How are you able to make even more money when every one of those is unfavorable?

Yeah, you know, structurally what we've been doing is just growing our business.

So we make sure that the consumer gets incredible value that they can't get anywhere else.

We know if they're gonna pull back on trips because of the economy, at least they know they can get a great deal at Chili's.

And so as we grow our, our AUVs or our sales per restaurant, we're able to cover those costs and then continue to grow margins.

So, you know, I'm really proud of the team.

We keep costs really tight.

I loved in the conference call, people should listen, read the conference call before you buy the stock so you know, you like giving people too much food.

And, yes, there's some inflation, but you're doing remarkably well despite those.

Yeah.

And I think that's why there was a big expectation that we would raise guidance today.

Right.

You know, for us, this was the completion of Q1.

So we still have three quarters to go in our fiscal.

It's not like we just have one more quarter.

for the choosy consumer, they keep coming.

What are the central things that make it so if you're listening and you've got a business, you should be thinking of to take out costs very clearly?

Yeah, well, you know, unique to restaurants, well, I don't know if it's that unique to restaurants, but everybody's got COGS pressure, everybody's got labor pressure, so...

The number one thing that you can do to offset that is to continue to grow your business.

It's going to be very, very difficult to simply cost cut your way to control margins or maintain margins with the inflationary environment that we all have to deal with.

So number one is we got back to growth.

So we are in an invest to grow mode.

We are investing in the business.

Why are you working on four new re-images in Dallas? Ink broke, don't fix, Kevin.

What are you working on right now that's kind of maybe different, you know, that's going to keep the momentum

going? Yeah, you know, I get a question asked all the time, you know, how are you going to do the comp to comp? And first of all, people don't realize, like, you know, we've been growing, you know, all 12 quarters.

You know, I've been with this company.

We've been growing same-store sales.

So it's not like it's like everybody sees the plus 31 and they're like, oh, they finally got it together.

This has been happening for a while.

And now, you know, obviously we've been accelerating growth in the last few quarters, right? because I think a lot of these things that we've been working on are coming together.

What are you seeing from the younger customers that are coming into your brand that makes you think, you know, the success with them can continue?

I love that.

I learned that the hard way as a young leader.

I was working in the P&G cosmetics business.

And it's probably maybe four years into working there, my first job out of college.

And I had a manager, Rick Shepherd, he's awesome.

And he sat me down and he's like, hey, based on what you told me, about the things that you want to accomplish, here are the opportunities I see with you.

He started with all my strengths and then he was like, here are the things you need to work on.

How as a leader can you create an employee-centric culture?

So why, like what's next for your company?

Outside of all the food reinvention.

What all this was built on was just making it much more valuable to own a Chili's.

So we've been working on the four wall economics of a Chili's.

And the way to do that is you simplify the menu, you invest in the service levels, you invest in the facility, and then you grow comps, right? And that's what we've been doing.

Our AUVs were $2.9 million, so the annual sales of a Chili's was $2.9 million.

It's now $4.2 million, right? And if you do a flow-through of 40%, 50%, I mean, the numbers are quite big times 1,200 restaurants.

think

I want to dinner out, and I want to spend that much money.

Yeah, you know, here's what I would tell you.

So I had my vice president of the operations on a call about three weeks ago, and I looked them in the eye, and I was like, hey, guys, who's worried about the new $9.99 deal from a big competitor? They all started laughing.

And I'm like, why are you guys laughing? And they're like, because we've been in the gym working out the last two years.

We know our service and our experience is so much better than that.

So they can undercut us all they want.

Nothing's going to happen to our business.

I mean, I think you answered the question pretty well.