OC Business Journal

Renovations, beer club on tap as part of dine-in incentives

In the face of staffing and supply shortages, BJ’s Restaurants Inc. (Nasdaq: BJRI) plans to mitigate costs across its organization while keeping the appearance of BJ’s restaurants attractive to consumers.

Despite Chief Executive Greg Levin’s desire to provide affordability, the company made a 1.8% menu price increase in February and another 1.4% boost is coming in June.

“This amount of pricing is still behind current inflationary trends,” Levin told analysts.

After citing aftereffects from January’s COVID-19 variant for low in-restaurant dining numbers, the restaurant operator has tried a few strategies to maintain customer loyalty.

BJ’s introduced a California Beer Club subscription service in 2021 to drive more in-store traffic and spending, and the company reported high customer engagement during the first quarter of 2022.

The restaurant chain also saw gains this past quarter from a remodel initiative featuring room capacity expansions, new design elements, and revitalizing hospitality practices to boost dine-in services as BJ’s sit-in restaurant crowds return.

BJ’s priority for surviving the inflation era will be capitalizing on driving traffic back into its restaurants.

“Sales are improving with guest demand, [and] we can drive guests into our restaurants to leverage the fixed costs in our business to improve margins,” Levin said.

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