Dive Brief:
- Outback Steakhouse, the backbone of Bloomin’ Brands system, posted a 0.9% traffic gain during Q4 2025, marking its first positive same-store traffic quarter since 2021, according to the company’s earnings release.
- Despite this, the chain’s same-store sales declined 0.6%, driven by a 1.5% decrease in average check, according to the earnings release.
- CFO Eric Christel said on Bloomin’s earnings call that the company faced an unfavorable product mix and has been offering more value. Value offerings can sometimes lead to smaller check sizes as consumers trade down from more premium items.
Dive Insight:
CEO Michael Spanos said the positive traffic result reflected the company’s investment in Outback’s turnaround, with a particular focus on steak quality in the quarter. The new steak lineup at the chain launched in November, Spanos said. That menu slate included new sirloin steaks, a half-pound burger and new bone-in ribeye steaks.
Those products “demonstrated immediate improvements in both guest satisfaction [and] reorder intent scores,” Spanos said. “While all new steak items are in the top box of menu satisfaction scores, our sirloins are tracking to where our filets are on reorder intent, and we consider our filets to be best in class in casual dining.”
The steak launch was accompanied by additional training for restaurant leaders to make them subject-matter experts on steak.
In addition to this menu improvement, the brand has a series of initiatives across operations, facilities and marketing underway to improve consumer experience and build on its traffic gains. For instance, the brand is increasing the number of servers on the floor during peak times by 50%, targeting a 4-to-1 table-to-server ratio, rather than its existing 6-to-1 density.
This deployment will require a $7 million investment in labor across the chain’s 559 company-owned stores, and will draw on Outback’s sizable pool of “server-assistant” workers, Spanos said.
The chain’s turnaround includes a substantial investment in store remodels and investments, as the brand outlined in its November earnings call.
Spanos reiterated the extent of those investments on Wednesday — $350,000 to 400,000 per store to update half of its restaurant base. The $10 million in additional marketing pledged as part of the turnaround will be concentrated in the back half of the year, Christel said.
Spanos said Bloomin’ will also try to find $30 million in non-guest facing cost savings partly by improving back-of-house productivity. Christel said much of these savings would come from renegotiating vendor contracts.
“We're renegotiating costs with suppliers, optimizing product selections and eliminating unnecessary vendor spending,” Christel told analysts and investors. “We are also focused on tighter processes in the restaurants, leveraging technology for increased data visibility and outlier management.”
