Chipotle Mexican Grill Q4 2023 Earnings Report

Chipotle Mexican Grill EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.21
• Consensus EPS: $0.19
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.17

Chipotle Mexican Grill Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $2.52 billion
• Expected Revenue: $2.49 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$26.74 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +15.40%

Chipotle Mexican Grill Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2023
• Date: 2/6/2024
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG) is a fast-casual restaurant company known for its Mexican-inspired menu of burritos, bowls, tacos and salads. Founded in 1993 by Steve Ells, the chain emphasizes fresh, customizable meals made from a limited menu of core ingredients and a focus on ingredient quality. Chipotle operates primarily company-owned restaurants and offers dine-in, takeout, catering and delivery through its own digital platforms and third-party partners.

The company is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, and traces its roots to Denver, Colorado. While the majority of its restaurants are located in the United States, Chipotle has expanded into select international markets and continues to pursue measured geographic growth. In recent years the company has placed significant strategic emphasis on digital ordering, mobile app functionality, delivery partnerships and a loyalty program to drive customer frequency and sales mix toward off-premises channels.

Chipotle has promoted its “Food With Integrity” initiative, which highlights efforts to source higher‑quality ingredients, support responsible farming practices and improve supply-chain transparency. Leadership shifted in 2018 when Brian Niccol, previously CEO of Taco Bell, took over operational leadership and has overseen initiatives around digital investment, menu innovation and operational scalability. The company’s business model blends a fast-casual restaurant experience with investments in technology and supply-chain practices intended to support growth and maintain brand positioning.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Record 2023 performance: Full-year sales grew 14% to $9.9 billion (7.9% comp), restaurant margin rose 230 bps to 26.2%, adjusted EPS climbed 37% to $44.86, and 271 new restaurants (238 Chipotlanes) opened.
• 2024 outlook and expansion: Company guides mid-single-digit same-store sales growth and plans to open 285–315 new restaurants (over 80% with Chipotlanes) despite winter-weather headwinds.
• Rising cost pressures: Q4 cost of sales increased 40 bps to 29.7% on higher beef, produce and queso costs; Q1 expects continued food inflation (low–mid single digits) and avocado/tortilla cost headwinds alongside upcoming wage hikes in California.
• Talent and culture initiatives: Hired a new CHRO, enhanced benefits including student-loan matching and mental-health coverage, and promoted over 24,000 team members with 90% of restaurant management roles filled internally, helping GM turnover hit multi-year lows.
• Operations and throughput gains: Peak frontline staffing rose from 30% to ~50%, MAX15 throughput improved by a full point year-over-year, driving over 7 points of transaction growth and better in-restaurant experiences.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Chipotle Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year-end 2023 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing * then 0 on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press * then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press *, then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Cindy Ash, Head of Investor Relations and Strategy. Please go ahead.

[Cindy Ash, Head of Investor Relations and Strategy at Chipotle]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter and fiscal year-end 2023 earnings call. By now, you should have access to our earnings press release. If not, it may be found on our investor relations website at ir.chipotle.com. I will begin by reminding you that certain statements and projections made in this presentation about our future business and financial results constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current business and market expectations, and our actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Please see the risk factors contained in our annual report on Form 10-K and in our Form 10-Qs for a discussion of risks that may cause our actual results to vary from these forward-looking statements. Our discussion today will include non-GAAP financial measures.

[Cindy Ash, Head of Investor Relations and Strategy at Chipotle]

A reconciliation to GAAP measures can be found via the link included on the presentation page within the investor relations section of our website. We will start today's call with prepared remarks from Brian Niccol, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, after which we will take your questions. Our entire executive leadership team is available during the Q&A session. With that, I will turn the call over to Brian.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Thanks, Cindy, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered outstanding results this year, driven by our focus on exceptional people, exceptional food, and exceptional throughput. This is driving a much better experience for our teams and our guests and resulted in accelerating transaction growth throughout 2023. For the year, sales grew 14% to reach $9.9 billion, driven by a 7.9% comp. Digital sales represented 37% of sales. Restaurant level margin was 26.2%, an increase of 230 basis points year-over-year. Adjusted diluted EPS was $44.86, representing 37% growth over last year, and we opened a record 271 new restaurants, including 238 Chipotlanes. We also ended the year with a lot of momentum, as demonstrated by our fourth quarter results.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Our restaurant teams are making terrific progress in building a strong foundation around throughput, and the return of Carne Asada as a limited time offer outperformed our expectations. For the quarter, sales grew 15% to $2.5 billion, driven by an 8.4% comp. Digital sales represented 36% of sales. restaurant level margin was 25.4%, an increase of 140 basis points year-over-year. Adjusted diluted EPS was $10.36, representing 25% growth over last year, and we opened a record 121 new restaurants, including 110 Chipotlanes. As a reminder, we are returning to our pre-pandemic practice of only providing annual comp guidance. While January was impacted by weather throughout much of the country, as weather has normalized, our sales trends have strengthened.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

For the full year, we anticipate comps in the mid-single digit range as we continue to focus on the same five key strategies that help us to win today while we grow our future. Now, let me provide an update on each of these strategies, which include, number one, sustaining world-class people leadership by developing and retaining diverse talent at every level. Number two, running successful restaurants with a people-accountable culture that provides great Food with Integrity while delivering exceptional in-restaurant and digital experiences. Number three, making the brand visible, relevant, and loved to improve overall guest engagement. Number four, amplifying technology and innovation to drive growth and productivity at our restaurants, support centers, and in our supply chain. And number five, expanding access and convenience by accelerating new restaurant openings in North America and internationally.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Starting with our world-class people, I'm excited to share that Ilene Eskenazi joined my executive leadership team in November as our Chief Human Resources Officer, with over 25 years of experience in leading human resources and legal functions across a wide range of industries. I am confident Ilene will be instrumental in helping Chipotle develop and retain talent at every level of the organization and enhance the support we provide to our people, both in our restaurants and at our support centers, strengthening Chipotle as a best-in-class employer. As I've said in the past, we want to attract and retain the best people that we can develop and grow. Part of this includes listening to their needs and investing in ways that will help our employees thrive, both professionally and personally.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

