BJ’s Restaurants at Piper Sandler Conference: Strategic Foundations

On Wednesday, 10 September 2025, BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) presented at the Piper Sandler 4th Annual Growth Frontiers Conference. CEO Lyle Tick shared insights into the company’s strategy to strengthen its core business through operational enhancements and strategic initiatives. While the company aims for sustainable growth, it faces challenges in margin recovery.

Key Takeaways

• BJ’s is focusing on operational efficiency and menu revitalization, particularly with its pizza offerings.
• The company is investing in technology, including AI-driven labor models, to improve guest experiences and profitability.
• Off-premise dining is a key growth area, with plans to enhance digital ordering and optimize the menu.
• BJ’s aims to improve store prototypes to reflect the brand’s core values while adapting to market conditions.
• The Pizookie Meal Deal remains a significant traffic driver, with plans to evolve and expand its offerings.

Financial Results

• Pre-COVID store-level margins were at 17%, dropping to 16% in 2019.
• Current consensus estimates place margins in the mid-15% range.
• BJ’s focuses on growing profit dollars rather than specific margin targets, seeing room for upside through sales growth.

Operational Updates

• Emphasis on improving restaurant operations, reflected in higher NPS scores and lower turnover.
• The outlier program addresses waste and overtime, improving performance.
• A pilot of the Activity Based Labor Model in 20 restaurants showed better guest metrics and labor savings, with plans to expand to 20% of restaurants this year.

Future Outlook

• A new pizza menu is set to launch in November, with a focus on trial and word-of-mouth marketing.
• Menu streamlining and innovation continue with seasonal offerings.
• Off-premise business improvements are planned for 2026, focusing on digital ordering and operational efficiency.
• Store formats will be adapted to different markets while maintaining brand consistency.

Q&A Highlights

• The Pizookie Meal Deal, a $13 offering, drives significant traffic and will be used to test new menu items.
• Pizza is undergoing a complete overhaul to improve quality and guest satisfaction.
• Marketing efforts will focus on product news and social influencer campaigns.
• Store prototypes are being developed to reflect the brand’s core values and adapt to various markets.

For a detailed understanding of BJ’s Restaurants’ strategic initiatives, refer to the full conference call transcript below.

Full transcript - Piper Sandler 4th Annual Growth Frontiers Conference:

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Brian Mullen, the restaurant and food distribution analyst, here at Piper Sandler. Very happy to have, BJ’s restaurant CEO, Lyle Tick. Thank you for being here.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Thank you, Brian. Good to be here.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Lyle, you you know, you will just hit you just hit or will soon hit about a year with the company, formerly got the CEO role in June. Congratulations.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Thank you.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: I think maybe a good place to start is with the Pizzoukie Meal deal. You’ve success with driving traffic back to the restaurants. You’ve talked about this as a platform that you can evolve and build upon over time. So maybe for those less familiar, just talk about the genesis of this, how it’s structured today, you know, maybe where it sits in terms of the percentage of the business, and then consumer behavior, and really just anything you wanna

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: share. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Yeah.

No problem. I mean, I think I probably start by thinking about just kind of the big picture and contextually where it fits, and I’ll can talk a little bit more about it. You know, what we’ve really been focused on at BJ’s for for the past year, when I think about the last year, it’s been about strengthening the foundations of the business. Right? So the way we’re looking at building this business is ultimately building a better, more consistent, more sustainable BJ’s over time.

And so in the past year, the things that we’ve been focused on are kind of foundational, what we call table stakes operations. So improving the effectiveness and efficiency there, which I’m sure we’ll talk about. We’ve seen come through, you know, in our NPS scores and record low turnover. The other one is value. So the overall value equation, which part of that is delivering a better hospitality experience, but part of it is a value platform like the Bazooki meal deal.

