a salad problem or just an emerging chain problem, but, um, you know, it's kind of a combination of factors that took down Salad and Go.

Speaker B: If I can real quick, please. I really do. This is a little bit speculative, but I do think Charlie Morrison left because the, the PE group that bought salad and go in 2021 was way too aggressive on growth and I don't think he agreed with that. And you know, Rick Cardenas, the CEO of Darden, has just really simplified this over and over again on their earnings call, saying growing too fast is a major issue in this industry. And uh, you know, Salad and Go can cite consumer challenges, higher costs, cyclospora as a nail in the coffin. All of those things are true. But at the end of the day, you know, to go from 10 locations to 150 locations in just a couple of years, two or three years, that's unsustainable. And uh, the founders of this company, which is a husband and wife team, Tony and Russian Christophoulos, actually penned a Facebook post a year ago saying that this is untenable. This is unsustainable. And they saw the writing on the wall with this. It doesn't make it an easier pill to swallow. Uh, but this, you and I do justice every week by, by cautioning against growing too far too fast. And if, like we mentioned, those AUVs are falling and by that much, then, you know, you've got to have that foundational piece here. And I think that is the ultimate issue with, with Salad and Go.

Speaker A: No, I'M glad you called that out because, uh, as part of the 100, under 100, uh, package, I wrote in my editor's letter this month about the fact that there are some examples of brands that did scale quickly and did so successfully. And our colleague Jonathan Mays wrote a story about this a couple weeks ago that I cited. But basically he was calling out in his piece that in 2017, 2017, you saw the advent of Crumbl cookies, Dave's hot chicken and seven Brew Drive thru coffee. All three of them started at zero in 2017. Crumbl has over 1,000 now. Seven, um, Brew will be over a thousand in the next 18 months. Probably Dave's probably, I'd call it three or four years. They'll get to a thousand, maybe sooner. Um, and so it's interesting because to your point, that kind of fast growth generally is not sustainable, and you can point to a lot of examples in the history of the restaurant industry for not growing too fast. Salad and Go is just the latest. You could go look at Mob Pizza and Blaze Pizza, right? Fast casual pizza was an entire category that raced out to try to open a bunch of locations and collectively mostly failed. Subway. Subway. I mean Subway and. And the late Fred DeLuca, once upon a time thought he could get to 50,000 locations in the US and, uh, like Icarus flew too close to the sun. Alicia, they're back. Coming back down to earth. Um, anyway, the point is, is that like, if you look at a Dave's, a Crumble, a seven Brew, you might think to yourself, I'm going to go do that in salad. But it just is, it's just a different thing. It's a different animal. And if you look at like Dave's in particular, you look at like Bill Phelps, who basically, you know, wrote the playbook at Wetzel's, then took it to Blaze and was out of there before Blaze started to come back down to earth. Then he did it at Dave's and now he's doing it. Mike's right. Tacos, like, there is a way that you can do this, I think with the right product, the right real estate, the right leadership, but not everybody can do it. So, uh, you know, there's no right or wrong here. But it really is just to say, is that like Salad and Go is a cautionary tale for, I think in some ways what not to do. But if you go look at the 100, uh, 1 under 100 shameless blog, go look at it. Because I do think there are a lot of examples of ways that you can make that work. All right, we should get into the earnings because this was a busy, busy, busy, busy week for earnings. Do you want to just call it. You want to just end the podcast here and not talk about the earnings?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm a little, I'm a little burned out, boss.

Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Okay, we, let's start with the good news. We got some good, some bad, and some, oh boy, ugly. Um, we'll start with the good news. Let's talk about the, uh, let's talk about the steakhouse category because Texas Roadhouse and Bloomin Brands, I think both had some good stories to tell. Texas Roadhouse, Alicia. No surprises. Although, goodness gracious, I will. Can anything slow them down?

Speaker B: I don't think so. I mean, they're dealing with the margin issue because of, you know, still high beef prices. And I don't want to put this lightly because that's not kind of me to do for the supply chain folks and the finance folks. But their margins were 16.9. They only fell 66 basis points, which in the grand scheme of the beef market is really impressive. Of course, it was offset by their sales which, uh, continued to stun. They were at 6.2%. Same store sales driven by strong traffic, which led to weekly, uh, record average weekly sales, uh, and I want to note, lapped a 5.8 quarter, uh, in 2025. Nothing to sneeze at there. That's a two year stack of, if you do the math, uh, better than I do. But 6.2 plus 5.8,

Speaker A: that is. Hang on. 12.

Speaker B: It's 12.

Speaker A: No, I don't know.

Speaker B: 13. Hold on, wait, I think it's 12.

Speaker A: We are Wordsmiths, folks. We are not mathematic.

Speaker B: It hits a lot. But Texas Roadhouse is a ca. We talk about this every quarter. And you know, I don't think there's a shoe dropping anytime soon. It's just a case study and consistency. That's it.