This is why we recently added new benefits to our industry-leading benefits platform, like enhanced mental health care, a student loan retirement match, and additional financial wellness tools for our workforce. In addition to our benefits, our long-term growth opportunity and promote from within culture provides a path for team members to advance quickly within Chipotle. In fact, in 2023, we promoted over 24,000 people, and over 90% of all restaurant management roles were internal promotions. This includes 87% of field leader positions, which is one of the biggest jumps for our teams, going from running one restaurant to an average of eight restaurants. The ability to achieve this rate of internal promotions is a result of our strong restaurant leaders, many of whom started as crew members and who are committed to training and developing our future leaders.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

A great example is one of our field leaders in New York, who has been with Chipotle for over 16 years. He helped to develop and promote over 40 team members who have grown within Chipotle and have gone on to become some of our best general managers, field leaders, team directors, and even one of our regional vice presidents. This is the type of person who will help us to deliver on our goals of running great restaurants, delivering industry-leading economics, and expanding to 7,000 restaurants in North America longer term. Great people executing great culinary and throughput results in a terrific guest experience and drives performance. And this brings me to our operations. Strong leadership is the key to running successful restaurants with fast throughput, so it is no surprise that the restaurants with the most tenured general managers are executing the best.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

The good news is our GM turnover is at some of the lowest levels that I have seen since I joined Chipotle, and over the last couple of quarters, we have put the building blocks in place to deliver great throughput. As we mentioned last quarter, we have adjusted the cadence of orders on the digital make line to achieve a better balance of labor between the two lines. Additionally, we began collecting data on the execution of the four pillars of throughput in our restaurants and providing feedback and coaching on a weekly basis. This is allowing our restaurant teams to see progress, which is energizing and motivating as the experience of winning catches momentum. Finally, our teams now have real-time access to their Max 15 throughput results in the moment, so our GMs can coach and recognize great throughput while it is happening.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Since we put these coaching tools in place in the third quarter, we have seen the number of restaurants with at least 4 crew members on the front line during peak periods improve from 30% to around 50%. This is driving an acceleration in our throughput performance, as the number of entrees in our peak 15 minutes improved by a full point in the fourth quarter compared to last year. I'm thrilled to see the progress we are beginning to make, and continuing this momentum is critical as we approach our peak burrito season in mid-March. We'll also further strengthen our industry-leading value proposition, which consists of delicious culinary made with real ingredients that is customizable, convenient, served quickly, and at an accessible price point.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

When we are executing on all parts of our value proposition, we are providing a great customer experience, which helps all other drivers of sales to perform better, such as menu innovation. Last year, Chicken al Pastor and Carne Asada both surpassed our expectations and drove incremental transactions. This is a testament to the cross-functional effort by our marketing, culinary, supply chain, and restaurant teams that do an outstanding job innovating, as well as bringing back past favorites that are more delicious each time and are executed seamlessly. 2024 will be another exciting year for menu innovation, including 1-2 limited time offers and rolling out creative ways to shine a spotlight on our core menu throughout the year.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

As part of highlighting the core, we recently launched our latest lineup of Lifestyle Bowls, which shows how the customization of our real ingredients allows Chipotle to embrace all interpretations of wellness, whether it be plant-based, high protein, keto, paleo, and more. In connection with the launch, we announced a partnership with Strava, the leading digital community for active people with more than 120 million athletes, to encourage and reward healthy habits with a chance to earn free Lifestyle Bowls. This is giving our fans the right tools to sustain healthy habits in 2024 and beyond. In addition to menu innovation, our marketing team continues to do a fantastic job of making the Chipotle brand more visible, more relevant, and more loved to drive difference, culture, and drive a purchase.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Our Behind the Foil campaign is a great example, as it highlights key differentiators of Chipotle. This includes our restaurant teams preparing our real ingredients, made fresh every day using classic culinary techniques, such as dicing onions and jalapeños, hand-mashing our signature guac, and grilling our adobo chicken, steak, and fajita veggies on the plancha. We will continue to evolve the Behind the Foil campaign in 2024, and it's really exciting to see that our best-performing ads are an authentic, behind-the-scenes look into a day in the life of a Chipotle team member. This certainly demonstrates one of our core values, which is authenticity lives here. Our food is real, and so are we. Shifting to amplifying technology innovation, we have made a lot of progress this year on improving the digital experience.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

We made several enhancements to our app functionality, including order readiness messaging, wrong location detection, reminders to scan for points at checkout, prior order history, and more. This has helped to reduce friction points and improve the overall experience for guests. We also launched Freepotle for our rewards members, which was successful in driving engagement and enrolling new members, as we were able to surprise and delight our guests with free rewards such as guac, a beverage, or double meat. From the Freepotle drops, we were able to learn more about our rewards members to improve our ability to deliver relevant experiences in the future. Finally, we recently rolled out suggestive upsell on our app at checkout based on data we have on our rewards members, including prior order history.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Going forward, I believe we are on a multiyear path to commercializing our customer data and insights into more targeted marketing campaigns and improving the overall digital experience that will drive increased frequency and spend over time. I also wanted to spend a few minutes providing an update on our Cultivate Next fund, which launched two years ago with an objective of making early-stage investments into strategically aligned companies that further our mission to cultivate a better world and accelerate our strategic priorities. Since launching this fund, the amount of innovation that we have seen across the food tech landscape has surpassed our expectations and encompasses everything from farming, to supply chain, to alternative proteins and oils, to in-restaurant automation, and more. We have reviewed hundreds of innovative companies and have made seven investments, of which there are many opportunities for commercial engagements.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

This includes Hyphen, which we are partnering with to develop our automated digital make line, and Vebu, which we are partnering with to develop Autocado that cuts, cores, and scoops Autocados.... Both Hyphen and Autocado could help to improve the overall experience for our teams by removing less favorable tasks, and for our guests, by providing on-time, accurate, and delicious food. We continue to work on iterations of each technology at our Cultivate Center, and the good news is that we plan to pilot the automated digital make line and Autocado in a restaurant in 2024 as part of our Stage-Gate process. Last month, we announced two more investments in Greenfield Robotics and Nitricity. Greenfield Robotics provides regenerative agriculture solutions without chemicals, using fleets of autonomous robots to weed fields.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

And Nitricity uses technology to tackle greenhouse gas emissions by creating natural fertilizer products that are better for fields, farmers, and the environment. We believe both Greenfield Robotics and Nitricity could play an important role in ensuring a more sustainable future for farms within our supply chain. Our suppliers are a key enabler of Chipotle's growth and help us to further our purpose of cultivating a better world. We will continue to find innovative ways to support their ability to grow, harvest, and supply the high quality, sustainably raised, real ingredients that Chipotle serves. Our final strategic pillar is expanding access, and our development team has done an incredible job of meeting our development targets despite the timeline challenges we continue to see.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

