RRGB
#I understand why you're approaching it that way, and certainly there is greater upside when you have guests on late, and it's hard for me to say what percentage, because it varies tremendously by location, time of year, et cetera.
We do know that we skew toward weekends, not surprisingly, families do come out on weekends, which is why as <UNK> mentioned, we've been investing against our service and our guest experience, particularly on weekends, to make sure it is great.
But I guess I would say, the bigger opportunity is for us to get, if I would call it our mojo back, and for guests to be able to trust us, particularly at lunch, to be able to get in and out in less than 45 minutes or even shorter, and that will take some time.
I don't see us doing any kind of public guarantee, but that is something that guests will come to know us for again as they come in to try the $6.99 new items and realize that they're able to enter, get fed, close out their check on Robin on the tabletop, and be back out the door in a very prompt period of time.
Hey, <UNK>, we don't really have any plans to re-franchise any Company restaurants.
Yes.
It was 3.8 times at the end of Q2, and our threshold is 4.75.
You know, it's so hard to say.
I'm not sure I'm going to have a lot to add to the other restaurant leaders that have commented on this and spoken to it on their calls.
It does seem to us that the consumer has gone home and has pulled the blanket over their heads.
You can blame stagnant incomes, you can blame when they've gotten increased big-ticket purchase debt, politics, whatever it is, but it's really clear that the economic recovery has been far from even across the population.
Particularly, the middle-income guest who has traditionally driven casual dining is disproportionately affected by that.
I would say that even the winners in this quarter, they've driven top-line more through pricing than traffic.
It's something that we've been trying to avoid so that we can stay a good value.
We're turning to a strong value news message we believe bring some of those guests back out.
That also said, there's a lot of activity going on and off premise, and we are not actively participating in that, and that's one of our opportunities for the future and one that we're getting after immediately.
Well, we're going to have multiple pilots going on.
I'd say it's way too early to discuss or comment on delivery.
As you all know there is a number of merging approaches to this.
We're looking at all options, we've got at least three cued up to pilot, from a delivery standpoint.
Beyond that, we're going to focus on getting our online ordering up, and we've taken the time to make sure our online ordering system is completely integrated with Red Robin Royalty.
Red Robin Royalty is, again, the little engine that could for our business.
And if a guest has earned a free burger, they don't want to hear that they can't redeem that online.
It's been important for us to work closely with our provider to get that done.
We will have a 32-store pilot up and running no later than November for our online ordering and carry-out.
And we're looking at a number of ways to make sure that the guest has the same great experience they have inside our restaurant when they carry out from us.
Yes, <UNK>, this is <UNK>.
Great question.
I'm sure you've heard it through others in the industry, but certainly a tight labor market, we have seen turnover tick up a little bit.
And we've talked about labor pressure of being 5%, some of that is due to overtime hours and staffing, so the short answer is yes.
The way that we are going at this, Chris, the national media, again, from what I've seen traditionally in politics, it's become a state-by-state battle.
So, we're actually staying out of local investments up until November, so the incremental investment you'll see will be post-election.
I don't want to disclose exactly which weeks or how many dollars, but I will tell you that it's been proven in test marketing earlier this year that this type of investment, be it in television and other vehicles, will make a difference in terms of bringing new guests in.
We're also continuing to invest incrementally in Hispanic marketing, which is beginning to make a difference, and we're supporting that with just having rolled out our full Spanish-language website.
It's a variety of tools, but again, we will avoid the election in terms of investment in local markets, because our high-penetration markets often overlap areas where the election will be heavily contested.
The good news is all of these burgers have been built with very excellent margins, I guess I would say, from that standpoint.
So, we are not discounting down other items to a $6.99 price point, we're offering menu items that we have created to be profitable at $6.99.
Just as we did when we dropped Tavern Double into the market four years ago, I think you'll continue to see that the guest takes the option of enjoying $6.99 and often adds some other things to it.
It also supports our beverage marketing and other efforts along that way, so we continue to feature beverages on our promo part as well.
It had a similar profile.
Anything you want to say, <UNK>, you want to go further.
No, no.
It did have a similar profile.
While we may see some decline in our PPA, we're expecting an offset in that will drive incremental traffic.
We're still in the process of planning 2017, we'll talk more about details on that when we talk to you in the next call, and of course the one going into next year.
Well, first, we are the burger authority.
Some of the third-party groups that we're aware of told us that the second-most searched item behind pizza is burgers.
We think we can stand apart there.
We also have done research with our guests to tell us that a carried-out Red Robin burger is like as much or even better than one that they may have chosen to come into the restaurant for, because they love the option of enjoying our burgers at home.
So, we're confident about our product quality.
And lots of opportunities there in terms of being the leader in burgers for carry-out, catering and delivery.
Yes.
Through delivery, we actually have a restaurant in the Bay Area that's doing $17,000 of pure history door dash, and we haven't done anything with them, and I can tell you, we've been tracking them and our guest is just as happy with that as they are through other things.
Again, guest expectations around something that's delivered to them are a little bit different than what they expect to get at the table in the restaurant, but there's no reason to believe that there's any detriment to the quality of our product.
Thank you.
Thank you, Lauren, and thank you all for joining us today.
I also want to thank the entire Red Robin team for your support and for continuing to work so hard to get our mojo back by meeting the needs of our guests, our team members and our shareholders.
Together, we are going to set a new course forward that is optimistic, objective and open.
I look forward to sharing more details about decisions and plans, which will drive 2017 on our next call.
Have a great day, everyone, and I suggest you go have a $6.99 Buzz Mac 'N' Cheese Tavern Double.
I can assure you, you will not go home hungry.
Thank you.