And so the Bazooki meal deal is it’s a $13 deal. There are eight entrees, and one of things that people tell us they love about it is the variety of it. And it’s anchored in the Bazooki, which for anyone who doesn’t know, the Bazooki is a kind of cookie we cook through the pizza oven. You get ice cream on it. Become a kind of phenomenon and piece of social content on its own.

It’s our number one traffic driver outside of California and our number two traffic driver in California. So it’s rooted in an iconic product that people are interested in and provides, you know, an amazing value. And so it helps build the brand while also bringing new people into the business. And so we’ve seen that during the week helps bring new guests into the business. The new guests that we see coming into the Pizookie Meal Deal are guests that we ultimately see more often, so they come back more often.

And it is roughly about 15% of the business on the week and, you know, closer to 20 during those specific weekdays.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Understood. Thank you. And and you’ve talked about, you know, the ability to potentially build upon or evolve this over time. I think you’re looking at ways to drive upgrades or drive additional attach. At the same time, I think you wanna keep the platform fresh.

So maybe just talk about those efforts and where you are with with those.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yeah. So, I mean, the way I think about a value platform in full service. Right? Because we have less frequency than QSR or or even fast casual. And so, you know, I don’t love the idea of cyclical promotional programs that require a lot of media to get short term volume to make up for check compression.

Right? So we’re trying to build is a value platform that people can count on over time. And everything we’ve seen for our metrics and our value scores is that Pizookie Meal Deal is doing that. So now it’s a question of how do we keep it fresh and how do we build around it. So we’re kind of in the early innings of this.

We did one set of add ons, which were a salad and or chips and salsa to start, or you could upgrade your Pizookie from a mini to a full size. We’re seeing high single digit uptake in that, but the vast majority of it is the pizookie side of it, and almost all of it is at dinner. Right? So nobody’s really doing upgrades at lunch. They’re focused on dinner, and they’re not interested in the offer we put on for the appetizer.

Right? So we got some of it right, but we’re gonna continue to kind of learn and evolve and see how we can grow there. The other thing that I’m actually probably more excited about is we had a smash burger and that we were working on, and we decided to introduce the smash burger through the PMD exclusively. It became the number one item on the PMD, and people were asking for it on the weekends. So now as we go into our next menu change in in a week or two, the smash burger, it’s finding its way onto the regular menu at full price where people can engage on that, you know, probably on the weekends or maybe during the week.

And it’s become an interesting way to both keep that fresh, but also test and learn some stuff. So I think there’s a lot more to do with the Pizookie Meal Deal going forward. So encouraged by everything, obviously.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: That’s great. And and and, obviously, that helps address value one way. And so separate from that, you you’ve identified just I just wanna talk about the menu. You’ve identified maybe four key areas of the menu. Maybe you could just remind us what those are, and I think you’re starting with pizza.

So just talk to us about the insights that led you to address pizza first. What did you see in the test? And maybe just talk about the rollout later this year and what you’re hoping this does for the business.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yeah. So pizza’s a core platform. Pizzookies are a core platform. We call them pores, but it’s really a craft beverage or a craft beer kind of heritage. Shareables is the other big kind of of the core four.

And then we also know that our steaks and slow roast category and our burgers are big traffic driver categories. Right? So we kind of have our icons and our and our and our traffic driving category. So those are all big focus areas for us. We started with pizza for a number of reasons.

If you don’t know BJ’s, BJ’s was founded on pizza. Right? Before there was beer as part of BJ’s, it was a pizza place. I’m a big believer, and I come from a brand background. When you look at a brand and you’re ultimately looking to kind of both, you know, reenergize and reinforce a brand, you go back to the DNA.

You go back to the core. And you need to make sure that the core is strong because that’s what gives you the right to do anything else. And so we needed to make sure that our pizza was awesome. And the fact is that our guests were telling us it had gotten less awesome. Right?

So over time, we saw incidents going down. We saw comps going up. And when you look at kind of the word clouds of what people were saying, the biggest thing that came out was the crust. It was that over time, our crust had gotten doughy and stopped being crispy consistently. And then you start looking at some of the other comments about ingredients and all those things.