Speaker A: Yeah, they were kind of made for this moment too, right? I mean, because you have a couple of things going on. Obviously customers are, uh, craving more experience. They're craving a high quality experience at that, but one at a relative value, whatever that means to them. And they want a place where they can go and feel safe and like they can have that consistent experience in Texas Roadhouse is just. Is going to check that box for a lot of people and you see that across. And we talked about BJ's last week. I mean, there's some others in the full service category, of course, Cheesecake Um, you know, I expect maybe, um, Chili's. We're waiting to see if Chili's has the, finally has the kind of come back down to earth quarter. But they've been doing that too, which is like checking the boxes for that customer who wants something, um, a little bit above. Now it seems that Outback Steakhouse, uh, famously Australia themed and not your poor wife. Come on. Not cooking out back like my wife thought. Shout out. Katie. Uh, she doesn't listen. I'll make a list of this one. So in the Bloomin Brands portfolio, um, you know, maybe they're figuring this out too, Alicia, because they had some, some positive returns.

Speaker B: Yeah, they are in the middle of a turnaround, uh, which is worth noting. It seems to be gaining plenty of traction. Outback was up 1.4%. This marked that chain's strongest same store sales quarter since 2023. Uh, and I think that is notable. Um, they are doing things that are very fundamental, focusing on service, training, you know, cooking the steaks. Right. I know that is a big priority for them. Traffic is still down, but those customer satisfaction scores are up, indicating that the work that they're doing on this training is, uh, working. Uh, their tiered pricing is also working. Uh, customers are coming in, you know, for, uh, accessible price point. 60% of those customers are trading up. That's what we want when we do tiered or barbell pricing. That, that, uh, seems to be working. They had, um, their first managing partner conference too since 2019. And I think that is critical. We look at Texas Roadhouse's success and I think a lot of that does come back to the managing partner being heavily involved, having skin in the game. So Outback is pulling a page there. Uh, and Bloomin overall, I mean, obviously Outback is their bread and butter, but Bloomin across the board was positive on, um, all of their brands. I think bonefish grill was up 8 plus percent. So interesting. But I think it also goes back to that conversation that we had last week when we covered, uh, you know, BJ's and cheesecake, the value proposition. We know customers are struggling. We know this from the, from the brands that over index on lower income consumers like the Wingstops for example. We'll talk about some of those, you know, on this podcast. And they are selective about their dying out spending and they're choosing the more holistic value that includes experience and service. And that is completely opposite of, uh, the last time we were in a value environment this deeply, uh, during the Great Recession when they were chasing the dollar menu so that's fascinating to me because to me it seems like the fast food is, you know, their value proposition in fast food has eroded a little bit because the pricing has become a little bit more parody.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean if you take Bloomin and put it with Texas Roadhouse and Darden and I think Rick Cardenas, again referencing, um, what he said on the last quarter, I believe earnings report, that idea that especially in steak you have this category where people, they specifically seek that product out to go out and enjoy that at a restaurant because it's not necessarily something they want to do for themselves. They know they can get a great experience out. And so, and then, and then pair that with the fact that as we see from our America's Favorite Chains report every year that the steakhouses always come out on top because of this mentality that that's where you go to celebrate things. So let's uh, just say you're celebrating or you're just, this is your luxury for the month that you're seeking out and you have it at a relative value price point, consistently served like that. I mean, I think the steakhouse category right now just has a lot of opportunity to flex in ways that other full service brands do not. Although to your point with bonefish, I don't know, maybe, maybe that's a sign that people are branching out. Maybe they're looking, you know, I don't think Red Lobster has the same story to tell necessarily, uh, on the seafood front, but maybe there is um, some more, uh, seeking out some more adventurous flavors beyond steak. Um, Alicia, let's pivot to the morning day part and specifically family dining. Uh, First Watch had a great quarter. First Watch, uh, their um, Same store sales rep, 3.4% traffic, um, slightly up. So First Watch is humming along. I mean this is, uh, you know, this. I think they've been pretty positive for a while now. Um, but then you pair that with IHOP out of dine brands which was up 1.5%. So I don't know if you can read into that as a category thing or just that these brands seem to be particularly performing well. What do you read it as, Alicia?

Speaker B: I think breakfast in general is so interesting right now. Um, and again it seems like folks are choosing breakfast with a broader experience versus a drive thru breakfast. Right now. Um, First Watch like you said, is, has been pretty consistent. Traffic was slightly, um, flattish, up, improved. Now First Watch has made a lot of marketing investments, uh, you know, of late. So their brand awareness, they're getting a good tailwind from bigger brand awareness, uh, which is important, um, because, you know, it's still relatively small chain, um, but that marketing investment has CEO Chris Tomasso said, driven at least one more visit from their most loyal guests. That is huge for a sit down restaurant to have. That's what you want. You want. We gotta have the frequency play. Um, First Watch has a great culinary point of view. Their LTOs have been strong. They raise guidance. That's a big deal in this environment. Um, I have, you know, they've been, they've been fun to watch, um, in the past year or so really since Lawrence Kim came on board, because they're doing a lot more fun stuff on the marketing side, you know, which marketing is my primary beat. So I love watching that. But they're getting very culturally leaning into cultural relevance. Um, you know, with things like that Dubai chocolate launch, uh, they've had a lot of growth in off premises as well. Um, both IHOP and its sister chain, excuse me, sibling chain, uh, Applebee's, are really zooming in on that barbell pricing strategy which we, you and I have talked at length about how critical that is, uh, in this environment especially. And of course dine brands, as has been their thesis for at least a year and a half now, is, um, pushing the gas on that dual brands, uh, that dual brands strategy. They want 80 of those, uh, dual branded IHOP Applebee's by the end of this year. I think you, you and I know that I visited the very first dual brand that opened domestically in Seguin, Texas in late 2024. And I, I just loved it. I loved having my little, you know, Buffalo chicken on there with my, with my Applebee's alcoholic drink. It was awesome.

