Rave Restaurant reports Q4 EPS 4c vs. 38 last year

Reports Q4 revenue $3M vs. $2.8M last year. Said Brandon Solano, CEO, “Our fiscal year shows significant same store sales growth at both Pizza Inn and Pie Five, double-digit total revenue growth, and an increase in earnings quality as we overlapped $0.7 million in prior year Employee Retention Credit funding resulting in a modest $0.2 million dip in pre-tax income.While maintaining the discipline of cost controls, we continue to invest in the future of our business. The investments in our Pizza Inn retail image have begun to pay returns as we opened our first new image retail prototype in Asheboro, NC, in May and begin a new era of reimaging our tired buffet assets in the Pizza Inn system. Our development pipeline yielded four new buffets in Q4, resulting in net +5 Pizza Inn buffets for FY ’23, marking the second consecutive year of net buffet increases after 24 consecutive years without growth. While the restaurant industry appears to have abandoned dine-in, we continue to lean into our differentiated strategy, focusing on the value and variety of Pizza Inn’s buffet while capturing delivery and carry-out. We know our customers are hungry for a connection and an ‘experience’ with their families. To deliver on customer expectations and increase our competitiveness, we announced a required buffet reimaging program at our July Pizza Inn franchise convention. We plan to reimage our tired buffet assets and bring our new retail image to 95% of our locations within the next three years. Similarly, Pie Five is undergoing significant investment and changes. After rolling out the most significant menu transformation in the brand’s history, focusing on differentiated pizzas made for the individual, and eliminating large pizzas, we are implementing a test to add Pizza Inn “ghost kitchens” to targeted Pie Five locations. This test will leverage Pizza Inn’s “latent brand equity” in areas without Pizza Inn coverage to drive volume and four-wall economics. We expect to be in-field with this test in Q2. Overall, we had a strong fiscal year ’23 and I’m grateful for our gritty franchisees and team members and their relentless commitment to excellence.”