And and it led us to do a complete ground up rebuild of the pizza. So we went on pizza safaris. We looked at what’s trending in pizza, what makes a great now we knew we were gonna do deep dish. So what makes a great deep dish pizza? What things have kind of evolved over time that we maybe hadn’t evolved with?

And went for kind of a ground up rebuild of the pizza. And so that was the dough, taking some inspiration from Detroit crust, but doing it in a round. So we’ve really gotten back to a dough that’s super crispy every time and light. You know, our sauce was a was a paste based sauce where now if you look at where sauce has gone, it’s much more fresh packed tomatoes, much brighter. So we went to a fresh packed tomato, extra virgin olive oil, just very simple and bright.

Went from, you know, a cheese bend to a 100% mozzarella cheese. Went from kind of some old school pepperoni to the cup and char pepperoni, a new sausage that we slow roast and hand crumble. So really a complete ground up reinvention of the pizza. Been really pleased with what we’ve seen in the test markets and in the restaurants. Like, overall incidents of the restaurants are outperforming their control.

So so all that is very, encouraging. And in Cali because the thing you get nervous about is is kind of those old school guests. What you hear a lot from them is it reminds them of when the pizza was great. Because what they remember is a pizza that every time was crispy and fluffy, and again, the crust was kind of the biggest thing that was coming out. The other reason we started with pizza outside of just reinforcing kind of the core and the DNA of the brand is pizza’s a great value.

So we have, you know, the Pizzoukie meal deal that’s running right now. But a pizza, even if you load up a large pizza and that shelf edge pricing get high, you feed a family of four for $40 on on a pizza. So it’s a great value, provides another occasion for people to come in, and that offering is pretty unique to us. A pizza in kind of our county, you don’t see a lot of competition in full service providing a great artisanal high end pizza. And then the last thing that we found, which was I’m excited about is our chief operating officer and our kitchen managers are telling us that it’s kind of reenergized to focus on just great execution and the details.

And the reason is pizza dough is a live object because of the yeast. So it’s not like you’re just going freezer to fryer or, you know, patting a burger and then making it, and it’s cooking three minutes and three minutes. You’ve gotta be all over this dough while you’re proofing it and then cooling it and then reproofing it before you put it in the oven to make sure it’s coming out right. So it’s just kind of refocus people around culinary excellence, and, you know, that’s been, you know, an exciting kind of, I guess, secondary benefit of it.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: That’s great. And and so pizza is the first big overhaul. You know, as you map out and plan the future, as you think about the other three shareables, craft beverages, and and fazookies, you know, is there one area that you’re likely to turn to next? And and and and maybe if that isn’t the path or you don’t know yet, maybe what would you like to improve or is there an overarching thing with each where you see opportunity? Yeah.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yeah. Sure. So one thing, by the way, I was probably remiss. Pizza’s launching in November. So if you got a BJ’s near you, you know, early November, please come and try the new pizza.

Right? And and and, you know, our programs around the pizza will be very much focused on trial and word-of-mouth. We really think we have a a better product here, so that’s what’s gonna be the focus. You know, if you look at the the rest of the menu and the other categories so we started by doing a bunch category work. And essentially, what we identified was we have categories where we feel like we’re over assorted.

Right? And so those categories, what we’re gonna look at is where do we reduce the size of the category, where do you eliminate kind of low volume products, where you eliminate products that are bringing a lot of single use SKUs and efficiency in. And then we have other kind of categories where we’re looking to, you know, refresh or renovate like we did with pizza. And ultimately, getting to a better menu that’s more focused on our cores really clearly popping out and being easier to execute. So with the pizza as well as we’re launching the new pizza, we’re going from, I think, eight composed pizzas on the menu down to five.

