Landry's Restaurants Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-03-16 10:22:11.0

Tags: Commodity, Cost Reduction, Call Transcript, Earnings, Landry, Shrimp, Sales Strategy, Sales, Seeking Alpha, Landry's Restaurants Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from the line of Michael Gallo with CL King. Please go ahead.

Michael Gallo - CL King & Associates

Hi, good morning. Question I have is around cost reduction opportunities. You obviously typically, run I think a pretty tight shift in terms of costs. And I was wondering if you could put some specificity on how big an opportunity you see there. Is it mostly in G&A and hourly labor or are there some other areas where you see opportunity? And then on the commodity costs side, which commodity have you locked it on for this year? Thank you.

Rick Liem

Let me just say this. We kind of saw this coming, so we attacked cost controls pretty early without totally disrupting the company. Is there more? Sure, there is always more if we go to that next step in the economy. But we would like not to do anything else unless the economy weakens even more so, and sales weaken even more so. But, we went to that next level. The next level is disruptive. And we hope we never have to go there. Is there the ability to go there? Absolutely.

From a cost standpoint, I mean, we're saving millions of dollars in commodities this year. And our new stake contract goes in, in April. Shrimp is as cheap as it's ever been. It's just a way it's worked out that commodity costs have come down at the same time that revenue has come down. And that is tremendously helping in this.

We had great systems here in at Landry's for menu linked to our Oracle systems; we were able to really watch labor control, and how many potatoes are being thrown away. And we're just really using all of our tools that we've worked and developed in the last couple of years, three years. And so, we feel comfortable. Our percentage of sales were losing to the bottom line on a percentage is better than it is ever been by far, because everybody knows that they've got to be better right now. So that's basically where we are.

Tilman Fertitta

We've locked in chicken and beef for as on the fresh for 2009.

Michael Gallo - CL King & Associates

Okay, great. That's helpful. And then just have you... actually, I will go back in the queue. I've got another follow up to ask. Thank you.

 

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