BJRI
#You're welcome.
<UNK>, we haven't talked about it a lot, but we definitely have been able to reduce our pre-opening cost in our business.
At times it ranges in the $500,000-plus range.
We have seen that number come down into the low $400,000 range or so.
Some of it depends on that pre-opening [phantom] rent.
Frankly, opening a little bit smaller restaurant and so on you're going to have less personal costs and other things.
It's been a big benefit for us and it's sustainable.
Whether in California or other markets, it is sustainable.
You will have bumps and things like that when you go into certain markets that are little bit higher, but overall, we made some of those changes that I think are good for us.
As far as California goes, one of the new restaurants for next year is going to be in La Jolla, California, and it's a replacement of the La Jolla one we closed this year because in this case, again, it was the landlord redeveloping the property.
In this case, we were able to get a site that we liked in that property in the landlord and us were able to make an agreement that works for us.
And we still have onsies and twosies in California.
When it is the right spot, we will take it.
That's really what's happening for next year.
We've been pretty consistent around.
There are still trade areas that, frankly, some of them, we've been trying to get into for 10 years plus that when we find the right real estate we'll still do but as we've been consistent about the we're not looking at California to drive too much of the unit development going forward.
Thank you.
You know what.
I'm glad you asked that question.
It's one of my favorite things about our concept is I often use these words, the breadth of appeal, but if that flexibility, even here in California where we as well in Montebello as we do in Huntington Beach and Irvine.
That's what really works in some of the markets you are just using as examples, Chris.
It's really that breadth of the menu enables us to do that.
We do see regional differences in areas of the menu that are more popular by geography, but we still ---+ we have pretty much something on that menu that's going to appeal to somebody in a wide range of demographic and geographics.
That helps us a great deal.
Our fundamental value just works in a lot of different places as well.
It's one of the things we briefly mentioned in our comments, but it gives us a lot of optimism when we see some of these put in the brand-new market category like the Pittsburghs and Murfreesboros that we're off to good starts there because people think we are a wholesale club more than a restaurant in some of these markets.
The fact that we are doing as well as we do says a lot about the strength of the concept.
Sorry, I thought you were done.
Go ahead.
I think we will, frankly, I think we will do better than that.
Our goal is to build these on average, and we been beating it, at $4 million.
That's the $1 million that we have been saving here.
And some of the market you are referencing, we're able to do it for even less than that.
I don't know what your definition of significantly is.
The cost of materials isn't going to vary all that much so you look at the labor content and our construction, et cetera, we do save.
There is more of a premium when we build in places in the Northeast, like our New York unit restaurants, and et cetera.
But to answer your question, we're building these restaurants closer to $4 million and achieving that $1 million savings goal and we are able to do a little bit better in those markets.
The gap is probably not as big as you think.
Chris, it's an interesting comment you made about the 1.2 to 1 sales ratio.
So if you think about what Greg <UNK> just said that we can build these restaurants for $4 million.
A one-to-one sales ratio is only an $80,000 a week, weekly sales average, because $80,000 times 52 gets you at your $4 million.
We're doing better than $80,000 but it does get you to think about fact that everybody gets on the whole weekly sales average versus comp versus non-comp.
When we get it at $4 million or we get it at $3.5 million, we can generate a healthy one-plus to one return on that which is going to generate those margins by not having to do California weekly sales averages.
That's been part of the strategy in regards to the right use of return on investment capital for us going forward and it's working out really well and we're pleased with where we're going.
That's a good question.
We're actually refreshing that data.
We have plans and are in the process of starting that process, Chris.
It's a really good question.
We do know in our loyalty base, which is we have great visibility on frequency of those guests, right, so we are driving frequency among our most loyal folks.
That is improving nicely.
That gives us comfort.
We do see, I mentioned earlier, we are seeing significant increases and improvements in our food quality scores overall.
We think that is a key driver in all of this and is paying dividends there.
The other thing, the dynamic that I think you know but I'd remind everybody is, the lion's share of the reductions occurred last year.
We are still pruning as we are adding.
This last menu, or this latest menu coming out next week, keeps a flat menu count in the 130 range.
We are taking items off as we add them.
I still ---+ we're still pushing the envelope and seeing if we can get lower overall net, but it's not been a be a 180 to 130 kind of change going forward.
We are staying disciplined to make sure we don't leak our way back into 140, 150-plus land because that's a difficult restaurant to manage.
Thank you everybody for joining us today.
We appreciate your time and like you said, if you have any follow-up questions, don't hesitate to grab us.
Operator, thank you.
