Darden Restaurants (DRI) Stock Price, News & Analysis

Company Overview

Darden Restaurants, Inc. is a multi-brand, full-service restaurant company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company owns and operates a portfolio of casual and fine-dining concepts that together serve millions of guests through company-owned and franchised locations. Its well-known brands include Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, alongside other dining concepts that span Italian, American, steakhouse and upscale casual formats.

Darden’s restaurants provide a range of guest-facing services including dine-in, takeout, delivery and catering, and feature menus tailored to each brand’s positioning—Italian-American fare at Olive Garden, steaks and grilled items at LongHorn, and more premium steakhouse and chef-driven offerings at its upscale concepts. The company emphasizes operational consistency, guest experience, and menu innovation across its portfolio, and supports brand performance through centralized functions such as supply chain, culinary development and marketing.

The company’s operations are concentrated primarily in the United States, where it manages a broad footprint of locations and brand-specific initiatives. Darden is governed by a board of directors and an executive management team responsible for strategic direction, brand development and day-to-day operations. Over time the company has grown through brand development, acquisitions and investment in restaurant-level and digital capabilities to adapt to changing consumer preferences in the casual dining sector.

Key Stats

• Today's Range: $190.01 to $195.54
• 50-Day Range: $190.69 to $214.93
• 52-Week Range: $169.00 to $228.27
• Volume: 411,345 shs
• Average Volume: 1.43 million shs
• Market Capitalization: $22.20 billion
• P/E Ratio: 20.51
• Dividend Yield: 3.10%
• Price Target: $226.24
• Consensus Rating: Moderate Buy

Darden Restaurants Stock Analysis - MarketRank™

Darden Restaurants scored higher than 92% of companies evaluated by MarketBeat, and ranked 35th out of 195 stocks in the retail/wholesale sector. Scores are calculated by averaging available category scores, with extra weight given to analysis and valuation.

Analyst's Opinion

• Score: 3.7 / 5
• Analyst Rating: Moderate Buy

Consensus Rating

Darden Restaurants has received a consensus rating of Moderate Buy. The company's average rating score is 2.67, and is based on no strong buy ratings, 18 buy ratings, 9 hold ratings, and no sell ratings.

Upside Potential

Darden Restaurants has a consensus price target of $226.24, representing about 17.5% upside from its current price of $192.51.

Amount of Analyst Coverage

Darden Restaurants has been the subject of 12 research reports in the past 90 days, demonstrating strong analyst interest in this stock.

Earnings and Valuation

• Score: 1.9 / 5
• Proj. Earnings Growth: 7.26%

Earnings Growth

Earnings for Darden Restaurants are expected to grow by 7.26% in the coming year, from $10.61 to $11.38 per share.

Price to Earnings Ratio vs. the Market

The P/E ratio of Darden Restaurants is 20.31, which means that it is trading at a less expensive P/E ratio than the market average P/E ratio of about 38.47.

Price to Earnings Ratio vs. Sector

The P/E ratio of Darden Restaurants is 20.31, which means that it is trading at a more expensive P/E ratio than the Retail/Wholesale sector average P/E ratio of about 17.86.

Price to Earnings Growth Ratio

Darden Restaurants has a PEG Ratio of 1.84. PEG Ratios above 1 indicate that a company could be overvalued.

Price to Book Value per Share Ratio

Darden Restaurants has a P/B Ratio of 9.75. P/B Ratios above 3 indicate that a company could be overvalued with respect to its assets and liabilities.

Short Interest

• Score: 4.0 / 5
• Short Interest Level: Healthy

Percentage of Shares Shorted

4.53% of the float of Darden Restaurants has been sold short.

Short Interest Ratio / Days to Cover

Darden Restaurants has a short interest ratio ("days to cover") of 3.65, which is generally considered an acceptable ratio of short interest to trading volume.

Change versus previous month

Short interest in Darden Restaurants has recently decreased by 0.36%, indicating that investor sentiment is improving.

Dividend

• Score: 2.5 / 5
• Dividend Strength: Moderate

Dividend Yield

Darden Restaurants pays a meaningful dividend of 3.08%, higher than the bottom 25% of all stocks that pay dividends.

Dividend Growth

Darden Restaurants has only been increasing its dividend for 4 years.

Dividend Coverage

The dividend payout ratio of Darden Restaurants is 63.49%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%.

Dividend Sustainability

Based on earnings estimates, Darden Restaurants will have a dividend payout ratio of 52.72% next year. This indicates that Darden Restaurants will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

News and Social Media

• Score: 3.3 / 5
• News Sentiment: 1.31

News Sentiment

Darden Restaurants has a news sentiment score of 1.31. This score is calculated as an average of sentiment of articles about the company over the last seven days and ranges from 2 (good news) to -2 (bad news). This is a higher news sentiment than the 0.64 average news sentiment score of Retail/Wholesale companies.

News Coverage This Week

MarketBeat has tracked 7 news articles for Darden Restaurants this week, compared to 9 articles on an average week.