Speaker A: My Applebee's alcoholic drink.

Speaker B: It was like a margarita. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I loved it. I loved. Yes, yes. So, um, very interesting though to, to consider what is going on. You know, I kind of miss Denny's being on the market because I think we would have had a, a fuller picture of full service breakfast. But as it applies to first watching ihop, things seem pretty good in that category right now.

Speaker A: And we will talk about Applebee's here in a second. But first, staying in the breakfast category, sort of spiritually, let's talk about Dutch, because Dutch bros, you know, where are

Speaker B: you going with this?

Speaker A: You don't know what I'm talking about when I talk about going toward morning. Spiritually, Dutch bros, uh, was positive. Again, no surprises here. Um, should we be worried though, Alicia, that the Transactions seem to have slowed down.

Speaker B: Investors were worried. Sam, um, you and I love trying to read leaves on what the silly investors. I know, I. Dutch did take a hit, uh, on Wall street this week. And it, you know, they were up 5.8% on same store sales. This is their millionth quarter in a row being positive. Yeah, they were.

Speaker A: Yeah. They've been around since the Stone Age show. Right.

Speaker B: Um, they were up on transactions.1 1.7%, however, is a slowdown. Uh, you know, a pretty material slowdown from what we are all used to seeing from Dutch Bros. Which I think is what kind of scared investors a little bit for that stock to drop afterwards. However, Dutch Bros. Is going to be just fine. We know that.

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I mean, this is where I, I can't imagine having to be the leader of a chain such as Dutch or Chili's. Um, shout out Kevin Hockman, shout out Christine Barone, because they're fantastic leaders. But like, to. To perform at that level and still get dinged by investors, like where 1% transaction growth is a negative for Dutch is just. I mean, that's brutal. But that's just the name of the game. I mean, eventually we all knew that this was going to happen where a company like Dutch, I, again, I expected from Chili's at some point, I'm sure Cava. At some point. You know, you cannot keep these numbers up forever. The whole point of this growth is that you're having to lap your previous growth. I mean, and it's just not sustainable once you start to max out on. On what is possible. Um, and so we, we always were going to see this from Dutch. I don't think there is much you can read into the tea leaves here, Alicia. Simply just other than to simply say that, you know, that there's only so much growth that Dutch can do now. It is an interesting thing to consider the competition though, because, you know, we've talked about the fact that coffee seems to have no limit as far as there is just real estate all over this country just ready to be gobbled up. Um, we should mention. I don't think we talked about this, though. Dutch announced that they had acquired 65 of the salad and Go locations. Um, I think, I think you're going to get. We're going to get into a lot more of a. Um, I think we're going to get a lot more into an intense game here between the coffee players. And I can see Dutch acquiring those 65 locations as a power move to say, like they, they want to own that drive through real estate, which is disappearing faster and faster because of all the other coffee chains. So, um, expect to see more quarters like this where growth may slow, where the market share is going to, you know, settle out to be among some of the other competitors too. But you're going to have opportunities to scoop up real estate, and that's going to determine the right.

Speaker B: And by the way, Salad and Go is not the only drive through real estate that is closing. There's several, uh, fast food, unfortunately, several, several fast food brands that are really struggling, that have had big franchisees file bankruptcy here or there, are closing huge swaths. Uh, you know, we know that Wendy's, for example, has closed hundreds of locations. We'll get into that. Dutch Bros. Will be interesting to watch in Q3 because it's what its primary competitor in 7 Brew is getting ready to launch a mobile app next week. Of course. I asked the employees at 7 Brew this morning on my way home from swim practice if they were looking forward to it and they said they're a little nervous about it. They're, you know, they're worried about their tips being compromised. They said that they think customers will really like it though, which I will really like it. I can tell you as a seven Brew person, I like it. But you have to, you have to execute those things so that both customers and employees like it. I will keep you posted, but I'm excited about that app. It will put some pressure on Dutch