In the fourth quarter, we opened 121 new restaurants, and for the full year, we opened 271 new restaurants, which is the highest number of openings in the company's history in a single quarter and in a single year. We have now surpassed 800 Chipotlanes and continue to see very strong results with Chipotlanes driving higher new restaurant productivity, margins, and returns. Additionally, this year we had some fantastic openings in new markets, with our first restaurant in Calgary breaking an opening day record and sustaining very high volumes post-opening day. When we serve delicious food with exceptional operations and execute great local marketing, our brand gains traction quickly, and Canada is a testament to this.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

We will continue to accelerate our growth in Canada in 2024, with 10-14 new restaurant openings planned, representing 25%-35% growth for the country. In total, we continue to target 285-315 new restaurant openings in 2024, mostly in North America, with over 80%, including a Chipotlane. To conclude, I want to thank our 115,000 employees for their hard work, which drove strong results in 2023. We hit some big milestones, including surpassing 3,400 restaurants, 800 Chipotlanes, $3 million in AUVs, and forming our first international partnership.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

As I look forward, I see the opportunity longer term to more than double our restaurants in North America, increase our penetration of Chipotlanes, surpass $4 million in AUVs, expand our industry-leading margins and returns, and further our purpose of cultivating a better world globally. As I mentioned in the beginning, this ambitious plan will require exceptional people, exceptional food, and exceptional throughput. The good news is that I am certain we have the right people and the right strategy to achieve it. So with that, I will turn it over to Jack.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Thanks, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. Sales in the fourth quarter grew 15% year-over-year to reach $2.5 billion, as comp sales grew 8.4%, driven by over 7% transaction growth. Restaurant-level margin of 25.4% increased about 140 basis points compared to last year, and earnings per share, adjusted for unusual items, was $10.36, representing 25% year-over-year growth. The fourth quarter had unusual expenses related to elevated depreciation and changes to a legal contingency. Looking at fiscal 2024, we anticipate comps in the mid-single-digit range for the full year. As a reminder, we were impacted by unusually cold weather throughout the country in January. As the weather has normalized, our underlying sales trends remain strong, and they support our full-year guidance range.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Additionally, Q1 will include the benefit of an extra day due to leap year, but this will be offset by Easter shifting into Q1 this year compared to Q2 of last year. I'll now go through the key P&L line items, beginning with cost of sales. Cost of sales in the quarter were 29.7%, an increase of about 40 basis points from last year. A larger mix shift to beef due to the success of Carne Asada, as well as elevated costs across the board, most notably beef, produce, and queso, was partially offset by the benefit of menu price increases and lower paper costs.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

For Q1, we expect our cost of sales to be in the low 29% range, as the benefit of the mix shift out of Carne Asada will be partially offset by higher costs across several line items, most notably Autocados and tortillas. We anticipate cost of sales inflation to be in the low-to-mid-single-digit range for the full year. Labor costs for the fourth quarter were 25%, a decrease of about 60 basis points from last year. The benefit of sales leverage and better labor execution more than offset wage inflation and higher performance-based compensation. For Q1, we expect our labor costs to be in the low 25% range, with wage inflation in the low-to-mid-single-digit range, and we anticipate wage inflation will tick up to the mid-single-digit range as California wages go up around 20% in April of this year.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Other operating costs for the quarter were 14.7%, a decrease of about 100 basis points from last year. The decrease was driven by sales leverage as well as lower marketing and promo costs, which were 3.1% of sales in Q4, a decrease of about 30 basis points from last year. In Q1, we expect marketing costs to be in the low 3% range, with full year to come in right around 3%. In Q1, other operating costs are expected to be in the high 14% range. G&A for the quarter was $169 million on a GAAP basis, or $170 million on a non-GAAP basis, excluding about $1 million change in a legal contingency.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

G&A also includes $122 million in underlying G&A, $36 million related to non-cash stock compensation, $10 million related to higher bonus accruals and payroll taxes on equity vesting and exercises, and $2 million related to our upcoming All Manager Conference, which is scheduled for Q1 of this year. We expect our underlying G&A to be around $127 million in Q1, and step up each quarter as we make investments in people and technology to support our ongoing growth. We anticipate stock comp will be around $32 million in Q1, although this amount could move up or down based on our actual performance and is subject to the final 2024 grants, which are issued in Q1.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

We also expect to recognize around $7 million related to employer taxes associated with shares that vest during the quarter and $21 million for costs associated with our biennial All Manager Conference in March, bringing our anticipated total G&A in Q1 to around $187 million. Adjusted depreciation for the quarter was $79 million, or 3.1% of sales. For 2024, we expect it to remain right around this level as a percent of sales. Our effective tax rate for Q4 was 26.2% for both GAAP and non-GAAP, and for 2024, we continue to estimate our underlying effective tax rate will be in the 25%-27% range, though it may vary based on discrete items.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Our balance sheet remains strong as we end the quarter with $1.9 billion in cash, restricted cash and investments with no debt. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased $144 million of our stock at an average price of $1,936. For the full year, we repurchased a total of $590 million at an average price of $1,827, and going forward, we'll continue to opportunistically repurchase our stock. During the quarter, our board authorized an additional $200 million to our share authorization program, and at the end of the quarter, we had $424 million remaining. We opened a record 121 new restaurants in the fourth quarter, of which 110 had a Chipotlane.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

As we mentioned last quarter, we anticipate opening between 285 and 315 new restaurants in 2024, with over 80% having a Chipotlane. We continue to see developers delaying projects due to macro pressures and high interest rates, along with permitting, inspection, and utility installation delays. The midpoint of our guidance range assumes these challenges persist, and we remain on track to move towards the high end of the 8%-10% range by 2025, assuming conditions do not worsen. In closing, Chipotle is a purpose-driven company that's been able to scale over the last 30 years into one of the largest restaurant brands in the world. The exciting part is that we still have a long growth runway in front of us.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Our strong economic model gives us a high degree of confidence that our ambitious growth objectives are achievable, if not beatable. And as we continue to protect and strengthen our economic model, our long-term growth opportunity will only expand just as it has over the last 30 years. So thank you to all of our employees for their hard work and their dedication to Chipotle, and let's keep the momentum going in 2024. With that, we'll open the lines for your questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Andrew Charles with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Charles, Managing Director of Restaurants Research at TD Cowen]

