CMG
#I don't think, <UNK>, it will turn negative.
But when we compare against the third quarter, that's going to be our toughest comparison.
And it's going to be low single digits.
So I don't think it will turn negative.
I hope that we see a balance like from things like creating greater awareness with a campaign that <UNK> talked about and just a general increase in awareness that we from time to time get with Chipotle.
It's amazing to me that some people still have never visited Chipotle.
I just met one over the weekend.
I just can't believe it, that somebody has never been to Chipotle.
And so, the third quarter will be the toughest test but I would say right now I don't expect it to turn negative.
Yes, <UNK>, it's very hard to predict quarter by quarter.
I look at this as a very substantial three-year trend where we now have 1,800 restaurants, we're now $2.5 million, a fact that we have added $500,000 in volume while adding the 600 restaurants to talk about over the last three years at think is pretty substantial.
If you go back to the three years before that, that was a three-year trend as well that had a start and stop and it was pretty clean.
2010, 2011, and 2012.
During that three-year period.
And you can see where it started, you can see where it ended, and that was about a 27% or 28% or 29% increase.
And so we seem to have these waves.
And if you go back even as we are a private company, these waves where people figure out that Chipotle exist, they like it, they come back more often.
And so we have this kind of surge and then we have a leveling off and we have a surge and a leveling off.
Very tough to predict.
Will we have another surge, when will we have it, what will the magnitude of that surge be.
But we continue to believe that there's a great appreciation and a growing appreciation for what we do at Chipotle.
We do think millennials, in particular, are very appreciative of what we do.
We think this campaign that's designed to reinforce the idea that not only do we source sustainably raised ingredients but we do real cooking with real whole ingredients and we largely don't use things like preservatives and stabilizers and things like that.
And so we believe that that is not something that is short-lived, that's over.
We think that will probably benefit from that.
But in terms of them breaking it down into exactly what that's going to do for the next two or three quarters, it's tougher to predict and the comparisons are tough, but over the longer term, we're optimistic about where we can go from here.
Well, the write-off for the pork is offset by a re-class.
And so I would look at those is largely a wash.
So I would think of it, <UNK>, as we're going to see pressure in the next two quarters from avocados and so I think that only not pressure ---+ hopefully that pressure will be relieved in the fourth quarter.
So I would say, generally, we will probably be up a little bit from this first quarter but hopefully not too significant.
I would expect it to be below the 35%, yes.
Do I see the what transaction.
Oh yes.
Yes, in fact, I would like to see us actually improve on that over the next two quarters.
That's a nice result, especially during the first quarter which, from a transactional standpoint, is one of our slowest two quarters.
And over the second and third quarter, we usually see a significant pickup in our business seasonally.
And it's during those seasons that we really, really make sure to emphasize with all of our teams the importance of having those four pillars in place.
And in fact, at this time, we've just started a national throughput contest just to make it top of mind with our restaurant teams, have some fun with it, and bring awareness to those who are doing the best job with it, just like we did with the reporting it nationwide from team director to team director.
But this time we are actually having a little bit of a contest for bragging rights.
And we will see if we can keep pushing the needle.
But I think it's going to get stronger over the next two quarters in terms of throughput.
Now of course our ability to put through more people depends on having more people come to our doors as well.
So throughput will not in of itself drive transactions.
It's just that when you have transactions come in, if you don't have good throughput, you are stifling your ability to allow those additional transactions to come in the door.
So ---+ but yes, we are excited about hopefully continuing to improve on our execution of the four pillars, and on our execution of throughput.
Yes well ---+ you know, our suppliers are some of the largest suppliers in the country.
Our supplies are also very small independent family farms that are sometimes part of larger cooperatives.
But we buy from some of the very, very biggest suppliers.
With the bigger suppliers, we encourage them to adopt our protocols and some of them have.
And some have chose not to do so.
But we know in order to continue to ensure supply of our top-quality ingredients that are more sustainably raised, we're going to have to use all different sizes of farmers and ranchers out there.
And we have been doing that for years.
If trends don't change, we are likely going to increase prices.
If something happened in the economy, or something happened with our trends, we might defer it.
We would probably get it done by the end of the third quarter.
So if we saw something unusual happen, we might defer it just so that we don't exasperate the challenge, but if the trends stay as they are, we are underpriced on steak right now.
We're just not charging the going rate.
We actually lose money anytime somebody comes in thinking about getting chicken and instead gets steak, for example.
So we would like to fix that.
But if we decided ---+ if there were some trends that we were a little concerned about, we might decide to fix that a quarter or two later.
But right now, unless things change, I think we're going to get this done by the third quarter.
I will take the comp piece first.
When I look at the first quarter, you are right that in 2013 there was ---+ we lost a day, so that 1%, is really like a 2% comp, so you can make that adjustment.
There's also an adjustment to be made and I'm suggesting it's 100, 200 basis points in the first quarter and that's an estimate ---+ it's our best estimate right now.
And so the three-year comp, if you make those adjustments, you're talking about something in the 26%, 27% or so range.
And if you do that and if you look out at the rest of the year and listen, we do things like we adjust for trading day and things like that, I think the third-quarter in the fourth quarter will be tough comparisons.
I don't think the traffic will turn negative, but it will get close.
So the margin for error is very, very small.
But right now I wouldn't expect it to be a negative comp.
But it's going to be close so we are hoping for the best.
Yes, it was like 6.1% was menu price.
Most of the rest of the transaction, there was a small piece, <UNK>, that wasn't transaction.
But even that was greater group size than catering which even now is our light transactions because you are serving more people.
There wasn't anything in terms of people buying different items on the menu that caused the check to go up.
So it was ---+ menu price is the biggest piece, 6.1.
Most of the rest was transaction and a small piece related to group size and catering.
