Earnings call transcript: Ark Restaurants Q1 2025 highlights cash flow gains

Ark Restaurants Corp (ARKR), with a market capitalization of $39.21 million, reported its financial performance for the first quarter of 2025, revealing a mixed picture of financial metrics and market reactions. The company’s stock price fell by 1.72% to $11.07, reflecting investor caution despite improvements in cash flow and debt reduction. According to InvestingPro analysis, ARKR maintains a significant 6.78% dividend yield, making it notable among small-cap restaurant stocks.

Key Takeaways

• Ark Restaurants increased its cash balance by $900,000, reaching $11.1 million.
• Debt was reduced to $4.3 million, showing improved financial health.
• Legal and consultancy fees impacted EBITDA by $650,000.
• The company is exploring potential casino licenses in New Jersey and New York.

Company Performance

Ark Restaurants demonstrated resilience in Q1 2025 with notable operational improvements across its venues. The company reported steady performance in Alabama, revenue improvements in Florida, and efficiency gains in Las Vegas. However, the overall performance was tempered by significant non-cash items, including a $3.4 million goodwill impairment and a $4.8 million valuation allowance on deferred tax assets.

Financial Highlights

• Cash balance: $11.1 million, up $900,000 from year-end.
• Debt: Reduced to $4.3 million.
• Goodwill impairment: $3.4 million.
• Deferred tax assets allowance: $4.8 million.
• Legal and consultancy fees: $650,000 impacting EBITDA.

Market Reaction

Ark Restaurants’ stock price decreased by 1.72% to $11.07, reflecting investor concerns over non-cash financial impacts and ongoing legal disputes. The stock remains below its 52-week high of $17.76, indicating cautious market sentiment despite operational improvements. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, ARKR currently appears slightly overvalued. Subscribers can access additional ProTips and detailed valuation metrics to better understand the company’s investment potential.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Ark Restaurants is working on establishing a new credit facility with a capacity of $15 to $20 million, aimed at bolstering its financial flexibility. The company is optimistic about potential casino license allocations in New York by year-end, which could open new revenue streams.

Executive Commentary

CEO Michael Weinstein highlighted the company’s cash flow performance, stating, "We’re probably running $2,000,000 ahead of that projection in terms of our operating cash flow." He also expressed hope for a resolution in the Bryant Park lease dispute and noted the strategic importance of potential casino developments in Northern New Jersey.

Risks and Challenges

• Legal disputes, particularly concerning the Bryant Park lease, pose ongoing challenges.
• Non-cash financial impacts, including goodwill impairments, may affect investor confidence.
• The competitive landscape in the restaurant industry remains intense, with economic uncertainties adding pressure.

Ark Restaurants continues to navigate a complex financial environment with a focus on strategic growth opportunities and operational efficiencies. With annual revenue of $181.05 million and significant growth initiatives underway, investors seeking detailed analysis can access ARKR’s comprehensive Pro Research Report, along with reports on 1,400+ other US equities, exclusively through InvestingPro.

Full transcript - Ark Restaurants Corp (ARKR) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the Arc Restaurant second quarter twenty twenty five results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Chris Love, our secretary. Thank you, and you may begin.

Christopher Love, Secretary, Arco Restaurants: Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our conference call for the second quarter ended 03/29/2025. My name is Christopher Love, and I am the secretary of Arco Restaurants. With me on the call today is Michael Weinstein, our chairman and CEO, and Anthony Sirica, our CFO. For those of you who have not yet obtained a copy of our press release, it was issued over the newswires yesterday and is available on our website.

To review the full text of that press release along with the associated financial tables, please go to our homepage at www.arcrestaurants.com. Before we begin, however, I’d like to read the safe harbor statement. I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion this morning will include forward looking statements and that these statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed on them. We refer everyone to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the risks that may have a direct bearing on our operating results, performance, and financial condition. I’ll now turn the call over to Michael.

Michael Weinstein, Chairman and CEO, Arco Restaurants: Hi, everybody. I’m going to turn it over to Anthony to try to explain a little bit better the financial data that we’ve put forth in the press release, but

Anthony Sirica, CFO, Arco Restaurants: it’s uncomplicated for you. Yeah, sure. There’s a couple of things in here that require explanation. At the end of the quarter, our cash balance was 11,100,000.0. That was up actually approximately 900,000 from year end.

Our debt was down to 4,300,000.0 as a result of principal payments made during the quarter. As we discussed on previous calls, our credit agreement expires on June 1. We are working with the bank and we’re in the process of finalizing a new facility with our current lender, which will provide somewhere between 15 to 20,000,000 of total capacity. The current 4.3 will be termed out over a three year period. As you saw in the press release, there are two significant non cash items in the current quarter.

The first of which is a goodwill impairment. As you’re aware, we look at our goodwill on an annual basis, but we’re also required to see if there are any triggering events in an interim period based on the decline in our stock price at the end of the quarter. We went through the analysis and we had to write off the balance of our goodwill in the amount of 3,400,000.0. Unfortunately, that is a point in time test. And if the stock goes up, you can’t put it back on the books.

