Darden Restaurants Reports Fiscal 2026 First Quarter Results; Declares Quarterly Dividend; And Updates Fiscal 2026 Financial Outlook

ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) today reported its financial results for the first quarter ended August 24, 2025.

First Quarter 2026 Financial Highlights, Comparisons Versus Same Fiscal Quarter Last Year

• Total sales increased 10.4% to $3.0 billion, driven by a blended same-restaurant sales¹ increase of 4.7% and sales from the acquisition of 103 Chuy's Tex Mex (Chuy's) restaurants and 22 net new restaurants
• Same-restaurant sales:

• Reported diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations were $2.19
• Excluding $0.02 of Chuy's transaction and integration related costs, $0.02 of closed restaurant costs² and $(0.26) for the gain on the sale of Olive Garden Canada restaurants, adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations were $1.97, an increase of 12.6%³
• The Company repurchased $183 million of its outstanding common stock

"We had a strong start to the fiscal year with same-restaurant sales and earnings growth that exceeded our expectations," said Darden President & CEO Rick Cardenas. "The strength of our results is a testament to the power of our strategy. Across our portfolio, our restaurant teams remained focused on being brilliant with the basics and, at the Darden level, we continued to leverage our four competitive advantages to position our brands for long-term success. Our winning strategy is enabling us to grow sales and market share, while making meaningful investments in our business and returning capital to our shareholders."

Segment Performance

During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the Company changed its reporting of segment profit to exclude pre-opening costs. Fiscal 2025 figures were recast for comparability. Segment profit represents sales, less costs for food and beverage, restaurant labor, restaurant expenses and marketing expenses. Segment profit excludes non-cash real estate related expenses.  Sales and profits from Chuy's restaurants are included within the Other Business segment from the date of acquisition forward.

 

 

Dividend Declared

Darden's Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.50 per share on the Company's outstanding common stock. The dividend is payable on November 3, 2025 to shareholders of record at the close of business on October 10, 2025.

Share Repurchase Program

During the quarter, the Company repurchased approximately 0.9 million shares of its common stock for a total of $183 million. As of the end of the fiscal first quarter, the Company had $865 million remaining under the current $1 billion repurchase authorization.

Fiscal 2026 Financial Outlook

The Company updated its full year financial outlook for fiscal 2026, which includes a 53rd week. This outlook includes the impact of the additional week. We will provide additional details during our investor conference call scheduled for this morning at 8:30 am ET.

• Total sales growth of 7.5% to 8.5%, including approximately 2% growth related to the 53rd week
• Same-restaurant sales⁴ growth of 2.5% to 3.5%
• New restaurant openings of approximately 65
• Total capital spending of $700 to $750 million
• Total inflation of 3.0% to 3.5%
• An effective tax rate of approximately 13%
• Adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations of $10.50 to $10.70³, including:
  • Approximately $0.20 related to the addition of the 53rd week
• Approximately 117 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding

Investor Conference Call

The Company will host a conference call and slide presentation today, Thursday, September 18, 2025 at 8:30 am ET to review its recent financial performance. The call will be webcast live at: https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=4nZwpAXI. Please allow extra time prior to the call to visit the site and download any software required to listen to the webcast. Prior to the call, a slide presentation will be posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at: www.darden.com. For those who cannot access the Internet, please dial 1-877-407-9219. For those who cannot listen to the live broadcast, a replay will be available shortly after the call.

About Darden

Darden is a restaurant company featuring a portfolio of differentiated brands that include Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, Ruth's Chris Steak House, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Chuy's, Seasons 52, Eddie V's and Bahama Breeze. For more information, please visit www.darden.com.

Information About Forward-Looking Statements

Forward-looking statements in this communication regarding our expected earnings performance and all other statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation statements concerning our future economic performance, are made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which such statements are first made, and we undertake no obligation to update such statements to reflect events or circumstances arising after such date. We wish to caution investors not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those anticipated in the statements. The most significant of these uncertainties are described in Darden's Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and Form 8-K reports. These risks and uncertainties include: a failure to address cost pressures and a failure to effectively deliver cost management activities and achieve some economies of scale in purchasing, certain economic and business factors and their impacts on the restaurant industry and other general macroeconomic factors including unemployment, energy prices, tariffs and interest rates, the inability to hire, train, reward and retain restaurant team members and determine and maintain adequate staffing, a failure to recruit, develop and retain effective leaders or the loss or shortage of personnel with key capacities and skills that could impact our strategic direction, increased labor and insurance costs, health concerns arising from food-related pandemics, outbreaks of flu, viruses or other diseases, food safety and food-borne illness concerns, insufficient guest or employee facing technology or a failure to maintain a continuous and secure cyber network, compliance with privacy and data protection laws and risks of failures or breaches of our data protection systems, the inability to successfully complete our integration of Chuy's Holdings operations into our business, risks relating to public policy changes and federal, state and local regulation of our business, intense competition, changing consumer preferences, an inability or failure to recognize, respond to and effectively manage the accelerated impact of social media, a failure to identify and execute innovative marketing and guest relationship tactics, ineffective or improper use of other marketing initiatives and increased advertising and marketing costs, climate change, adverse weather conditions and natural disasters, long-term and non-cancelable property leases, inability or failure to execute a business continuity plan following a major natural disaster, shortages , delays or interruptions in the delivery of food and other products and services from our third-party vendors and suppliers, failure to drive profitable sales growth, a lack of availability of suitable locations for new restaurants or a decline in the quality of locations of our current restaurants, higher-than-anticipated costs associated with the opening of new restaurants or with the closing, relocating or remodeling of existing restaurants, risks associated with doing business with franchisees, licensees and vendors in foreign markets, volatility in the market value of derivatives, volatility in the U.S. equity markets affecting our ability to efficiently hedge exposures, failure to protect our intellectual property, our reporting on environmental, social and governance matters or our sustainability ratings, litigation, unfavorable publicity or failure to respond effectively to adverse publicity, disruptions in the financial and credit markets, impairment of the carrying value of our goodwill or other intangible assets, changes in tax laws or unanticipated tax liabilities, failure of our internal controls over financial reporting and future changes in accounting standards, and other factors and uncertainties discussed from time to time in reports filed by Darden with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Non-GAAP Information

The information in this press release includes financial information determined by methods other than in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), such as adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations. The Company's management uses these non-GAAP measures in its analysis of the Company's performance. The Company believes that the presentation of certain non-GAAP measures provides useful supplemental information that is essential to a proper understanding of the operating results of the Company's businesses. These non-GAAP disclosures should not be viewed as a substitute for operating results determined in accordance with GAAP, nor are they necessarily comparable to non-GAAP performance measures that may be presented by other companies. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures are included in this release.

(Analysts) Courtney Aquilla, (407) 245-5054; (Media) Rich Jeffers, (407) 245-4189

 

 

 

 

 

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SOURCE Darden Restaurants, Inc.: Financial