Speaker A: Bros. Oh, it's fascinating. I mean, for these companies that really hang their hat on that human interaction, they, they, they, I think they have intentionally avoided the apps to, to date because they want that interaction between the Broista and Dutch Bros case and I don't know, whatever Subaru calls their people, you know, at the, at the window of the car, like that's kind of what they want the experience to be about. But the fact of the matter is this is a mobile app country in a mobile app world, and especially Gen Z wants that mobile app. And the less they have to engage with that employee, the better. Um, Alicia, before we move on to the bad of our good, bad and ugly, uh, let's just quickly mention El Pollo Loco. Another success story, I think from this week up 3.9% their same store sales. And Alicia, you had mentioned a real win here. And when you look at El Pollo Loco's numbers is its profitability. Tell me more about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, Liz Williams came on board in March 2024 and put a five point turnaround, uh, plan into place. And she is well ahead that going into year three. Um, she has really focused on unit economics for the explicit purpose of growing again. She wants to become a national brand. El Pollo Loco has tried this and failed it, I think, twice in the past. This time, it seems way more viable. They've got margins up over there, uh, to 19.5%. I think that's like a three percentage point difference, a swing since she just came on board. They're doing so many operational efficiency things, cost control things. I have a tremendous amount of respect for her as a leader and what she has done for El, uh, Pollo Loco. And they're doing this with a significant amount of marketing and menu innovation, injecting this brand into conversations where it never existed before and doing so intentionally to broaden its customer base, not just to new guests, but new, younger guests. Uh, it launched Loco Tenders, for example, in the second quarter, and that. That just had it. That was a significant win for them. And we all know that Chicken Tenders is the place to be, the category to be right now. And they've got a new coffee platform as well, leveraging, uh, that sort of horchata flavor, which is, you know, a differentiator for them. Um, so there's a lot of really. There's a lot of things churning on, on this company, and it's been really consistent, uh, since she. Since she put that plan into place. It's been pretty impressive.

Speaker A: Good for them. Good for them. Okay, we gotta move on. You know, I call this the bad category, Alicia. But as we talked about before we hit record, that's a bit of a misnomer. This is gonna be, in your words, the meh category. But the good, the meh and the ugly doesn't roll off the tongue quite so easily. So for the sake of a good narrative, let's just call this the bad category. Um, Applebee's. So we talked about Applebee's already. Again. It's. It's been worse, right? Applebee's is. Is firmly in meh territory. Why is it in meh territory?

Speaker B: Applebee's issue here was tough comps. They had their strongest quarter in years last. Last year in Q2, they were up 4.9%. Of course, that could never be used as an excuse, but they were. I don't want to say only down, but they were down negative. Uh, 1.8%. Uh, as we're getting ready to talk about, um, you know, there are far worse concepts. Applebee's has an issue right now in that it over indexes, with the lower income consumer, and with gas prices continuing to rise and other costs relentlessly high across the board, these are the brands that are going to be disproportionately impacted. Um, and Applebee's, I think, because it has a decent working value strategy in place, it has done a lot of work on marketing. It's off prem, and it's got that dual brands thing. Um, you know, I think it's. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be just fine.

Speaker A: You know, uh, Alicia, I told you, uh, you know, took the family there this week. Um, shout out to my friends at Applebee's. They are supporters of Alex's Lemonade Stand foundation, which is, uh, very near and dear to our family. And, but Alicia, uh, my entire family, at least the three that are not toddlers, um, got that trio where you can get the appetizer Trio. I alone got an entree, I got a burger, but they all got trio. And I'm like, you know, that's the world we're in right now, right? Because, I mean, that is a value deal. I forget what the price of that trio is, but, yeah, you assemble three appetizers and essentially call it a meal.

Speaker B: It's a great deal.

Speaker A: And again, getting back to the value of things, that is the narrative. That is what consumers are craving. Bizarrely, Applebee's is also probably just up against a pretty stiff competition. When we talk about Texas Roadhouse, you know, a little bit apples and oranges, but I mean, my family looks at Texas Roadhouse and Applebee's the same. I don't know about you, Alicia, but when we think about, you know, we don't think about, like, McDonald's and chick fil a the same, but Texas Roadhouse and Applebee's to us are that, like, casual sit down experience with a fairly diverse menu. And so we are kind of typically choosing kind of one or the other. And I think Applebee's, when it's up against now Chili's and Texas Roadhouse and outback steakhouse and BJ's. It is a stiff competition that they're up against now. Um, further in the meh category, I think you could say is McDonald's, uh, crazy that here McDonald's a little bit burying the lead all the way down here in the met territory. But McDonald's, um, a little bit on shaky ground. The results were positive. Uh, in that same, uh, store, sales were up 0.8%. So essentially negligible. But it was a little, it was a little Ugly. Um, uh, on the earnings call, Alicia, as ah, Jonathan Mays reported, um, Joe Erlinger kind of getting boot. The boot and Sky Anderson kind of, yeah, he got the boot. Sky Anderson promoted to president of McDonald's USA. There were, you know, Chris Kamchinski noting on the call that uh, the marketing promotions were not working, that McDonald's initiatives this year were not up to snuff or were not performing like they wanted to. Alicia, how do you see what's going on at McDonald's right now?

