El Pollo Loco Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LOCO) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 31, 2024 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Ira Fils - Chief Financial Officer
Liz Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

Todd Brooks - Benchmark Company
Jake Bartlett - Truist Securities
Andy Barish - Jefferies

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the El Pollo Loco Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the lines will be open for your questions following the presentation. Please note that this conference is being recorded today, October 31, 2024.

And now I'd like to turn the conference over to Ira Fils, the company's Chief Financial Officer.

Ira Fils

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon everyone. By now everyone should have access to our third quarter 2024 earnings release. If not, it can be found at www. elpolloloco.com in the Investor Relations section.

Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that our discussions today will include forward-looking statements including statements related to our growth opportunities, strategic and operational initiatives, expectations regarding sales and margins, potential changes to our product platforms, capital expenditure plans, expectations regarding kiosk rollouts, the ability of our franchisees to drive growth, expectations regarding commodity and wage inflation, remodel plans, and our 2024 guidance among others. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore you should not put undue reliance on them.

These statements are also subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we currently expect. We refer you to our recent SEC filings, including our Form 10-K for the year ended 2023 previously filed, as well as our Form 10-Q for the third quarter to be filed for a more detailed discussion of the risks and current impact of our future operating results and financial condition. We expect to file our 10-Q for the third quarter of 2024 tomorrow. We encourage you to review that document at your earliest convenience.

During today's call we will discuss non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP and reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of our website. With respect to the restaurant margin contribution outlook we will be providing today on today's call, please note that we have not provided a reconciliation to the most directly comparable forward-looking GAAP financial measure because without unreasonable efforts we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty the amount of or timing of non-GAAP adjustments that are used to calculate income from operations and comparable restaurant revenue on a forward-looking basis.