Great, thanks. Brian, I appreciate the ambitions that you talked about for $4 million AUVs, and I think the same drivers that were used to reach the $3 million level are still the largest drivers to get to the $4 million level, which includes operations, marketing, loyalty, Chipotlane, and menu innovation. But if you look back from several years from now and you get to that $4 million faster than expected, what driver do you think could work better than it has in recent years? Or maybe you can think about it differently. Are there new drivers that will help you get to the $4 million level, such as catering, breakfast, or automation? And then, Jack, I have a follow-up.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, look, I do believe at the end of the day, the thing that will get us to $4 million and probably beyond that, is going to be great execution in the restaurant, meaning focusing on great culinary, great people, and great throughput. You know, I think we're very fortunate that it doesn't require another day part. It doesn't require, you know, something that we aren't currently doing today to achieve that result. I do think things like automation, like Hyphen and Autocado, and continuing to do things with our Rewards program, the menu innovation, the marketing, will obviously be things that push us further and further.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

But one thing I think that we demonstrated this last quarter is when we perform better on the operation front, all those things I just listed off have a, I, I would just call it almost like a multiplying effect. So you know, the good news is we still have a lot of headroom to go on operational execution, and I think we've got the right things in place for the long term to get us to that 4 million and beyond.

[Andrew Charles, Managing Director of Restaurants Research at TD Cowen]

Helpful. And then, Jack, my questions are on the mechanics to get to that $4 million level. I mean, do you expect to stay in mid-single digits, same store sales to get there? Or do you think the law of large numbers kicks in at some point in the out years, that low single digits is the right, you know, rate of same store sales growth? And similarly, you know, what kind of margins do you think the business can support, you know, at $4 million volumes, assuming normalized commodity and labor inflation?

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Yeah, Andrew, you know, it's really hard to predict, you know, over a long period of time into the future, what comps are going to do. I think for the foreseeable future, our guidance next year in the mid-single digits, I think, makes sense. But if you look at our history, we have a history of having outsized comps when the economy is going well, when our operations are going well. You know, I would argue even the acceleration we saw in the fourth quarter was we had a great combination of demand being created by Carne Asada, you know, what's become a favorite of our customers, and throughput, allowing those sales to flow through.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

You know, those are the-- You know, I would expect those things to happen in the future, and it's very hard to predict how.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

... and when they're gonna happen, Andrew, but those are the things that, Chipotle has seen in the past, and I think that will likely happen in the future as well. But keep in mind, at these volumes, every time you add in a mid-single digit, you're talking about a $150,000 layer, and it keeps growing, over time. So the $4 million, while it's an aspirational goal, it certainly is something we think, we, we definitely will get there. In terms of margins, I would expect margins to continue to expand. We still expect to see a pass-through every time we grow our transaction, grow our sales through additional customers, about a 40% flow-through. As that 40% gets averaged in against the 26% we delivered last year, I would expect the margins to go up.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

As we get up, up to $4 million, I would expect we'd be, you know, in the high 20%, maybe even in a 30% range. Again, you're talking about predicting something over a long, very long period of time, but our margins will definitely get stronger over time, which means our returns will get stronger as well as we move from $3 million to $4 million.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Very helpful. Thank you, both.

[Operator]

The next question comes from David Tarantino with Baird. Please go ahead.

[David Tarantino, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Hi, good afternoon. Congratulations on a great 2023. My question is really about the unit growth, and I've got two parts to that. I think you've been talking about 7,000 restaurants in North America for a while, and as you build more and more Chipotlanes and see the returns you're getting, I'm just wondering if that number could prove low in your mind. Is there upside to the 7,000 over time? And then I guess the second part of the question is, I know you wanna grow faster, and Jack, you mentioned getting to 10% unit growth next year is a goal. I'm just wondering what line of sight you have to that at this point that you can share with us. Thanks.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah. Well, why don't I go ahead and get started, David, and then I'll let Jack fill in. You know, look, the way we've come to the 7,000 number is we've looked at, you know, what our penetration levels are. And in some of the places where we have the most penetration, we continue to build restaurants with success, which then gives us the confidence to do the exercise to say, "Okay, well, if you just apply that math to the rest of the country, we quickly add up to 7,000." So we think it's a very practical goal. Some might say conservative, but we definitely think it's a practical goal.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

And, you know, probably as we get closer, I think Jack's talked about this in the past, like, at one point, we were talking about having 3,000 Chipotles, then we said 4,000, then we said 5,000. Here we are at 7,000. You know, I hope it does prove to be conservative. I, I think the brand's got a lot of upside in it, but, that's how we get to the 7,000.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Yeah. And then David, on the how do you get to 10%, our visibility is quite good. Our inventory building that the teams have been doing is really, really strong. In fact, the team has had to build more inventory than we normally would need to basically offset these timelines. These timelines have really delayed everything so that you're talking about instead of 15-16 months, you know, from when you get a deal to open, it's now more like 21-22 months or so. But each year, the team builds a stronger inventory. The results of the new openings has been outstanding, so the quality's been very, very high. So the inventory itself looks really, really good.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

If we get any break in terms of timelines, with developers moving a little bit faster, with local, you know, authorities in terms of utilities, in terms of permitting, if that was a little bit faster, we actually can get to that clip even a little sooner. But we built in the exact same extended timeline that we're seeing today with the current very robust inventory, and that will get us, you know, if not all the way, very close to that 10% figure.

[David Tarantino, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

And then just a quick follow-up, Jack. Are you seeing any signs at all that the timelines could be getting a little bit shorter? Any signs of life there?

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Not, not anything sustained, David. So I mean, our teams are working really, really hard at it. You know, the most recent challenge has been developers with high interest rates. You know, they're pausing a little bit. I do think if interest rates improve this year, I do think that will, that will help, but, nothing that I would bank on right now. We're certainly working hard at it, though.

