Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) Q2 2023 Results Conference Call December 16, 2022 8:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Kevin Kalicak - IR
Ricardo Cardenas - President, CEO
Rajesh Vennam - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Eric Gonzalez - KeyBanc Capital Markets
Brian Bittner - Oppenheimer & Co.
Andrew Charles - Cowen
David Palmer - Evercore ISI
Jared Garber - Goldman Sachs
David Tarantino - Baird
Dennis Geiger - UBS
Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays
Peter Saleh - BTIG
Lauren Silberman - Credit Suisse
Sara Senatore - Bank of America
Andrew Strelzik - BMO
Christopher O'Cull - Stifel
John Evanko - JPMorgan
Danilo Gargiulo - Bernstein
Brian Vaccaro - Raymond James
Nick Setyan - Wedbush
Jake Bartlett - Truist Securities
Brian Harbor - Morgan Stanley
Operator
Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Darden Fiscal Year 2023 Second Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time.
I will now turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Kalicak. Thank you. You may begin.
Kevin Kalicak
Thank you, Todd. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating on today's call. Joining me are Rick Cardenas, Darden's President and CEO; and Raj Vennam, CFO.
As a reminder, comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. Those risks are described in the company's press release, which was distributed this morning and in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
We are simultaneously broadcasting a presentation during this call, which is posted in the Investor Relations section of our website at darden.com. Today's discussion and presentation includes certain non-GAAP measurements, and reconciliations of these measurements are included in the presentation.
Looking ahead, we plan to release fiscal 2023 third quarter earnings on Thursday, March 23, before the market opens followed by a conference call.
During today's call, any reference to pre-Covid when discussing second quarter performance as a comparison to the second quarter of fiscal 2020. Additionally, all references to industry results during today's call refer to Black Box Intelligence's casual dining benchmark, excluding Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen.
During our second fiscal quarter, industry same-restaurant sales increased 3.6% and industry same-restaurant guest counts decreased 5.7%. This morning, Rick will share some brief remarks on the quarter and our focus moving forward, and Raj will provide more details on our financial results and an update to our fiscal 2023 financial outlook.