Portillo's Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 27, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Barbara Noverini - Director, Investor Relations

Michael Osanloo - President & Chief Executive Officer

Michelle Hook - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Sharon Zackfia - William Blair

Sara Senatore - Bank of America

Chris O'Cull - Stifel

Brian Mullan - Piper Sandler

Andy Barish - Jefferies

Dennis Geiger - UBS

David Tarantino - Baird

Brian Harbour - Morgan Stanley

Gregory Francfort - Guggenheim Securities

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Portillo's Fourth Quarter and Year End 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Barbara Noverini, Portillo's Director of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Barbara Noverini

Thank you, operator. Good morning everyone and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. Our 10-K, earnings press release, and supplemental presentation are posted at investors.portillos.com.

With me on the call today is Michael Osanloo, President and Chief Executive Officer and Michelle Hook, Chief Financial Officer. Any commentary may hear about our future results and business conditions are forward-looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance.

We do not update these forward-looking statements unless required by law. Our 10-K identifies risk factors that may cause our actual results to vary materially from these forward-looking statements.

Today's earnings call we'll make reference to non-GAAP financial measures, which are not an alternative to GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to their most comparable GAAP counterparts are included in this morning's posted materials. Finally, after we deliver our prepared remarks, we will open the lines for your questions.

Now, let me turn the call over to Michael Osanloo, President and Chief Executive Officer of Portillo's.

Michael Osanloo

Thank you, Barb and good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. I'm happy to share that we had a great fourth quarter and ended the year on a high note.

In the fourth quarter, total sales increased 24.5% to approximately $188 million. Same-restaurant sales grew 4.4%, on the back of transactions increasing 1.3%. Restaurant-level adjusted EBITDA grew 42.7% to $46 million and restaurant-level adjusted EBITDA margins expanded by 310 basis points to 24.3%.