Right? With the Pizookie, we’ve already eliminated two SKUs of Pizookie that are standing SKUs. By doing that, we’re focusing on the top performers, but we’re also giving ourselves an opportunity to bring news. Right? So later this year when we launched the pizza, we’re also bringing back our monkey bread pizookie, which we took away and social media won’t let us stop hearing about it.

We actually might have another surprise pizookie for holiday season as well. You know, as we streamline some of those premade pizzas, we can start to bring seasonal pizzas into it. So making the room for ourselves to kinda reinforce and and and drive the core as we go forward is is really the goal of the overall menu work.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: That’s great. And I I do wanna shift over to the operations. You know, so far, you’ve done some things to improve the the KDS, the POS. I think you’ve taken some action to make the reservation process simpler, both employees and guests. Mhmm.

It seems like the activity based labor model is is something worth paying attention to. Mhmm. Maybe where are you with that initiative, and and does that move to all the stores next year?

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yeah. So I think on operations, this is the area where, you know, I’m I’m probably most pleased with. And, you know, if you’re talking about where you are in a schedule, I would say we’re probably ahead of where I would expect it to be from an operations point of view. The work that we’ve done this year, and and it sets the context for the for the ADLM, has really been about the hard work of operating better restaurants. So and we’re clearly operating more effectively and efficiently as you see through the margin numbers.

But that’s been focused on an outlier program that is focusing on some really clear metrics where, you know, managing waste, managing overtime, looking at some really key metrics, managing the outliers. So as we bring the outliers up, the bottom comes up. So it kind of raises all ships and everything gets more efficient. And so we’ve been really effective at doing that and driving that accountability through our DMs and our GMs, incentivizing them correctly and holding them accountable. And and, you know, it it may not sound like the sexiest thing in the world, but it’s the hard work of running a great restaurant, and it’s been great progress there.

On the simplification front, which is some of the stuff you talked about with the KDS and POS, that’s where we looked at know, you we’ve peeled apart our gross to net, and we saw that a third of our food and beverage comps were rung and wrong and prepared wrong. Nobody’s coming to our restaurants trying to ring things in wrong and prepare them wrong. Right? So so ultimately, we had to put a shoulder up into what was getting in the way. We talked to all of the team members.

A lot of it was about how complicated modifiers got, how difficult it was to ring things in. And through that, we brought food and beverage comps down double digits this year by just putting a shoulder up against one third of those things and those two kind of unforced error error categories. Right? So I think we’ve we’ve really leaned into to some of the basics of of running good restaurants. And to me, all of those programs are programs that ultimately we build on and continue over time.

Through that, we’ve started to pilot the ABLM. The activity based labor model basically takes AI forecasting, and then the AI helps us do our actual labor model. Instead of just giving the forecast to a GM where they’re doing it, it’s actually doing the labor model for them. What we’ve seen in the restaurants we’re in 20 restaurants right now is we see better guest metrics, which by the way is our primary metric that we look at. So we see better speed, better guest satisfaction, because ultimately, you know, our thinking around everything that we’re doing I asked the team to think of two questions.

Is it better and easier for the team member or better and easier for the guest? Because if you invest in those things, you’re ultimately gonna get to a more efficient and effective restaurant. So the ABLM is showing that. It’s also showing some labor savings. What it’s telling us is we need more labor during our peak hours, but but we’re really loose around the shoulders in our non peak hours.

So it is showing some labor savings as well. We’re gonna expand that to 20% of the restaurants this year, and then hopefully expand it out as we go through next year. The thing that I’m cautious or conscious about is our ops teams have made great progress this year on just kind of the the fundamentals of the restaurants that I talked about. And as you roll out in an AI labor model, takes a little while for the GMs and and the machine to become great friends and really get the most out of it. And what I wanna make sure is that as we roll this out, it is additive and we don’t take any step back and conquer you know, surrender any territory that we conquered.

