Texas Roadhouse just rounded out another remarkable quarter filled with sales, traffic, and margin growth. During the company’s earnings call, however, executives seemed nearly as excited about its two younger and much smaller concepts – Bubba’s 33 and Jaggers.
Bubba’s 33’s two-year comps are up about 12% and averaged over $120,000 in weekly sales during Q1, with about $6 million in average unit volumes.
“It’s a very strong number for us. When you only have less than 50 Bubba’s, it’s easier for those numbers to be skewed one way or another by a few stores,” Michael Bailen, head of investor relations, said during the earnings call. “We are very encouraged by what we are seeing and … we’re excited to see what we see in the future.”
Bubba’s, which was founded 11 years ago as a sports bar concept with pizza, burgers, and beer as its focal points, has four locations scheduled to open this year and “a growing pipeline for the coming years,” according to CEO Jerry Morgan. The concept has improved its margins this year while focusing on controlling costs, maximizing efficiencies in the building, and menu engineering. It just added a combo appetizer, for instance, which has been successful.
“As I look at the first quarter in Bubba’s 33, it tells me we’re in the right business. Burgers and pizzas and cold beer and rock and roll. We’re going to be just fine,” Morgan said.
“Overall, we saw some great performance in Bubba’s early this year and are very encouraged by the margins we’re seeing there and what that business can deliver going forward,” Bailen added.
Meanwhile, Jaggers – the company’s quick-service concept founded 10 years ago – generated nearly $68,000 in average weekly sales, which is hitting the goals and targets the company put into place, Morgan said. The company plans to open a mix of company and franchised locations “over the coming years,” including Jaggers’ first international franchise later this year, in South Korea. It is a slightly different approach than the mothership; about 90% of Texas Roadhouse locations are company owned.
“Jaggers is exciting for me in a lot of different ways. We’ve got eight company stores and three franchise stores and we’ve got people interested. Our service model is really working from a speed-of-service standpoint,” Morgan said. “The thing about franchising is you can go a little bit faster, and you actually learn a lot.
“We’re definitely leaning into both (Bubba’s and Jaggers) and learning a lot.”
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]