26 October 2009 - Recession may have altered the American diners' appetite for meals away from home, however, one casual dining chain operator sees a gradual recovery in restaurant attendance.
Darden Restaurants Inc., which operates the Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Capital Grille and LongHorn Steakhouse chains, continues to see growth despite not conducting price promotional activities like its competitors.
"Olive Garden, for instance, continues to outperform the industry without the price discounting. Red lobster is also on top without the price discounting", said Darden CEO Clarence Otis in a television interview.
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Darden also benefits from favorable food and energy costs.
"We feel pretty good with where our costs are, especially on the food side. We do see favourable prices in most of the food commodities that we purchase", commented Otis. |
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The CEO added that Darden is not so affected by oil price as the company focuses more on natural gas, a market with more favourable trends and which is much more moderate in price.
Otis also said that Olive Garden is Darden's fastest growing brand as its average unit volumes are much higher than the industry average. Besides, the opening of new Olive Garden restaurants does not have any negative impact on existing restaurants and return levels are high and, as a result, so are confidence levels.
Darden Restaurants, Inc. reports about $6.7 billion in annual sales and through subsidiaries, it employs approximately 180,000 staff. Through subsidiaries, the company owns and operates more than 1,700 restaurants.