Speaker B: It was a shocking quarter for me. It really was. I mean the traffic is weak, their traffic was negative. Uh, so same store sales, like you said, they look negligible. I was surprised to see Joe Erlinger, uh, step down. He's been in that role since 2019. He's been with the company I think 25 years. Guy Anderson has been with the company really long time too and has had I think every position under the sun. She's really extraordinary and I've had the opportunity to interview her a couple times and uh, uh, she's just really, really sharp. I think she's going to take the strategy ball and run with it. Chris Kamchinski said, we don't have a strategy problem, we have an execution problem. That really telling comment from for where I'm sitting, uh, because McDonald's has really been, I want to say throwing spaghetti against the wall here on how to gain traction on value which they have to do. This is a mandate for them because like, like we said with Applebee's, they over index on lower income consumers. This value conversation started in earnest for McDonald's in Q2, 20, 24, two years ago and they have done this, that, this, that now they're doing extra value meals which didn't really resonate that well this quarter they've got, you know, they, they didn't have as many digital promotions. They had a 10 under $3 menu that I think only 60% of their franchisees actually offered. So there was inconsistent messaging. And then on top of that they just kind of had too much marketing. They had K Pop Demon hunters. They had a redesign loyalty app, a new beverage lineup. Um, that 10, uh, under $3. Just a bunch of things going on which stressed, um, stressed employees in the restaurant confuse customers. If that sounds familiar, that's because that was what Popeyes problem was last year. If that sounds familiar, that's because that's what Wendy's problem was last year. Too much. And it's shocking to me that McDonald's is now saying that a year after those two companies cited the same thing when the industry at large should be learning from. From doing too much and getting too noisy. I was really surprised about this. So, um, whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, and it's interesting, too. You compare that to, um, you know, last week we were talking about, uh, what was the company we were talking about last week that, um, we were comparing to Chili's. Just the mentality of, like, execution and, to some degree, operational simplicity. Like, you have some very clear examples of brands that are really trying to hunker down and look internally at, uh, how they can improve their operations and their experience and not get too crazy with the promotions and not get too noisy and confusing. So you have some very clear examples of how that's working for them. Um, Burger King. Uh, we didn't even talk about Burger King. Oh, for God's sake, Alicia.

Speaker B: We're not in the good category yet. We still have to go.

Speaker A: We passed the good category, Alicia.

Speaker B: We did.

Speaker A: We passed into the meh category.

Speaker B: Well, I think Burger King. We need to end on the high note with Burger King Burger.

Speaker A: We're end on a high note. You're right. We did that on purpose. Right. We did that on purpose. But, like, this week has gone. This week is such that Burger King has one of the biggest, most successful quarters in their history. And we're going to bury it down at the end. Um, but. But I. But like to briefly spoil and talk about how Burger King, again, they're really focusing on how to look inward and how to, uh, uh, improve their operations and streamline things and not get too confusing and muddled. It's so fascinating that you get these two very clear examples with several brands on either side and how this is working and this is not working. And to your point, I think, Alicia, it's surprising to see McDonald's get caught up in that side of. This isn't going to work. This is not working for you, because they're usually so on top of knowing what is going to work, and it's usually working so well for them. So that is fascinating. We have to. Before we get to the great news that is Burger King, we have to move from meh to truly ugly. Um, and our condolences in advance to all the brands that we have to talk about in the ugly category, but there's really no way to polish this turd for some of them. Alicia. Hey, call it like I see it.

Speaker B: Call it like I see it.

Speaker A: I said apologies. I said my apologies.

Speaker B: All right, all right.

Speaker A: Um, Popeyes. You mentioned Popeyes. Popeyes really on the struggle bus. And Alicia, we were for so long, so high on Popeyes, and just like the glow of the chicken sandwich. The three or four years really after that came out, Popeyes just was cruising along and holy smokes, it's come on down to earth. Um, what's going wrong at Popeyes? You mentioned it, but, like, it seems like it just can't figure itself out.

Speaker B: Yeah, they were down, what, negative 5 ish. Um, I think, actually I have it written down. Negative 5.2, Q1, negative 6.5, Q4. Negative 4.9, Q3, 20, 25, negative 2. Bad, bad slump here. They didn't say a whole lot about Popeyes on the call, but Peter Perdue came, uh, on board as president in November. He used to be the COO at Burger King. They're expecting him to pull pages very quickly to get that chain into shape. They are confident that Popeyes is going to be negative in the second half of this year.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the silver lining there, the fact that they can rub elbows with Burger King. Right. Because it's like if you can learn from somebody, learn from one that's within your same parent company, because, um, Popeyes is definitely going to need it. I don't think there is another chicken sandwich out there that they can, uh, pull out of nowhere and give them the kind of growth that, or the kind of, uh, momentum that they really need to get. Um, you just, you can tell how depressed we are to cover about some of these things. Um, uh, let's talk now about Portillo's. Um, Portillo's not as ugly, down 1%. Another brand that I think is a little bit surprising that they're in this territory at all. Um, but there are some bad things, which is that they cut 20% of their workforce, Alicia, and that's usually a pretty bad, bad sign. What I mean, Portillo's, it's, it's been volatile there the last couple of months.

