CINCINNATI Frisch’s Restaurants Inc., the operator of Big Boy and Golden Corral restaurants, said Tuesday its second-quarter net income increased 2.2 percent, despite a dip in sales, as interest expenses and income taxes were reduced from year-earlier levels.
For the quarter ended Dec. 16, earnings totaled $2.21 million, or 43 cents per share, compared with year-earlier earnings of $2.17 million, or 41 cents per share. Revenues slipped 0.2 percent in the latest quarter to $69.1 million. Same-store sales rose by 0.6 percent at the company’s Big Boy outlets, but fell 2.2 percent at the Golden Corral restaurants.
Frisch’s operates 89 Big Boy restaurants and 35 Golden Corral locations in addition to franchising 26 Big Boys.
In the latest quarter, Frisch’s interest expense fell nearly 14 percent from a year earlier, and its income taxes were reduced by 11 percent.
For the first sixth months of the company’s May-ending fiscal year, profit fell 4.9 percent to $4.4 million, from $4.6 million a year earlier. Earnings per share fell to 85 cents per share, from 88 cents per share a year earlier. In the first half of fiscal 2009, the company booked $1.1 million in losses from the sale of assets.
In addition, the company blamed higher food costs for a drop in earnings at Big Boy and pointed to reduced sales volume as the main culprit behind Golden Corral’s weaker performance.
Revenues for the latest six months rose 0.1 percent to $159 million, driven largely by the opening of a new Big Boy restaurant on Oct. 13 in Dayton, Ohio. Another location in Cincinnati opened Sept. 8.
The company operates its Big Boys in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Its Golden Corral restaurants are mostly in the metropolitan areas of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Toledo in Ohio, as well as in Louisville, Ky., and Pittsburgh.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].