[David Tarantino, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Lauren Silberman with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

[Lauren Silberman, Senior Research Analyst at Credit Suisse]

Thank you. I wanted to ask two, one, on throughput, clearly a big area of focus, driver of traffic this year. Can you talk about how you see the potential traffic opportunity in 2024, driven by throughput and just the priorities to get there to further unlock that opportunity?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah. Well, obviously, we're really delighted to see, you know, over 7 points of transaction growth in the fourth quarter. I think that's a testament to, you know, our operations teams in the field, having a focus on getting great throughput. We've talked about this quite a bit. You know, there's the Four Pillars of great throughput. I'd say we're kind of still in the early stages of this because we're just getting people in position. I think you heard my comments about, hey, we now have four people on the front line, almost 50% of the time. That's only one component of the Four Pillars. You know, if you really think about it, right? It's, that's part of our idea of mise en place. Like, we wanna be prepared, people in position, ready to go.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

So we still have a lot of upside on making sure that we have the expo, the linebacker, in position and ready to go. So, we're still—we still think we're early, early days on this. There's a lot of upside to it. I am delighted to see the progress, though. You know, we've, we've increased our Max Fifteen pretty much every month, throughout 2023, and saw some of our best results in December, and those trends continued into January. So, lots of space to still grow into. But the thing I love is that the teams are laser focused on getting after it. I think we've now given them more tools so they have better visibility on how they're performing real time. And, you know, when I get to visit restaurants, it's the first thing that's on people's minds.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

You know, how are we doing on our throughput? How are we doing on our culinary? And how are we doing with the people and culture? So, it's nice to see.

[Lauren Silberman, Senior Research Analyst at Credit Suisse]

Great. Thank you. And if I could just ask a quick one on menu innovation, how you're thinking about it. I know you mentioned 1-2 this year. I know you typically do an LTO on chicken in the spring and then beef later in the fall. Any change to how you're thinking about cadence, especially as you consider sort of throughput and operations?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, I mean, look, I think what we've demonstrated this past year is, that's definitely a cadence that our operators can execute great throughput with. So, you know, they delivered Pollo Asado with excellence, and then they did the same thing, I'm sorry, Chicken al Pastor, with excellence, and then, followed that up with Carne Asada. So, you know, we feel really good about doing one or two a year. I think you're also gonna see us this year do a little bit more spotlighting, even on the core menu, which we're doing right now with our Lifestyle Bowls, and then you'll see us do that as well during the year.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

So, we think we've got the right cadence, we think we've got the right innovation pipeline, and also the things that we've done in the past, we've demonstrated we can revisit those with success, as most recently with Carne Asada.

[Lauren Silberman, Senior Research Analyst at Credit Suisse]

Great. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Brian Harbour, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Yes, thanks. Good afternoon. You know, Brian, you mentioned just suggestive upsell at checkout. And I was curious, you know, on, on that theme or maybe just a bar theme, what, you know, what are some things that you think you could do to drive check, right? I think we've talked a lot about transactions, but what do you think could be check drivers as we think about this year and beyond?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, look, I, I think one of the things that's been really nice to see is the incidence of our sides has continued to go up. You know, like queso and chips and salsa. We're continuing to see people adding on to their entrees, and I think that has a lot to do with what we're able to do digitally, both at the point of checking out, as well as how we communicate with people through our rewards program, right? So, you know, the suggestive sale example I'm talking about, we've now turned that into a smart suggestive sale. So I'll give you the best example or a really simple one. You know, historically, you get a Mexican Coke with your order.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

When you get to checkout, if you don't have Mexican Coke in your basket, we will serve you a suggestive sale of, "Hey, you forgot your Mexican Coke." Versus before, we might have just been saying, "Hey, maybe you should think about chips and queso." So what we're seeing is that type of insight into the individual results in more commercialization or higher check as they check out, because we're serving a lot of things that they historically have usually added to their ticket. So we're seeing that make great progress. And then, obviously, I think our queso, chips, and guac are pretty darn special. So the more people learn and experience it, the more they want to add it to their check.

[Brian Harbour, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Okay, great. Thank you. Jack, are we, are you willing to comment just on kind of the levels of pricing? I guess Q1 maybe it looks similar to the fourth quarter, but are you willing to comment on the level of pricing you'll see, just factoring in kind of California as we start to think about, you know, perhaps the second quarter?

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Yeah, Q1 will be similar, call it in that 2.5%-3% range in Q1. We haven't made a final decision, you know, in terms of pricing with the FAST Act. We, we know we have to take something that's a significant increase when you talk about a 20%, you know, 20%-ish increase in wages. And I think we've talked in the past that, you know, there's one approach where you would cover the profitability, so you would break even from a profitability standpoint, but, but not protect margins. So in other words, margins would go down, profitability would not. You know, or you take a higher price increase and you protect margins as well.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

We haven't decided within that range, and we'll, we'll wait and see just what the landscape looks like, what the consumer sentiment is, what other companies are going to do. So I would say, in terms of the impact, California represents about 15% of our restaurants. So depending on where we end up, there'd probably be an extra 80-ish-90-ish basis points to maybe something over 100 basis points in terms of additional menu price across, you know, all of our 3,400 restaurants, just to give you a kind of an order of magnitude.

[Brian Harbour, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Okay. Thank you.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Sure.

[Operator]

The next question comes from John Ivankoe with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

[John Ivankoe, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Restaurants Equity Research at J.P. Morgan]

Hi, thank you. You know, I was thinking about, you know, the amount of, you know, time, attention, labor hours, you know, that you spend in morning prep every day at the store level. And, you know, as, you know, the system, you know, grows, gains scale, you know, potentially benefits from more equipment, more technology, more automation, maybe some more centralization. I was wondering, you know, for you to, you know, talk about, you know, opportunities, you know, to maybe reallocate some of this prep labor, you know, that you may have longer term. How big of a bucket is that? And, you know, obviously, Autocado is one identified, you know, solution. You know, how much more is there and how much more could that mean to the overall business model of the future?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, look, thanks for the question. Obviously, prep in the morning is a critical piece of the puzzle. If we get our prep done correctly, we usually have a great lunch. Actually, we always have a great lunch when we get the prep done correctly. Usually, where we run into problems is if we're running behind on prep. So things like Autocado, other robotics to help us, like, cut the onions and the jalapeños, these things would be huge enablers. You know, that's why you continue to see us look at all these cobotic ideas to make prep even more efficient. You know, one thing I know for sure is if we could get every restaurant 100% of the time to have their prep done on time and ready to roll, our throughput would go up.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

So we're gonna do everything we can to ensure we're investing in prep, both more efficiently and then also effectively to get it done. You know, how you reallocate that time, you know, we'll figure that out as we get closer to it, and that's part of the reason why we're using the Stage Gate Process. As we put Autocado into stores, you know, we will see how that plays out. But you mentioned centralizing kitchens on this. That's something we're not contemplating. We believe, to keep the freshest food, the best culinary, it needs to happen in the restaurant.