So, yes, I would see it rolling out over next year, but it’s gonna be a methodical approach to rolling it out. And then, you know, that’s the first in what, you know, would be kind of a a sequence of AI use cases. Because once it’s really working on labor, you can start to think about where it might go. It can help you think about prep if it’s forecasting really well. It can help you think about ordering if it’s forecasting really well.

But the first use case that we’re spending our time on is is labor.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Understood. And and maybe all that’s a good segue. I just want to ask about store level margins. It is topical for investors in the company. Just using consensus as a discussion point, this year, we’ll wind up somewhere in the mid 15% range.

In many ways, you are just getting started with a lot of the things you’re you’re talking about. Prior to COVID, margins were up at 17 or 17% for a couple years, 16 percent 2019. So, you know, not guidance next year, but where can these go over time? And and if if if everything works out close to the way you’re planning for the business, you know, is there is there room for upside to your Yeah. Core market?

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: So the the short answer is is I do think there’s room for upside, and and and I don’t think that those numbers aren’t reasonable. I don’t have a timeline for it. And and really, you know, the focus that we have is how do we grow sales and flow more dollars to the bottom line. Right? And that’s through investing in the things that I talked about, right, which is things that make team members lives better and easier and things that make guest lives better and easier.

Because if you do those things, you’re gonna get more repeat, you’re gonna get more sales, and obviously, a new transaction is is is the best thing you can do for your for expanding your your margins. But, you know, we’re really focused on driving that growth, driving more dollars to the bottom line that we take to the bank. And over time, that virtuous cycle, I think, you know, obviously affects percentage margin, but I’m less focused on hitting a percentage margin goal than I am on growing the business and growing the profit dollars.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Understood. Wanted to ask you about marketing kind of short term and long term. You know, what can you do now to use marketing to drive traffic and awareness in the here and now? And then kind of what might be your medium term or longer term vision? How can marketing eventually play a bigger role?

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, I think the marketing team has done some really good things over the last year. You know, we in terms of the architecture of the marketing, really focusing on PMD and the value message at those times when we do have broader marketing. Right? We’re really choiceful because we’re not gonna wanna share a voice battle about geographically where we deploy and times of year where we deploy.

So we’re choiceful about that. But when we do deploy, we see our media markets outperform other markets. I like the architecture of using the PMD to drive traffic in using product news, things like what will be the pizza launch or pizookie, like seasonal pizookies thus far to drive a lot of social dialogue and kind of brand relevance or brand heat. And then we’ve done a lot of work with consolidating with our agency performance marketing to get the bottom of the funnel more effective. So so structurally, I like what’s going on, and and the marketing is clearly having an impact, you know, when we deploy it.

I think as we go forward, what I’d like to see, frankly, is for for a business of our size is us having a more consistent cadence in terms of social influencer kind of cultural marketing. And when I look at the pipeline we have with the menu work starting with pizza, but seasonal pizzookies and then the other category work, I actually think we have a lot of the tools to feed that. So I’d like to see a more consistent layer of that going forward. You know, what I do like to reinforce though is when we think about how we’re gonna compete, like, we are not a share of voice competitor. Right?

We are not going to to suddenly be out shouting the big guys and leveraging kind of price point promotional programs to do that. The the pathway to success for BJ’s is kind of improving the foundations, as I said, of of operations, improving our value proposition, and improving our product. And I see it as building layers and cake like, kinda layers and a cake over time to build a more sustainable and stronger business from the foundations up. So marketing will play a role, but it’s gonna continue to be, you know, choiceful and targeted. You know, I wouldn’t we’re not gonna move to a share of voice driven kind of approach is what I would say.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Understood. Okay. I’m gonna pivot here. Just wanna ask about the, you know, the store base and and development. I know, I’d like to ask about both remodels and and then the new build opportunity.

I I think maybe it would be helpful just to ask first. I think you’re doing some prototype work Mhmm. Maybe working with some outside help there. So just just take us through what you’re doing there and what your goals are with with the with both.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yes. Sure.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Remodeling and new store growth.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Sure. So the prototype work, I’m I’m super excited about it and the agency we’re working with. You know, where that starts is saying, does our physical space is it the best manifestation, like the the best living, breathing manifestation of our brand and our brand DNA? You know, we talk about three words with our brand DNA. We talk about craft.

