Olive Garden-owner Darden Restaurants posts quarterly operating income beat

Investing.com -- Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) has reported quarterly income that topped estimates, as patrons of the Olive Garden parent shrugged off inflationary pressures to spend on food services.

Operating profit at Darden jumped to $278.5 million in the three months ended on Nov. 26, a jump of 19% versus the corresponding period last year. Bloomberg consensus estimates had seen the figure at $271.8M.

The addition of 78 company-owned Ruth's Chris locations and 47 net new restaurants helped drive up total sales by 9.7% to $2.7 billion, Darden noted. The group purchased Ruth's Chris earlier this year in a $715M deal, adding it to a fine-dining portfolio that includes Eddie V's and The Capital Grille.

"We continued to profitably grow market share again this quarter as we outperformed industry same-restaurant sales and traffic," said Darden Chief Executive Rick Cardenas in a statement.

On Thursday, Commerce Department data indicated that U.S. retail sales rose in November due in part to an acceleration in expenditures at food and drinking places. The numbers pointed to a resilience in household finances even as price pressures force many to pull back on expenditures on big-ticket items.

Darden tempered its outlook for annual revenue, with total sales now forecast at about $11.5B during the group's 2024 fiscal year. The figure was previously seen at a range of $11.5B to $11.6B.

Same-restaurant sales growth projections were also trimmed to 2.5% to 3.0%, narrowing from a prior band of 2.5% to 3.5%.

Shares in Darden were marginally lower in U.S. premarket trading on Friday.