[Operator]

Okay, the next question comes from Sara Senatore with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Sara Senatore, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Thank you. A couple of follow-up questions. The first is, I wanted to go back to your comment about, you know, restaurants with four in the make line going from 30%-50%. It's still a long way to go. I'm wondering if you can maybe quantify what the contributions to that 7, you know, that increase of transaction growth. Which is to say, you know, presumably it's not like, you know, every 20 points of staffing improvement gets you 7 points of transaction growth. But if you could just maybe rank order, is it, is it, staffing or are there other things that are also going into this? And, you know, parallel that perhaps with what you saw in the last decade, when you also saw a real focus on the four pillars and improvement in throughput.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah. So great question. Here's what I'll tell you is, for sure, you've got to be staffed, you've got to have stability in the teams, right? That's how we get the reps so that we execute better every time. The other thing I'll say is, when we looked back and we were doing maybe our best throughput, you know, these numbers can easily go from 50% to 60, 70-some-odd % in execution. So it's not unrealistic for us to believe we can get better than where we are today. And I think the teams know that.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

The other thing that I think is also helping the teams is to have the visibility, so they know how they performed in their 15 minutes, allows them to course correct real time, versus finding out what happened that day, and then they kind of missed out on being able to course correct for a later part of lunch or dinner time. You know, how it contributes to the comp, here's one thing I'll tell you is: we're executing better, and when we're executing better, people feel better about the food, they feel better about the brand. You know, we just got back some brand metrics that, frankly, are just terrific, and I think that shows up in our value scores, and then it shows up in the way that people are feeling about the brand. So the brand has got really strong perceptions.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

I think our team members feel really good about the success they're having, which is also really important, right? When the crew feels like they're going fast, they're giving people what they want, they feel better. Which then I think results in like, kind of this ongoing system where everybody believes, you know, they're now achieving and getting what they want. So our customers are happier, the team members are happier, the brand is stronger, and I think these are all the things that contribute to, you know, 7 points of transaction growth, or said another way, really strong value proposition that we've got in today's environment.

[Sara Senatore, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Okay, thank you. And then just on the Carne Asada, I mean, I know in the past you've gotten questions about, you know, how do you lap a really successful LTO, but here you have it for, like, the third time, and it was better than you expected. Is that marketing? Is that through, you know, digital? Because, you know, you actually spent less as a percentage of revenue year over year. So I'm just, I'm trying to understand, you know, again, what the runway is we have for these already very-

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah

[Sara Senatore, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

-successful LTOs.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, look, I think our teams executed Carne Asada, you know, better than we ever have. I thought the experience of Carne Asada was terrific. I also do think the advertising and the communication around it was really good. So I think our ads are communicating what makes Chipotle special, which is this team member that's committed to doing great culinary in the restaurant. And then when you layer in a great product like Carne Asada that gets executed with excellence, good things happen. And, you know, it was kind of, I think Jack mentioned this earlier, great demand generation with the advertising and the Carne Asada initiative, and then the folks in our restaurants were doing really terrific execution, so that people got down the line faster, they experienced great culinary, and they got exactly what they wanted.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

I think it's the combination of really having compelling menu news with great advertising and our operations team executing the fundamentals really well.

[Sara Senatore, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Danilo Gargiulo with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

[Danilo Gargiulo, Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein]

Thank you. Can you please provide maybe some color on the key drivers of the traffic comp in 4Q by income cohort or maybe by channels? And the average check, how much was the contribution from pricing versus contribution from mix? And what's your expectation, given that the delivery mix impact should be normalizing at this point?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

... Yeah. So look, one of the things that we're really delighted to see is every income cohort, we saw sales grow. So whether that's below $40,000, between $40,000 and $100,000, over $100,000, we saw progress with every income cohort. So, you know, clearly, the brand is resonating in a meaningful way. What was the other part of this question?

[Danilo Gargiulo, Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein]

The channels and in-store was by far-

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Oh, in-store.

[Danilo Gargiulo, Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein]

The stronger channel, which supports the throughput that we saw.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, in-store was the strongest, order ahead was next, and then delivery was third. And, you know, I think Jack was just mentioning this, you know, the in-store experience, when we have the culinary ready to go and you go down the line, it's tough to beat. I mean, there's no better experience than walking down the line, seeing the rice and chicken that you want, and then giving one of our team members the look like, "How about a little more?" And they do it. So, you know, that's how you end up with these big bowls and big burritos. And so I think the value proposition is just really strong in store, especially when we're executing great culinary and great speed.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Then, Danilo, just on the check, you know, the check impact was 1% +1%. That's about 2.5% price, offset by about 1.5 on the mix, and the mix is driven by group size.

[Danilo Gargiulo, Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein]

Got it. Thank you. And then, you recently significantly improved the benefits, and you really are offering a, a very strong, employment value proposition to your employees. Can you talk about the labor costs and maybe probably give the improvement implications that you're expecting from that initiative? And it would be great if you can maybe frame where you are in turnover levels today relative to the rest of the competition in the fast casual industry.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah. Look, I appreciate you taking notice. It's really important to us to make sure that we surround our employees with the right pay, the right growth opportunities, and the right benefits. And I do think some of the things that we've added, like being able to help people or incentivize people to pay off student loans and then match them with a 401(k) contribution, I think is a really good idea for the generation of people that we're hiring, you know, the Gen Zs. And also the growth opportunity. You know, folks can join our company in crew, and in 3, 4 years, quickly find themselves leading one team, and in some cases, being a multi-unit leader.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

So, you know, I just had the opportunity to meet a young lady, I think she was, like, 24, field leader, newly promoted. She was at one of our Cultivate University sessions, and you know what? The young lady is very ambitious. I guarantee you she'll be a TD the next time I see her. So, I'm excited to have these growth opportunities for people, surrounding them with great benefits and, you know, I think a great culture. You know, how does that play out in stability? We're seeing some of the best stability we've seen, frankly, in my time at Chipotle. You know, if you go back and look, the fact that we've got general manager turnover in the low 20s, crew turnover kind of in the low 100s, that's really good.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Relative to the industry, I think that's ahead of the industry, but I don't know those numbers for sure. What I do know is we're getting more stability, we're seeing less turnover, and what we hear back from people is they love the purpose, they love the culture, and they love the growth opportunity. And that's what we're going to continue to provide people.

