Potbelly Restaurant Closures: Sandwich Chain Cuts Under-Performing Locations, Pulls Out Of International Markets
Sandwich chain Potbelly Corp. (PBPB) closed 10 restaurants in the second quarter of 2019 and will pull out of its international markets altogether. The news comes as the company announced its Q2 fiscal earnings report on Tuesday.
The restaurants affected by the closures include two company-owned locations, two U.S. franchise restaurants, and six international shops. Potbelly has 474 restaurants that are divided between 429 company-owned units and 45 franchised locations as of the end of June, according to Nation's Restaurant News.
“As part of our strategy to hone our focus on the turnaround of our core business and exit international markets, this quarter we closed six international shops, leaving one remaining international shop, which is in the Middle East,” Thomas Fitzgerald, chief financial officer at Potbelly said during the company’s earnings call. “We expect to close that shop in the second half of this year.”
The 10 closures will add to another 15 to 22 locations that will be closed by year-end, including nine to 12 company-owned shops. The decision to close the restaurants comes as Potbelly looks to transform itself, cutting its “Bottom 25” locations that were underperforming. The company will also be reducing the number of restaurants it opens in 2019 as well, according to Fitzgerald.
“We are slightly lowering our outlook for total shop openings from 12 to 18 to 10 to 15,” he said. “We also expect four to five company-operated shop openings this year, a reduction from the previously communicated six to eight. We remain focused on balancing the initiatives to profitably drive same-store sales and traffic with tight cost control.”
To revive the company, new menu items are being created as well as enhancing its off-premise and digital sales, Fitzgerald said. Potbelly saw it off-premise and digital sales increase by 10.1 percent for Q2, comprising 20 percent of its comparable sales. Its catering, pickup, and delivery services were also up year-over-year, following a partnership with delivery service, DoorDash, in early July.
Potbelly also incurred a net loss of $1.9 million, up from last year’s Q2 loss of $360,000. Revenues dipped 4.3 percent to $105.6 million. This was a decrease from the $110.3 million in the same period last year. Same-stores sales also declined 4 percent for the quarter.
Shares of Potbelly were up 3.06 percent as of 1:56 p.m. ET on Thursday.
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