We talk about chairs, and we talk about character. And is the physical space really breathing all of those things in the most contemporary way possible? And so that is kind of the driver of the of of the prototype work to say, is that space gonna continue? Because we know it has been, gonna continue to be a competitive advantage for for BJ’s. And really excited about the work I’m seeing.

The other thing that maybe is a little bit different than how we’ve been thinking about it in the past is I like to think about it about, you know, right size, right right place, right location. So, like, in California, you know, you go into our California stores and you see some of these big stores, I mean, they’re packed all the time. And you look at, you know, potentially opening some new stores in markets like that, maybe it makes sense to have a store of that size. You know, if you go to some other markets where where we might not be, you know, have the same AUVs and those things, do we need the store to be the same exact size? Right?

So the work that we’re doing is gonna have us come out of it saying, we’re really clear on what makes a BJ’s a BJ’s and what makes a BJ’s space be unique to us. But then we wanna have the flexibility to apply that to different sizes, apply it to ground up, apply it to conversions to make sure that we have the flexibility to build the right cost, right size, and right place. So the one we built in Queen Creek, Arizona is one of our smaller footprints. It’s it’s killing it. It’s not holding back AUVs at all.

It’s one of our highest AUV restaurants. I was in Hagerstown, Maryland the other day. It’s kind of an end cap. It’s a smaller restaurant. It’s a banger of a restaurant.

You know. It’s I think we need to be a little bit more flexible with with the format as long as we’re staying really consistent on knowing what makes a BJ’s a BJ’s. So so that’s kind of the the prototype work. That will feed into the remodel program as as we get it up and running and and learn what parts of it are really singing and art.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: That’s great. Off premise business, I I think you’ve hired a director to evaluate it, evaluate and help improve the business. You know, maybe what’s that person gonna be focused on? And and and is 26 a year where you’d expect to make some progress on whatever that person’s focused on?

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yeah. I mean, I would see ’26 as as as when we start to make progress on that. When you look at our off premise business, it it grew a lot as most full service businesses did coming through COVID. We are kind of a version one point o business, which, again, probably a lot of our competitors are too, which is we kind of said, okay. We have to ingest this business, but we didn’t necessarily say are we the best at this business.

And I think we have a real commercial opportunity there. When you think about it, we have pizza as a core product. I think we’ll get the best wings in the market. We have awesome burgers. Like the categories that are core drivers of the off premise, we have great products across all of those categories.

Operationally, we need to get better. Our NPS off premise is a fraction of what it is on premise, and it’s driven by missing and incorrect. So just like we talked about putting a shoulder up against rung and wrong and prepared wrong in the on premise, we’re doing a similar sort of detailed analysis on what’s driving missing and incorrect and and how do we intervene. From a menu point of view, if you go and you look at our menu, it’s our dine in menu just run down online. Right?

It’s a bit overwhelming. We shouldn’t be offering all of our products in off premise because not all of them are good for off premise. There’s generally a concentration of products in your off premise business that are the real drivers of it, and we need to focus on those core products that are most effective. So there’s a whole menu merchandising bit of it. And then there is for our own channels, I think there’s an opportunity for our own channels to be much more effective.

They’re just I wouldn’t call our own digital journey frictionless at this point. And so, you know, we have a big shoulder up against that going forward, but I would say the off premise progress that you’ll see outside of optimizing kind of marketplace spend, but like the structural stuff, will be starting in 2026.

Brian Mullen, Restaurant and Food Distribution Analyst, Piper Sandler: Great. Well, somehow we are up on time already. So Yep. Thank you very much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Look forward to following the the journey.

Lyle Tick, CEO, BJ’s Restaurant: Yeah. Man, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

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