Speaker B: It has been volatile. Their transactions, by the way, were ugly. Negative 3.4%. Their menu prices were up 2.6% to get them to 1. Negative 1.2 on the same store sales. Now they have a pretty new, uh, leadership team in place, uh, just a couple months in. They're doing research now to shape a long term strategy. So hopefully we will have, uh, more positive news here. But as part of that initial strategy and that initial turnaround, they did cut 18% of their workforce, both at headquarters in Chicago and within their field team. So we'll count that as ugly.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, and again, a sign of worse things to come. Typically when you get to the place where you're having to make layoffs, um, although I will say credit to Starbucks. Starbucks, um, made a lot of layoffs as part of their turnaround, and they are bearing fruit there, um, fairly quickly after the layoffs. Um, where do we go from here? Let's go to Sweet Green, Alicia. Because, you know, it's bad when I actually almost put them in the MA category and their sales are still down 6%.

Speaker B: Hey, we gotta give credit to improvement, right?

Speaker A: We'll give credit to improvement. Exactly. And we laugh, but we are not. We're laughing. I can't say we're laughing with you. I. We love you guys at Sweet Green. We cheer for everybody. You guys know that. Um, but there are some stories here where it just is, it's. You just. You have to appreciate a little bit of levity once in a while when you're looking at some of these results. Sweetgreen, which had been down 13% last quarter. Alicia.

Speaker B: Yeah, last, they were down 13% in Q1. I think their traffic was down like 11 plus percent in Q1.

Speaker A: So when you look at this week's or this quarter's number, 6.2% down in sales, 2% in traffic. Like, it's like you count down negative two in traffic and down. Yes, down 2%. Right. Um, you, you see this as momentum. You see this as a good thing. Their wraps seem to be performing well, but I think we all see what's coming here, which is the cyclospora outbreak. I think that the next, the next quarter, I think we should expect to see, um, some pretty tough numbers from Sweet Green because they have taken the brunt, uh, as well as, ah, the other solid concepts as we were talking about. But, Alicia, is there a reason, Is there any opportunity for optimism here?

Speaker B: I don't. I'm a little bummed that they were negative 6.2 with their RAP launch because they were lapping negative 7.6. They had an easy, easy lap and had this big new platform. Um, and so that is a real head scratcher. That's a bummer that. That's concerning, uh, to me. Um, so, uh, with the cyclospora stuff, I don't want to speculate about that, but they did move guidance down significantly to negative 7, uh, to negative 8% on the year because of that. So we'll, we'll see. But just a, just a, uh, their margin, by the way, also took a big hit, which I think is worth noting. 13, uh,.1% versus 18.9 last year. So I, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, when it rains, it pours, uh, for a sweet green right now. Um, and uh, I don't know, there's no easy fix here. They tried the ripple fries last year. They've got the wraps out now. This year, hopefully, um, they commit to the wraps for the long term, unlike the ripple fries, because that was also, I think, a value opportunity for them. Which, going back to the salad and go conversation value, um, in the fast casual salad category, um, is going to be an important part of, um, really validating that category, but is very, very tricky when you serve salads. Um, okay, let's go to Papa John's next. Alicia,

Speaker B: Big, um.

Speaker A: Wolf, you had to take a breath on this one.

Speaker B: I did.

Speaker A: Papa John's, um, same store, sales down 8.3%. I know. Look, this is, ah, this got the Louisville ties for you. So I know this is a little bit more personal for you. Um, but Papa John's has been on quite the slide. Much like Pizza Hut, ah, it's pizza competitor. Um, but Papa John's, I mean, I don't know what to make of what's going on over there.

Speaker B: This seems to be at first glance now they cited consumer pressures, uh, and a heavy promotional environment which we know has really especially impacted pizza, um, and that rising competition, particularly among C stores and gas stations, uh, which was surprising. But Casey's has been taking share from Pizza Hut for quite some time now. And it seems like Papa John's is acknowledging that it's maybe also taking share from them. What shocked me about this, negative 8.3, which by the way follows negative 6.4, which follows negative 5, which follows negative 3. Just bad deceleration here at Papa John's. What shocks me about this is that in the second quarter they launched new oven toasted sandwiches, uh, which Todd Pentagore said were they were doing pretty well. Um, and Papa John's had its biggest, its first ever global collaboration with Toy Story 5. And marketing seemed to miss the mark here. And coincidentally they have a new global chief marketing officer named, uh, the same time that they released results. So just didn't land, which was shocking. You and I talked about how it was a comprehensive, uh, marketing, global marketing campaign that included everything from merch and you know, that special pizzas, uh, to wrapping entire stores and that Planet Pizza theme. And they're still negative 8.3. So I think it's clear that it just didn't land. Now they have a new Chief. Chief marketing Officer.

Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean I'm a sample size of one, but man, that got our family to go check out Papa John's for the first time in a while. That was $1 billion movie, Alicia.

Speaker B: Globally, I mean, pizza is so hard right now.

Speaker A: It's, it's in the tough, it's in a tough spot again, the competitive pressures, I think, and as we've talked about ad nauseum, the, the ability to get anything you want on delivery, etc. Etc. We're talking on a Friday though, Alicia, and in about five hours I'm going to put that pizza order in somewhere. I mean it's going to still business every Friday.

Speaker B: Put my drink order in five minutes. If you make me stop talking.

Speaker A: If I can't land the plane on this thing. Yeah, we'll be drinking by the end

Speaker B: of this one, right?

