El Pollo Loco reports Q2 EPS 23c, consensus 21c

Reports Q2 revenue $121.5M, consensus $124.7M. Reports Q2 SSS down 3.4%. Larry Roberts, CEO, stated, “We continued to progress in our four-wall operations, including drive-thru times, social media ratings and customer complaints across both company and franchise restaurants. These improvements would not have been possible without the exemplary efforts of every team member and franchise partner and culminated in restaurant contribution margin of 16.9% and adjusted earnings per share of $0.23. While our top line performance in the second quarter was below our expectations as we lapped last year’s extremely successful Beef Birria promotion, we are encouraged by sales trends over the past four weeks, with third quarter-to-date comparable system sales growth of 1.8% including a 2.1% increase in company comparable sales through July 26th. As we look to the back half of the year, we remain confident that the initiatives we have in place will deliver sales growth, improved margins and attract high-quality franchisees to the El Pollo Loco system.”