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Lucky Strike Entertainment reported its Q4 2025 earnings, revealing a slight earnings per share (EPS) miss with an actual EPS of -$0.095 compared to the forecasted -$0.09, marking a 5.56% negative surprise. Revenue exceeded expectations, reaching $301.2 million against a projected $292.61 million, a 2.94% positive surprise. The company’s stock reacted positively in pre-market trading, rising 4.22% to $11.12, despite a recent decline of 8.82% from the last closing price. According to InvestingPro data, the company has maintained a steady revenue growth with a 5-year CAGR of 11%.
Key Takeaways
- Revenue for Q4 2025 was $301.2 million, surpassing forecasts.
- EPS was slightly below expectations at -$0.095.
- Pre-market stock rose by 4.22% following the earnings release.
- Same-store sales declined 4.1% but showed monthly improvement.
- The company is expanding into new markets, including water parks.
Company Performance
Lucky Strike Entertainment demonstrated resilience in Q4 2025, with total revenue increasing by 6.1% year-over-year. Despite challenges in same-store sales, which declined by 4.1%, the company managed to improve sequentially each month. The California market, a significant contributor to sales, showed signs of recovery, although it accounted for a $6 million decline in same-store sales. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company’s current market capitalization stands at $1.36 billion, with a concerning current ratio of 0.64, indicating potential liquidity challenges.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $301.2 million, up 6.1% year-over-year
- Adjusted EBITDA: $88.7 million, increased from $83.4 million
- Net Debt: $1.3 billion
- Cash Position: $60 million
- Liquidity: $342 million
Earnings vs. Forecast
Lucky Strike’s EPS of -$0.095 was a slight miss compared to the forecast of -$0.09, resulting in a 5.56% negative surprise. However, the revenue of $301.2 million exceeded expectations by 2.94%, indicating strong sales performance despite the earnings miss.
Market Reaction
The company’s stock experienced a 4.22% increase in pre-market trading, reaching $11.12. This rise comes after a recent 8.82% decline from the last closing price of $10.67. The positive revenue surprise likely contributed to the favorable market reaction. Based on InvestingPro Fair Value analysis, the stock appears overvalued at current levels, despite showing strong momentum with a 5.64% return over the past week.
Outlook & Guidance
Lucky Strike provided an optimistic outlook for FY 2026, projecting total revenue between $1.26 billion and $1.31 billion and adjusted EBITDA between $375 million and $415 million. The company anticipates positive same-store sales growth of 1-5% and plans to increase marketing spend to align with industry benchmarks.
Executive Commentary
CEO Thomas Shannon emphasized the company’s strategic direction, stating, "We view this as ultimately becoming sort of a mini Disney." Lev Exter, President, noted, "Innovation has been working for us," highlighting the successful launch of new products like craft lemonades and energy mocktails.
Risks and Challenges
- Continued pressure on same-store sales, particularly in key markets like California.
- High net debt levels of $1.3 billion could impact financial flexibility.
- Competitive landscape, including rivals like Topgolf, poses a challenge.
- Economic uncertainties may affect consumer spending in entertainment sectors.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the effectiveness of increased marketing investments and the company’s strategy to compete with Topgolf. Executives also addressed the seasonal variations in performance and detailed the ongoing rebranding strategy from Valero to Lucky Strike.
Full transcript - Lucky Strike Entertainment Corp (LUCK) Q4 2025:
Conference Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Lucky Strike Entertainment’s Fourth Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Robert Lavin, Chief Financial Officer.
Thank you. Please go ahead.
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Good morning to everyone on the call. This is Bobby Lavin, Lucky Strike’s Chief Financial Officer. Welcome to our conference call to discuss Lucky Strike’s fourth quarter twenty twenty five earnings. Today, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the period ended 06/29/2025. A copy of the press release is available in the Investor Relations section of our website.
Joining me on the call today are Thomas Shannon, our Founder and Chief Executive and Lev Exter, our President. I’d like to remind you that during today’s conference call, we may make certain forward looking statements about the company’s performance. Such forward looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, one should not place undue reliance on them. Forward looking statements are also subject to the inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed. For additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in our forward looking statements, You should refer to the cautionary statements contained in our press release as well as the risk factors contained in the company’s filings with the SEC.
Lucky Strike Entertainment undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after today’s call. Also during today’s call, the company may discuss certain non GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. The GAAP financial measures most directly comparable to each non GAAP financial measure discussed and the reconciliation of the differences between each non GAAP financial measure and the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found on the company’s website. I will now turn the call over to Tom.
Thomas Shannon, Founder and CEO, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Good morning. I am Thomas Shannon, Founder and CEO of Lucky Strike Entertainment. We closed fiscal twenty twenty five on a high note, navigating a turbulent year with resilience and delivering 4% revenue growth despite headwinds in our offline mostly corporate events business. This summer, we sold more than 260,000 summer season passes and generated more than $13,400,000 in pass revenue. A record setting season pass program boosted guest visits and also drove meaningful retail spend through targeted value oriented specials.