Speaker A: We're getting there. We're getting, we're going to wrap this thing up. Remember folks, we're going to close on a high note here. But before we talk about Burger King, let's talk about Wendy's. Um, we did not expect a quick turnaround at Wendy's. Um, Bob Wright was named CEO back in. Gosh, was that in June? Um, and I mean, I think, I think we can still say that hire is a, is, is a great sign for Wendy's. That was a great hire. Bob Wright really helped to turn potbelly around. He's a longtime veteran of Wendy's. I, um, think he gets that brand more than a lot of other people would who could have come in, um, to take Kirk Tanner's place. Um, and we knew he wasn't going to snap his fingers and make this thing turn around. I mean, gosh, go look at Starbucks. And Brian Nicol. And Brian Nicholl is the golden turnaround poster boy. And it still took him two years to really solidify Starbucks turnaround. So we don't expect much out of Wendy's. But you still have to wince when you see the numbers at, ah, Wendy's. Traffic was down 12.5%, Alicia. Sales were down 7%. Um, and again, sample size of one. You know, I'm, I stand for Wendy's and uh, you know, my son Jude. Just yesterday we were talking about, uh, you know, how Wendy's is his favorite restaurant. But you know, we're starting to explore. We're starting to. A little biased because I've got a big Culver's piece coming up. But you know, our family is where's. There's a lot more Culver's popping up around Columbus. Alicia.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, you know, just shows you, Shows you the uphill climb that Wendy's has here. Um, what do you think is going to be the thing that can get this kicked into the right gear?

Speaker B: I mean, Bob Wright is, I think, the right guy at the right time. Uh, he's an ops guy. I think Wendy's, you and I have discussed, has an operations problem. Um, their system sales were down 8.2%. Some of that was because of the closures. The system optimization that it's going through, um, you know, the Traffic being down 12.5% is stunning. Uh, but some of that had to do with, you know, some franchisees opting out of breakfast. So maybe the number, um, isn't as shocking for the restaurants that kept it, um, Bob. Right. Refreshingly. And I say this in earnest. I love it when executives say, not good enough. Here's what we're going to do. Because some companies sugarcoat everything, even if things aren't great.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that's why I love, you know, I, I just, I shout out to the companies that are, you know what? This isn't it. This isn't it. And here's how we're going to do it. And he basically said that we're clearly not performing at our potential, and, uh, here's what we're going to do. And so they're making investments and they are probably going to restructure. And we're going to see a lot of changes come from Bob Wright under his new leadership and his new leadership team. Um, I think, you know, he said that they were over reliant on collaborations, which I think is interesting. Monsters and Minions meal did not resonate. We just talked about Papa John's Toy Story campaign, uh, not resonating. And McDonald's K pop demon Hunters obviously didn't run traction. So I am now spinning in my head a column for next week on the restaurant industry. Jumping the shark on these collaborations.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, you know, I think top, you know, Toy Story and K Pop Demon Hunter were massive successes, and the Minions was not, to my knowledge, as successful as it's the past in the series.

Speaker B: Because you hate them.

Speaker A: I truly hate those Minions. Well, and I said this on the podcast before Alicia, but it confused me when I walked into Wendy's to get my kid the Minions thing, and it said, this is for adults. I just don't. I do not think Minions have earned the nostalgia by. Guys, Minions have only been around for 15, 16 years, which is a long time.

Speaker B: But still not long enough.

Speaker A: Um, so. But, you know, you said it before Alicia, they got in trouble for this last year with some of the collaborations they had done. All the throwing stuff at the wall. Same thing here. But I do have to wonder because, uh, you know, these deals with these franchises, they can be years in the making. I mean, to some degree, these marketing promos, especially around a major franchise like the Minions or Toy Story, I mean, it's gotta, it takes. Gonna take years to untangle some of that commitment. Um, and so I don't envy, again, even just on the marketing side of things, like when something like that's not successful, that's not something you can quickly turn around and try something else.

Speaker B: Right. Well, and I. There was a story that I wrote two weeks ago, um, from Tecnomic Data, Rich Shank over at Technomic, who's a genius. He talked about how, um, bundling isn't as resonant or not bundling, I'm sorry, tiered pricing isn't as resident because Taco Bell had success with it and then everybody jumped into it, and so now it's not successful. And I'm really thinking the same thing has happened with these collaborations, these IP collaborations is McDonald's had a ton of success with this stuff, uh, throughout the past five years. But then everybody realized McDonald's was having success for. And now everybody's got a partnership with this movie, that movie, this band, and so forth. I will transition this for you very tightly, Sam, because this is, this is why you, this is why you hired me. Only reason the, the, the star here, the, uh, the headline for Wendy's is that its quarterly sales were 2.9 billion. Burger King's was 3.2 billion. Burger King has jockeyed, officially jockeyed past Wendy's as the number two burger chain in the country. I don't know if this is brief, but, gosh, we've covered this at this 2 and 3 jockeying quite a bit. And it's a, It's a horse race. It's a dog fight.

