Raj Vennam
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer at Darden Restaurants
Thank you, Rick and good morning, everyone. Total sales for the second quarter were $2.3 billion, 37% higher than last year, driven by 34.4% same restaurant sales growth and the addition of 34 net new restaurants. Average weekly sales grew by more than 7% compared to pre-COVID. Diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations were $1.48. Total EBITDA was $335 million, resulting in EBITDA margin of 14.7%.
The significant business model improvements we made over the past year and half combined with strong sales resulted in margin growth of 270 basis points compared to pre-COVID. We expect this to be the highest quarterly EBITDA margin growth this fiscal year as this quarter has the most opportunity given its low seasonality. We continue to return significant cash to shareholders paying $143 million in dividends and repurchasing $266 million in shares, totaling over $400 million of cash returned to investors in the quarter.
And while we're happy with our performance, cost pressures continue to exceed our expectations on both commodities and labor with total inflations of 6% this quarter. Our teams continue to demonstrate agility in managing through this environment. This quarter we implemented several mitigating actions to preserve the strength of our business model, while balancing the impact of our guests and team members. One of these actions was taking additional pricing. For the second quarter, total pricing was 2% and we expect back half pricing to approach 4%, resulting in total pricing of just under 3% for the full fiscal year.
We continue to execute our strategy of pricing significantly below our overall inflation to strengthen our value leadership position by leveraging our scale. This level of pricing covers most of what we consider to be the structural and long lasting impacts of the current inflationary environment and absorbing what we consider to be more short-term fluctuations, while providing future flexibility should there be a need. For the rest of the fiscal year, we expect commodity and labor inflation to peak in our third quarter and then start to slow down as we enter the fourth quarter and lap commodities inflation of 4.3% in the fourth quarter of last year.
Now turning to our P&L and segment performance for the second quarter. We're comparing against pre-COVID results in the second quarter of 2020 which we believe are more comparable to normal business operations and with how we've been framing our margin expansion opportunity. For the second quarter, food and beverage expenses were 220 basis points higher, driven by elevated commodity inflation of 9%, as well as investments in food quality, portion size and pricing significantly below inflation.
Restaurant labor was 90 basis points favorable, driven by sales leverage and efficiencies gained from operational simplifications and was partially offset by elevated wage pressures. Hourly wage inflation during the quarter was almost 9%. Restaurant expenses were 130 basis points lower due to sales leverage, which more than offset higher utilities costs.
Marketing spend was $44 million lower, resulting in 230 basis points of favorability. As a result, restaurant level EBITDA margin for Darden was 18.8%, 230 basis points better than pre-COVID levels. G&A expense was 40 basis points lower, driven by savings from the corporate restructuring in fiscal 2021, a decrease in mark-to-market expense and sales leverage.
Turning to our segment performance. Second quarter sales at Olive Garden increased 5% versus pre-COVID, strong performance, especially as we were wrapping against nine weeks of never-ending possible. This sales growth combined with the business model improvements at Olive Garden helped drive a segment profit margin increase of 320 basis points even while offsetting elevated inflation.
LongHorn continued its strong sales growth with an increase of 22% versus pre-COVID. However, inflationary pressures including double digits for commodities were at their highest level in the second quarter, resulting in reduction of segment profit margin by 80 basis points. Sales at our Fine Dining segment increased 22% versus pre-COVID as this segment continues to see a strong rebound in performance. Segment profit margin grew by 140 basis points, driven by strong sales leverage and operational efficiencies, which more than offset double-digit commodities inflation. Our other segment grew sales by 7% versus pre-COVID and segment profit margin by 250 basis points. This segment continues to perform well and we're pleased to see the business model transformation persist.
Finally, turning to our financial outlook for fiscal 2022, we updated our outlook for the full year to reflect our performance year-to-date and our expected performance for the remainder of the year. We now expect total sales of $9.55 billion to $9.7 billion, representing growth of 9% to 11% from pre-COVID levels, same restaurant sales growth of 29% to 31% and 35 to 40 new restaurants. Capital spending of approximately $425 million, total inflation of approximately 5.5% with commodities inflation between 7% and 8%, total restaurant labor inflation between 6% and 6.5% which includes hourly wage inflation approaching 9%.
EBITDA of $1.55 billion to $1.6 billion and annual effective tax rate of approximately 14% and approximately 130 million diluted average shares outstanding for the year. All resulting in diluted net earnings per share between $7.35 and $7.60. This outlook implies EBITDA margin growth versus pre-COVID similar to our previous outlook of 200 to 250 basis points with flow-through from pricing and higher sales helping offset elevated inflation.
Now we'll take your questions.