[Danilo Gargiulo, Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Jon Tower with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

[Jon Tower, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Citi]

Great. Thanks for taking the question. I'm just curious, Brian, you mentioned earlier, the idea that suggestive selling is starting to work pretty well within the app, in terms of getting some incremental attach for orders. But I'm curious if you're doing anything within the stores, coaching people up to kind of work that as well, especially it looks like your digital sales mix, while not slowing remarkably, is coming down quite a bit. So thinking about kind of the check growth from this point forward, you know, are there means for you to be able to encourage greater attach for consumers in the store? And is there anything you're doing now?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

You know, look, I think in the restaurant, just the simple fact that I think our teams are doing a much better job of having chips and queso and guac all the way until close, is making a big impact. You know, I think we talked about this 6-9 months ago. You know, we weren't as good as we should have been, you know, call it after 6-7 o'clock at night, with being ready to go with chips or guac and queso, and now we are. Our teams are very aware that they should be ready to go with those side items. I think as a result, you're seeing more people attach them. You know, we aren't doing anything out of the ordinary other than making sure we've got great product ready to go.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

When people know it's there, they order it, and when our crew knows they have it, they're more willing to say, "Hey, do you need chips with this order?" You know, if it's 7:00 P.M., 8:00 P.M. at night and you don't have chips, you usually don't say to somebody, "Do you need chips with that?" When you do, it comes pretty natural in the conversation to say, "Hey, do you need chips to go with that, or do you need queso to go with that?" So, it's really been more a focus on executing great culinary available from open to close.

[Jon Tower, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Citi]

Got it. And then just flipping to delivery a little bit, it looks like that might be moving lower as a percentage of your sales as well. And I'm just curious if from your perspective, you're getting any indication from those consumers that this is the way that they're better managing their own spend at the store, you know, effectively trading that higher cost channel for a lower cost channel going directly to you. And actually, could you provide the delivery mix as well?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah. You know, look, I think intuitively, I think the answer is yes, right? If you're tighter on money, the most expensive way to experience Chipotle is through delivery. You know, so I think consumers know that, and they manage accordingly. But I will say the delivery channel has been pretty stable, for the most part. You know, it's in that 14%-15% range, for marketplace, and then, like, 4 or 5% for white label, so you get to, like, 20%, delivery. But, you know, it's been pretty stable and, you know, at the end of the day, though, if you need to manage, your money, yeah, delivery is the most expensive access point.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Yeah, you know, the one thing, Brian, we have is Chipotlane. Chipotlane is one example where when you offer the convenience of Chipotlane and then the value that Chipotlane, the customization that Chipotle, you normally would expect to get, you do see that the delivery will drop, like, 10 points. So it'll drop to the low, you know, call it 10, 12%, something like that, several to 10 points. And then our order ahead and pickup will move up in the high 20s. So to us, that's a clear indication that if we offer extreme convenience along with the value that Chipotle has, that people will choose that access channel as opposed to delivery.

[Jon Tower, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Citi]

Awesome. Thanks for the time.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Dennis Geiger with UBS. Please go ahead.

[Dennis Geiger, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at UBS]

Great. Thank you. Brian, just wanted to follow up on sort of the, the strength across income cohorts and, and the strength in the brand's value scores. Any other commentary sort of on, on how you think that the strength in those value scores maybe is having, I don't know, an outsized impact, perhaps, on, on the, the customer, on, on traffic that you're seeing, particularly in, in this environment where, you know, we're, we're hearing about some, some softness in, in various parts of the consumer cohort? Any, any commentary on, on that based on data that that you guys have relative to those, those value scores?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's the thing we've always talked about, which is relative to, I would say, our peer food offerings, right? So other fast casual folks have had the same or attempt to have the same quality food as us, and we're usually 20%-30% less expensive. And then when you look at some of these other categories where, you know, you traditionally view them as more value and convenience, you know, the price delta that you have to pay in order to get our quality, our convenience, our customization, you know, it's not that big of a leap up. So I think that's why we're positioned really well. You know, if you wanna move up, it's not a crazy leap up. And then when you look across, we're at a nice value relative to alternatives.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

So, you know, I think that's why our value scores are as strong as they are, and, you know, we're very fortunate that we've been able to maintain that through, you know, the last couple of years. And, you know, look, that's why we're maybe a little bit slower sometimes to take price, but when we took it, we thought it was because now the time was right. Inflation warranted doing it, but we've always wanted to do it from a standpoint of protecting our value proposition, and I think we've navigated that one pretty well, at least where we are right now. So we'll see what is in store for us, but I think we've talked about this all the time.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Maintaining that value is a really important piece of the puzzle for us, and, you know, I just love the fact that we've got quality, we've got value, and we've got speed, and we've got customization. We'll protect all those things, and, I think we're going to continue to do very well and regardless of what the environment is.

[Dennis Geiger, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at UBS]

That's great. Thank you. And then just quick, Jack, anything more on mix on kind of looking ahead to, to 2024, even at a, at a high level, how to think about the mix component of, of the check and, and how that, how that might trend? Thank you.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Yeah, you know, hard to predict because we're in kind of uncharted territory here. I would expect to see a similar kind of mix going forward, that the, you know, the pricing I already talked about what the pricing will be, and I still think there's gonna be continued adjustment to the group size for the next several quarters. I would expect it to, you know, just ratchet down. It's been ratcheting down over the last several quarters, so I'd expect it to ratchet down from the $150, but hard to predict. I don't know exactly like what quarter will be like at base, and that we won't be seeing the group size decline at all. But it's down to, I think, a very manageable amount, you know, at this $150.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

I think the fact that, you know, it's combined with a 7.4% transaction growth and, you know, it's got very modest pricing, we think it's a really, you know, healthy balance right now.

[Dennis Geiger, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at UBS]

Great. Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Brian Bittner with Oppenheimer and Company. Please go ahead.

[Brian Bittner, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thanks. On Chipotlanes, I mean, you have over 800 Chipotlanes in your portfolio now. I think you built a record 238 of these in 2023. So the prototype is really starting to gain some scale here, and, and so now your learnings are so much deeper on these assets. So can you just update us on maybe the margin profile now of the Chipotlane portfolio, maybe versus the rest of the system? And, and at-- are we at a point where there's enough Chipotlanes and enough being built in the future where, you know, as they continue to increase, as a percentage of the business, that they can actually have an impact on the overall company's restaurant margin?