It’s a non cash item, but it’s unfortunate as far as the timing. We also have the uncertainty surrounding the Bryant Park leases, which we’ll discuss, obviously at length, which factored into the analysis. In booking that write off, it then caused us to be in a cumulative loss position for purposes of analyzing our deferred tax assets. So based on that analysis, we then had to impair, I’m sorry, put a full valuation allowance on our deferred tax assets of 4,800,000.0 that will continue to be looked at every quarter as things improve. So it’s possible that that valuation allowance could be released in future quarters or years.

But right now we had to put a full valuation allowance on that. So that caused massive tax rate that you see there in the P and Ls. With respect to the rest of the balance sheet, there really weren’t any significant changes other than the goodwill write off and the write off of the valuation allowance on deferred taxes. With that, I’ll turn it over to Michael. Thank you.

Michael Weinstein, Chairman and CEO, Arco Restaurants: So I want to save the discussion for Brian Park and Meadowlands for the latter part of my discussion. Primarily what you should know is the EBITDA this quarter, the March, was negatively affected by some $650,000 of consultancy fees and legal fees in conjunction with our fight to retain the Bryant Park lease. So if that had not been the case, the EBITDA would have shown an improvement over the comparable quarter last year. First, I’d like to go through the various venues. Alabama continues to be just very steady.

We’re doing well there. The New York restaurants, Robert is doing well. The Florida restaurants seem to have picked up from comparable periods last year in terms of revenue on a whole. The Washington DC restaurant, we have new management. I see some improvement there.

The big improvement is coming from Las Vegas. We’re considerably more efficient than we’ve ever been there. While volumes are steady, the cash flows weekly are improving dramatically. We did a cash flow analysis for the bank in conjunction with our new credit facility. And we did that not on a fiscal or calendar year, but they wanted it as of April first of this year through March thirty of next year because that coincided with the question of whether we would keep our Bryant Park facility or not.

And we did that, I guess, in February and March. I would tell you that we’re probably running $2,000,000 ahead of that projection in terms of our operating cash flow. So things are improving. We’re still looking at deals. We hope that we’ll be able to close on a couple of things we’re looking at in the next few months.

But the important thing here is the Bryant Park situation. So as you know, our leases expired on April 30. We are a holdover tenant. We have filed the claim in New York Supreme Court, which is the lower court in New York, making allegations that basically the request for proposal process was corrupted, that the basis of the claim is that they’ve chosen a tenant, at least the Bryan Park Corporation has chosen a tenant, which has not yet been approved by the Parks Department of the New York City Library, whose approval is needed. But they chose a tenant whose initial bid in the RFP proposal reply was $1.2 when we were already paying $3,100,000 that their percentage rent deal was literally four points lower than ours, that they intend to close the restaurant for over a year, that they’re asking for free rent of eighteen months, and that they’re asking for a tenant improvement allowance from the park.

All of this just speaks of a process that no other landlord would allow to replace a tenant paying substantially more who’s been in business for thirty years and running one of the largest grocery restaurants in The United States. There is no reason for this to have occurred other than a conflict of interest on the part of the Bryant Park Corporation executives. So we have a case filed in the Supreme Court. It will take probably a year or a year and a half to make its way through. In the meantime, we expect the landlord to start an eviction proceeding, which will probably be subsumed by the Supreme Court until our case is fully heard.

So we think we’re definitely there for the next year, year and a half. We hope at some point there’ll be a political settlement to the situation. But right now, we’re operating and we’re not going anywhere. In response to questions about Meadowlands, we’ve always said that the Meadowlands possibility of getting a casino license is dependent upon New Jersey moving in response to Downstate New York City casino licenses. Those have not been issued yet.

From what we read and from what we hear, that’ll happen sometime before the end of this year. They’ll allocate the three licenses. One will go to Yonkers for sure, one will go to the Aqueduct for sure. Where the third one goes is still up for grabs. But once that happens, we think New York State will recognize that they’ll be sending New York State residents from the northern part of the state, which has very well-to-do demographics, to New York City to gamble, and they’re not going to want that to happen.

And the Meadowlands is in the best position of any location to satisfy the demands for casino gaming in Northern New Jersey. So those are the two big issues with us. The rest of the business seems to be doing fine, and I would say to you that we think it’s going to continue to improve. And we’re out there hunting for deals. So that’s the plan.

I’ll take questions at this point.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue.

For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. Again, another reminder, if you have a question you’d like to ask, you can simply press star one on your telephone keypad. And there are no questions at this time. Therefore, I would like to turn the floor back to, CEO, Michael Weinstein, for closing remarks.

Michael Weinstein, Chairman and CEO, Arco Restaurants: Okay. Thank you, everybody. Speak to

Anthony Sirica, CFO, Arco Restaurants: you next quarter. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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