Speaker A: It's a dog fight for sure. And I have a few more gray hairs from this conversation. I think I have bags under my eyes. But we can finally at last get to some great news. If you're a Burger King fan. We're fans of everybody. We just like to see success in Burger King. I think what I love about this, Alicia, is that it was not that long ago that we were poo pooing Burger King, right? I mean, once upon a time, Burger King lived in the meh category. And we are seeing in real time somebody like Tom Curtis come into that president position, our friend Joel Yashinsky coming into the marketing position and actively turn the. Turn this ship around. And a brand like Burger King that's been around forever has so much equity in this business, um, that you knew it was really just a matter of time and just flipping the right switches. And it seems like these leaders have flipped the right switches because now Burger King latest quarter results are that it is up 8.5%. Alicia. That's a big, big win. Last quarter, I think Burger King up was like percent or two and we were really singing its praises. We're like, woohoo, Burger King.

Speaker B: Yay. A percent.

Speaker A: Um, but now these are real results. And we've talked a lot about what they've done, right? We talked about Tom Curtis coming in with that Domino's Pizza playbook to really, again, kind of tighten the ship again, to compare it to a Chili's, which is going to get kind of annoying for listeners probably after a while. But it's such a great comparison because they focused on that execution, the operations. They focused on bringing this back to the brand that people remembered from their childhood, that they loved from once upon a time, and not the creepy king. And we love to see this work. It's working. Alicia, what, what else is going right for Burger King?

Speaker B: I think Burger King right now, halfway through the year, is the story of the year in the industry. I think Tom Curtis is arguably the leader of the year. We could make the argument for a couple of others, like Brian Nichol, of course, doing a great job over at Starbucks, for example. But this is a stunning turn of events. It's no coincidence that Tom Curtis is a Michigan fan and that Joel Yashinsky is a Bowling Green State University graduate

Speaker A: and Brian Nichol is a Miami guy. So, uh, I don't know. You guys are all just trying to twist the dagger, aren't you?

Speaker B: I love this story. But, you know, know, we've been following the work that Burger King is doing for forever. It's a $400 million investment. It is paying off. It is paying off strongly. And that, you know, they had their new Whopper and their new ad campaign, shifting from the hungry young guy to families is. Is really, really resonating. And this Whopper guarantee, where if you don't like it, you can get another one. I think it's just a really great, um, level a strategy about accountability, which I think a lot of consumers are frustrated by the lack of, that has been happening we have shrinkflation conversations. We have too high a pricing conversations. And burgers like Burger King is like, hey, we were not as good here. We're going to prove to you we're good. And if you don't think so, we're going to prove it again. And it's very refreshing in the environment that we've all been thrust in for the past couple of years now. They're, uh, he said that they're only 20% done with this work, that they're in the early stages. Unlike those conversations we had about Wendy's Minions and Taco or, uh, McDonald's K pop and Toy Story and Papa John's. Their Star wars meal provided a heck of a boost. Uh, but the re image, the enhanced Whopper that came out earlier this year has led to 20% more sales of that signature sandwich just across the board. Work here.

Speaker A: Good on them. And, uh, you can't stress this enough, but this, this mentality of steal that playbook, right? I mean, it's like this industry, you can learn so much from these examples. And, and I'm not going to keep repeating them because I've said them about 48 times in this episode. But you see the examples of companies that pull off a successful turnaround, and what are the elements of that turnaround? The elements of that turnaround go back to your DNA, Go back to what made your brand pop in the first place, that made customers fall in love with you, reinvest in a great product and great service, great hospitality, simplify things as much as you can. Really focus on that great experience within the four walls. These are the elements, these are the ingredients to a turnaround. And we've seen example after example of this working for, uh, brands both big, small, qsr, full service. Um, and so, you know, look, we say that as if it's easy. It's not easy. You cannot flip the switch, snap your fingers and make it happen. Um, but I think if you commit to, you know, a couple of years of some tough decisions, um, and some reorganization and, you know, doing some, um, uh, looking ahead and figuring out what you. Where you want to be in a couple of years and making the decisions that can get you there, I think you can pull off what Burger King has pulled off here. So, Alicia, take a breath. Take a bow. We are. We did it. We got through. I think that's about everything from this week. But Lord have mercy there. I mean, there was more. We could have kept going. There's other storylines from this week, uh, with our apologies to HTO. And their CEO, uh, Gongshaw, and their acquisition, Savory Fund. And their new acquisition. Um, you know, uh, go seek out Salmonella. Our apologies to Salmonella for not getting to you this week.

Speaker B: I'm glad we don't talk.

Speaker A: Here's to hoping. Maybe next week, Alicia, we can get to Salmonella. Uh, but go read more@nrn.com she's Alicia Kelso. I'm Sam Okus. We'll talk to you again next week. Stratus Foods is the industry partner you

Speaker B: can depend on when you're looking for the very best in fats and oils. Our team of expert researchers, developers, and innovators have helped countless businesses just like yours bring their delicious menus to life with products that are reliable, sustainable, and ready to meet any challenge. You can fry, bake, saute, and grill with confidence.

Speaker A: Stratus Foods, we've got you covered.