Dive Brief:
- Yard House reached $1 billion in sales for the trailing 52 weeks, Darden CEO Rick Cardenas said Thursday in a call discussing the company’s fiscal 2027 first quarter earnings.
- Yard House is Darden’s third billion-dollar brand after Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse — the latter reached $1 billion in quarterly sales during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026.
- Yard House also posted 10% same-store sales growth during the fiscal first quarter after seeing a boost from the FIFA World Cup. This event “presented a great opportunity for Yard House to deepen connections with their loyal guests,” Cardenas said.
Dive Insight:
The World Cup positively impacted Yard House’s same-store sales by 180 basis points, while weighing on the rest of Darden’s brands. Overall, the company faced an 80 basis-point headwind, CFO Rajesh Vennam said during the call.
The soccer tournament also boosted brand awareness and introduced new customers to various menu enhancements such as burger, pizza, taco and pasta platforms that have been rolled out in recent years, Cardenas said.
“Yard House has made a huge focus on their food,” Cardenas said, noting the chain has improved value and service.
Yard House has high potential for growth and is Darden’s top-performing brand within its “Other Business” segment, Cardenas said.
Darden is planning to open 13 Yard Houses during the fiscal year, five of which will be conversions of Bahama Breeze restaurants. Half of the other openings will use a new design prototype that lowers construction costs and opens up new site opportunities while allowing the chain to sustain its $10.5 million average unit volume, Cardenas said.
As of the end of August, Yard House had 95 restaurants, up from 89 in the year-ago quarter, marking a 6.7% increase, according to an earnings release. Darden is also seeing strong unit growth at Olive Garden, which grew to 953 units at the end of the fiscal quarter compared to 933 a year ago, and at LongHorn, which reached 624 units, compared to 595.
Cardenas said that while Yard House is ramping up new unit growth, it will likely stay within a single-digit growth rate annually. If brands go above 10% new openings, it becomes more difficult to find people needed to run the restaurants and understand the brands.