Search Interest

Only 6 people have searched for DRI on MarketBeat in the last 30 days. This is a decrease of -33% compared to the previous 30 days.

MarketBeat Follows

5 people have added Darden Restaurants to their MarketBeat watchlist in the last 30 days. This is an increase of 67% compared to the previous 30 days.

Company Ownership

• Score: 1.4 / 5
• Insider Trading: Selling Shares

Insider Buying vs. Insider Selling

In the past three months, Darden Restaurants insiders have sold more of their company's stock than they have bought. Specifically, they have bought $0.00 in company stock and sold $790,115.00 in company stock.

Percentage Held by Insiders

0.49% of the stock of Darden Restaurants is held by insiders.

Percentage Held by Institutions

93.64% of the stock of Darden Restaurants is held by institutions. High institutional ownership can be a signal of strong market trust in this company.

DRI Stock Analysis - Frequently Asked Questions

How have DRI shares performed this year?

Darden Restaurants' stock was trading at $184.10 on January 1st, 2026. Since then, DRI stock has increased by 4.6% and is now trading at $192.51.

How were Darden Restaurants' earnings last quarter?

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) released its earnings results on Thursday, March, 19th. The restaurant operator reported $2.95 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.94 by $0.01. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 5.9% on a year-over-year basis.
Read the conference call transcript.

How will Darden Restaurants' stock buyback program work?

Darden Restaurants' board authorized a stock buyback program on Friday, June 20th 2025, which allows the company to buy back $1,000,000,000 in outstanding shares, according to EventVestor. This means that the company could repurchase up to 3.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company's leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Does Darden Restaurants have any subsidiaries?

Darden Restaurants subsidiaries include these companies: Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, Yard House, Rare Hospitality Management, Bahama Breeze Holdings, Capital Grille Holdings, Cheddar’s Casual Café, Cheddar's Restaurant Holding Corp., and others.

Who are Darden Restaurants' major shareholders?

Top institutional investors of Darden Restaurants include Bank of New York Mellon Corp (0.88%), Swiss National Bank (0.29%), Hsbc Holdings PLC (0.29%) and J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG (0.22%). Insiders that own company stock include Ricardo Cardenas, Todd Burrowes, John W Wilkerson, Daniel J Kiernan, Matthew R Broad, Melvin John Martin, Laura B Williamson, Rajesh Vennam, John W Madonna, William S Simon, Susan M Connelly, Lindsay L Koren, Sarah H King, Douglas J Milanes and Nana Mensah.
View institutional ownership trends.

How do I buy shares of Darden Restaurants?

Shares of DRI stock can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, Fidelity, and Vanguard Brokerage Services.

What other stocks do shareholders of Darden Restaurants own?

Based on aggregate information from My MarketBeat watchlists, some other companies that Darden Restaurants investors own include NVIDIA (NVDA), Meta Platforms (META), Salesforce (CRM), Broadcom (AVGO), Humana (HUM), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and AbbVie (ABBV).

Company Calendar

• Last Earnings: 3/19/2026
• Record date for 5/1 Dividend: 4/10/2026
• Ex-Dividend for 5/1 Dividend: 4/10/2026
• Dividend Payable: 5/01/2026
• Today: 5/07/2026
• Fiscal Year End: 5/31/2026
• Next Earnings (Estimated): 6/19/2026

Industry, Sector and Symbol

• Stock Exchange: NYSE
• Sector: Retail/Wholesale
• Industry: RETAIL - RESTRNTS
• Sub-Industry: Restaurants
• Current Symbol: NYSE:DRI
• CIK: 940944
• Web: www.darden.com
• Phone: (407) 245-4000
• Fax: 407-245-4989
• Employees: 197,924
• Year Founded: 1968

Price Target and Rating

• Average Price Target for Darden Restaurants: $226.24
• High Price Target: $262.00
• Low Price Target: $200.00
• Potential Upside/Downside: +16.5%
• Consensus Rating: Moderate Buy
• Rating Score (0-4): 2.67
• Research Coverage: 27 Analysts

Profitability

• EPS (Trailing Twelve Months): $9.45
• Trailing P/E Ratio: 20.56
• Forward P/E Ratio: 18.31
• P/E Growth: 1.84
• Net Income: $1.05 billion
• Net Margins: 8.66%
• Pretax Margin: 9.87%
• Return on Equity: 53.54%
• Return on Assets: 9.12%

Debt

• Debt-to-Equity Ratio: 1.02
• Current Ratio: 0.39
• Quick Ratio: 0.25

Sales & Book Value

• Annual Sales: $12.08 billion
• Price / Sales: 1.84
• Cash Flow: $14.06 per share
• Price / Cash Flow: 13.82
• Book Value: $19.75 per share
• Price / Book: 9.84

Miscellaneous

• Outstanding Shares: 114,540,000
• Free Float: 113,974,000
• Market Cap: $22.25 billion
• Optionable: Optionable
• Beta: 0.61