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Well, they're already having that impact, but to your point, it's relatively small because 800 is still, what is that? Maybe, maybe a quarter of our system. But it's hundreds of basis points of higher margin if you compare it to our non-Chipotlane. The volumes have actually come pretty close. They're still a little bit higher for the Chipotlane versus non-Chipotlane. They've closed the gap a little bit. It was much, much higher during the pandemic.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

... But when you combine volumes that are a little bit higher with margins that are hundreds of basis points higher, and the investment costs are virtually identical, it's a much higher return. So from a shareholder value standpoint, as we open up, as we grow from the 3,400 towards 7,000, the cash and cash returns we're getting from the 80% or 85% of our new restaurants that have Chipotlane is much, much, much higher. So it does have a an accretive impact on our margin. It has a even more meaningful accretive impact on our returns. And you'll just see it every time we open up new restaurants.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

You'll see that our margins are gonna. They're gonna continue to expand as long as our existing comp transactions grow, and these new restaurants coming on board are just gonna add fuel to the fire.

[Brian Bittner, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thanks for that. And just to follow up on labor margins. In the fourth quarter, your labor margins ended up being much better than you had guided to originally. So I'm curious what positively surprised you on that line item. Was it just the higher sales and the flow-through from that? And then, as we look towards 1Q, you are guiding to some deleverage on the labor line year-over-year. Is that mostly just driven by the softer January, or is labor leverage just gonna be much more challenging this year as we move forward?

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

Yeah. No, I really, the thing that happens when you turn the calendar, you have taxes because you have people that are hitting tax levels. So you kind of reset. And this happens every year, where our taxes in Q4 are lower than they step up in Q1. So that's the only deleverage that you're seeing. The leverage that we saw in the fourth quarter is a couple of things. One, when our volumes do, when our comps accelerate, we do leverage that line as we saw leverage on that line. Two, you know, the ops teams did a good job of managing labor. And then the third thing is, our teams did a you know, a better job of managing through dealing with, like, you know, sick time and vacation time at the end of the year.

[Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at Chipotle]

That was a little bit of a negative surprise to us the year before, and our teams did a much better job this year of just getting ahead of that. So those are the three contributors. But you, you should expect that as we grow transactions next year, as long as wage inflation stays relatively benign, we should still continue to be able to, you know, to lever the, labor line.

[Brian Bittner, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thanks.

[Operator]

The last questioner today will be, Sharon Zackfia with William Blair. Please go ahead.

[Sharon Zackfia, Partner and Group Head of Consumer Sector at William Blair]

Hi, just under the wire. I guess I wanted to talk about how your most loyal customers are using Chipotle at this point. Maybe if there's a way to contrast the frequency of those customers versus five years ago when rewards even, you know, didn't exist or was very nascent. And then, by the same token, kind of talk about how new customers today are entering the Chipotle ecosystem and how they progress in frequency, maybe relative to what you would have seen pre-pandemic.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, well, the one thing that definitely is clear is if you're in the rewards program, you have higher frequency and higher check. And so obviously, one of the things we're trying to do is both existing customers and new customers continue to drive engagement within our rewards program. And so that continues to work really well. I think we're now like 38 million or almost 40 million people in the program. So that is really powerful. We and, you know, we didn't have that 5, 6, well, I guess 7 years ago, we didn't have that. And then when you think about pre-pandemic, one of the things that was kind of interesting is the pandemic kind of helped us move people into the digital system and get them going in the rewards program.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

So, over and over again, what we see is whether you're a light, medium, or heavy user, when you're in the Rewards program, you come more frequently and you spend more. And so it's a really powerful tool. And even when people are redeeming entrees, what we're seeing is they're still buying sides. They're still adding other items. So it's not just one of these things where when you accrue a free entree, you just show up and walk away with a free entree. So, you know, we're feeling really good about how the Rewards program is working with all these different, I guess, frequency users. And then, obviously, as we continue to, I think, drive the Chipotle message, we're continuing to attract new users.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

I don't know if you've seen the ads, Sharon, but I think some of the advertising we're running right now is the best we've done, and I think that's also helping to bring in new users. And then these new users are experiencing what I think is a great experience, you know, great culinary, great throughput, great customization. So we've kind of got the system still early days. I think it could be better, but the system's working, you know, so we'll probably never be finished working against making everything better, but the system seems to be working right now.

[Sharon Zackfia, Partner and Group Head of Consumer Sector at William Blair]

Can I ask a follow-up on LTOs? Do those overarch towards kind of improving existing customer frequency, or are they a real driver of new customers coming into Chipotle?

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

You know, they've actually been a really good driver of new customers. So, you know, and that's one of the things we look for when we do our testing, is how well are they at bringing in new customers? And they've been a really nice tool to bring in new customers. And then, fortunately, even when we had the LTO walk away, people are really hooked on the experience, that being culinary, right? The quality, the convenience, the speed, the customization. So, it's been a really good tool.

[Sharon Zackfia, Partner and Group Head of Consumer Sector at William Blair]

Okay, thank you.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

Yeah, thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Niccol for any closing comments.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

All right. Thank you. And thanks, everybody, for joining the call and the questions. I do want to start off with, again, thanking, you know, our 115,000 team members. We had an outstanding 2023, and without a doubt, it was because we led with, I think, much better performance in the restaurants. And this is a real testament to our employees, you know, staying focused, getting after the basics, and, you know, working towards hitting our standards. So we had some really big milestones, right? We surpassed 3,400 restaurants. We opened 800 Chipotlanes. We got past $3 million in average unit volumes.

[Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO at Chipotle]

And now we're really excited about where we go next on this journey, which is we'll be even better at throughput, we'll be even faster, we'll be even better on the culinary, and I think that's gonna result in us achieving this $4 million average unit volumes and our 7,000 restaurants in the future. So again, a big thank you to our team and, you know, obviously, we're excited about what's next. So we'll talk to you all here in the next couple of months. Thanks.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO
• Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer

Analysts

• Andrew Charles, Managing Director of Restaurants Research at TD Cowen
• Brian Bittner, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer
• Brian Harbour, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Cindy Ash, Head of Investor Relations and Strategy at Chipotle
• Danilo Gargiulo, Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein
• David Tarantino, Senior Research Analyst at Baird
• Dennis Geiger, Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst at UBS
• John Ivankoe, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Restaurants Equity Research at J.P. Morgan
• Jon Tower, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Citi
• Lauren Silberman, Senior Research Analyst at Credit Suisse
• Sara Senatore, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bank of America
• Sharon Zackfia, Partner and Group Head of Consumer Sector at William Blair