These days, good news about the casual dining industry is tough to find. Even former highfliers like Panera Bread (Nasdaq: PNRA) are looking like burnt toast. As the economy cools and consumer spending shrinks, investors have been avoiding the sector like the plague.
So it's not surprising that a decent quarter from Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (Nasdaq: RRGB) went largely unnoticed. Its earnings of $0.60 beat analyst estimates of $0.54 by a mile, and they looked especially solid compared to last year's $0.53 (which got an $0.11-per-share boost from an extra week). So why didn't the stock take a nice jump on the news?
While total sales grew 23%, excluding last year's extra week, and comps were up 2.7%, the increase was all in the average check size. Customer traffic still fell 1.5% for the quarter.
Early last year, the company began a national TV advertising campaign, which initially stemmed the tide of declining traffic. But fourth-quarter traffic seems to indicate that the effort has fizzled out, even though management praised the ads for driving a sharp increase in awareness, and gushed over the awards its quirky commercials have received.
The CAPS community is wary of the company, awarding it only two stars out of a possible five. I take to heart the comments on Red Robin being a bit pricey. While a gourmet burger should command a premium price, $8.79 in Dallas for a bacon cheeseburger is a lot more than $7.29 at Chili's, owned by Brinker (NYSE: EAT), or $6.99 at Applebee's, which is being acquired by IHOP (NYSE: IHOP).
The stock price doesn't look like much of a bargain, either, trading at 20 times trailing-12-month earnings. When investors can snap up Ruby Tuesday (NYSE: RT) at less than half that multiple, or an all-world growth chain like Buffalo Wild Wings (Nasdaq: BWLD), I'm wary of taking a peck at Red Robin.
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