Pairing high quality experiences with compelling value is working. Same store sales strengthened sequentially in each month in the fourth quarter and turned positive in July. Combined with the momentum from our BOOMers integration and other recent acquisitions, July delivered double digit total revenue growth year over year. In late July, we were excited to announce the acquisition of two iconic water parks: Raging Waters Los Angeles in San Dimas, California, which is the largest water park in California and Wet n Wild Emerald Point in Greensboro, North Carolina, alongside three well known and high performing or high potential family entertainment centers, Castle Park in Riverside, California, Boomers Vista in Vista, California and Boomers in Palm Springs, California. Collectively, these destinations welcome more than 1,500,000 annual guests and further expand Lucky Strike’s leadership in our three verticals: bowling, water parks and high quality family entertainment centers.
This acquisition is a bold step forward in our strategy to build the premier location based entertainment platform in North America. We are ambitiously investing in water parks, family entertainment centers and next generation bowling concepts. And in early July, we acquired the real estate underlying 58 of our locations across the country for $3.00 $6,000,000 By acquiring this real estate, we maximize our flexibility to optimize our capital structure and location footprint. The purchase price highlights the long term attractiveness of the stable and growing cash flows of our individual locations and highlights the option value of owning these assets. The transaction is immediately accretive to earnings and cash flow.
Simultaneously, we are strengthening our leadership team and scaling marketing investments, ensuring we capture the full potential of the markets where we operate. The path forward is clear, sustained growth, elevated guest experiences and market leadership. We remain firmly on track to deliver another year of strong growth, both organically and through acquisition. With that, I’ll hand it over to Lev Exter, our President, to share the exciting organic initiatives ahead. Lev?
Thanks, Tom,
Lev Exter, President, Lucky Strike Entertainment: and good morning, everyone. Fiscal twenty twenty five was a transformative year for Lucky Strike Entertainment, and we’re carrying that strong momentum into fiscal twenty twenty six. One of the major highlights this summer was our wildly successful season pass program. Membership grew to over 260,000 members, up from 190,000 members last year. Sales exceeded $13,400,000 compared to $8,500,000 in the prior year.
This growth was driven by an incremental marketing spend applied dynamically each week to the best performing channels and reinforced with employee engagement tools such as sales trackers, sales contests and new training videos to sharpen best practices. The program has been extremely well received by our guests, and we plan to continue optimizing it moving forward. We continued to execute on our plan to grow Food and Beverage Attachment, as we’ve been discussing throughout the year. Food revenue delivered positive 2.5% same store comps. Alcohol comps were negative 2.7%, and while negative, are improving and still better than the overall comp.
We saw acceleration coming from the alcohol free category through innovative releases like our new Kraft Lemonades, which I’ll speak more to shortly. We’ve introduced a new stage gate process for every menu release. It includes training videos for associates, sales trackers and full marketing support, including in center, social, web and increasingly through influencer campaigns. On the menu side, combos and platters continue to perform well, including pizza and pitcher combos and new platters for bigger groups, including the Epic Wings and Fries Platter and the Ultimate Sampler. We’re expanding those offerings with new options to meet customer demand, like a pizza and margarita pitcher combo and a Taco Flight and bucket of Corona combo.
At the same time, we’re launching new trend driven menu items to stay relevant, such as a Honey Chicken Bowl, Strawberry Poppy Salad, a Chopped Chicken Caesar Wrap and a trio sliders with King’s Hawaiian Buns. In our water parks, we’re unifying concessions and rolling in signature national partners as well as leading lemonade and ice cream concepts. In our BOOMERS family entertainment centers, we’ve enhanced the food program with a streamlined, higher quality menu, new marketing graphics and upgraded items such as burgers, wings, chicken sandwiches, improved pizza and healthier grab and go options. On the beverage front, innovation has been a huge win. Our new craft lemonades, featuring three flavors, sold 135,000 units in the first two months since launch, generating nearly $800,000 in sales.
We’re now on pace for a $5,000,000 annualized run rate. A seasonal fall flavor will be introduced soon. Beyond that, we launched an energy mocktail with Red Bull. We’re expanding our zero proof cocktail program, and we’re rolling out shareable drinks in our experiential locations. Looking ahead, a major focus is strengthening our sales and hospitality culture.
On sales, every new program now comes with a training video supported by sales trackers and contests. This fall, we’ll roll out our new LMS platform to enhance associate training. And just last month, we launched the Winner’s Circle, an evergreen in sensor contest where entire teams are rewarded for comping up in controllable revenue categories. On the hospitality front, our Net Promoter Score is climbing, and we’re leading it hard. We’re creating a national field training team, launching enhanced guest service training and sending senior operators to executive education programs.
We’re also rolling out a quarterly team building initiative to boost morale, camaraderie and tenure across the organization. Finally, in marketing, we’re increasing the budget to move closer to industry benchmarks. We’re bolstering the team with top tier talent, and we now see a tremendous opportunity to capture additional market share, especially as our rebrand initiative accelerates. We’re already at 55 Lucky Strike locations, and we expect to reach 100 locations by year end. With that, let me hand it over to Bobby to discuss the details of our financial results.
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Thank you, Lev. In the 2025, we delivered total revenue of $301,200,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $88,700,000 This compares to $283,900,000 in revenue and $83,400,000 in adjusted EBITDA in the same period last year. Total revenue grew 6.1%, while same store sales declined by 4.1%. Same store sales improved sequentially each month in the quarter as well as into July. Breaking down performance by segment.
Our retail business remained steady. Our league operations experienced low single digit growth, and our events business faced a high single digit decline. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter came in at $88,700,000 with same store sales driving an $11,000,000 headwind to the bottom line. Offsetting that were improvements in payroll in the amount of 5,000,000 and reductions in repair and maintenance, supplies and services costs by an amount of $2,000,000 Boomers in our two new water parks added $7,000,000 in EBITDA. Geographically, California, which accounts for approximately 20% of our total sales, contributed $6,000,000 to the same store sales decline, which we have spoken about in previous quarters.
This was offset by strength in our F and D offerings, both outperforming the same store comp in the quarter. During the quarter, we deployed $24,000,000 in CapEx, down from $47,000,000 last year as we drove procurement efficiencies and focused on high return projects. In the quarter, we spent $13,000,000 for growth initiatives, dollars 1,000,000 on newbuilds and $7,000,000 for maintenance. For this total year, CapEx was $117,000,000 including a $9,000,000 land purchase, down from $195,000,000 last year. Post the quarter close, we acquired 58 properties that we are the tenant on for $3.00 $6,000,000 Those properties were carried on our balance sheet at year end with $33,000,000 of operating liabilities and $269,000,000 of finance leases.
In FY 2026, you will see lower GAAP rent expense of 3,000,000 and capitalized lease expense of $21,000,000 from the transaction. We remain focused on delivering profitable growth by driving revenues, expanding operating cash flow and increasing free cash flow, including free cash flow per share. For fiscal year twenty twenty six, the company is issuing the following performance guidance. This outlook reflects attractive growth supported by organic operating leverage and increased investment in high ROI revenue generating initiatives. We expect total revenue growth of five to 9%, which implies $1,260,000,000 to $1,310,000,000 of revenue, which delivers $375,000,000 to $415,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA.
Our liquidity position remains strong at $342,000,000 with $60,000,000 in cash. Net debt at the end of the quarter was $1,300,000,000 and our bank credit facility net leverage ratio was 2.9. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to seeing you at our new properties soon. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Conference Operator: Our first question comes from Steve Wieczynski from Stifel. This
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: is Jackson Gibbs on for Steve Wieczynski. So as we exit a somewhat choppy fiscal twenty twenty five, setup for 2026 looks a lot more compelling with momentum going in the right direction and a few meaningful tailwinds in play. However, the midpoint of 2026 EBITDA guidance is the same as your suspended 2025 guidance, which strikes us as conservative. Wondering if you can maybe walk us through some of the assumptions embedded in the new targets? And then maybe what drove your decision to go back to giving guidance so quickly after pulling it last quarter?
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. So I mean, first and foremost, July was positive from both organic basis and double digits on a total basis. So we’re confident after seeing some very choppy numbers in sort of the first half of this calendar year came back. The guidance integrates sort of two sort of new components to our business. So one, we are investing more dollars into marketing, and that will flow through.
And then two, the assets that we purchased at the July are negative for the first three quarters of the year and then they flip positive in the June and make the bulk of its earnings in the July, August, which flows into fiscal twenty twenty seven.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Got it. That’s helpful. Just sticking on guidance for a second. Could you help us a little with how you see the cadence playing out between the quarters as we progress through fiscal twenty twenty six? You’ve got the new water parks in the system, which you mentioned, and ramping.
So there should be some changes in seasonality. Also corporate events becoming a bigger contributor in the second and third quarters, but lapping weakness in 2025. Just trying to get a sense of the puts and takes and if there’s anything we need to watch out for in terms of timing.
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. So we’ll have good double digit growth in the September. And the fourth quarter will be $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 higher than the second quarter. So that should kind of get you to where the cadence is.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from Randy Konik from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Hey guys, how are you? Good morning. Quick question, I guess, Bobby, of walk us through your thought process on the event side. You gave us good color on the impact of California as well. Just kind of give us that kind of playbook on where do we kind of see over the coming quarters, the events side kind of inflecting?
And then just on the state of California kind of impact there and how that kind of plays out as well over the coming quarters? Thanks.
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. So from a cadence perspective, the comp gets very easy starting in September. And so we’re seeing the business has improved. We had our best month in offline events. Last month is still down.
But ultimately, as long as we keep tracking the two year stack, that business can go flat starting in September into October. The one thing that we’re trying to lean into is historically, we’ve spent we’ve been under indexed on marketing spend. We are building that team, ramping that spend, and we’re putting a portion of it towards the offline events business. We’re targeting and using our warm leads to kind of grab market share is core to that business getting to flat and ultimately inflecting up.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Great. And then maybe for Tom, you showed a really great ability obviously on the Boeing side to find assets and lift their profitability dollars or EBITDA dollars over time, great returns, etcetera. As you approach the portfolio and you add to it around water you add water parks and family entertainment centers, How are you approaching the business the same or different from how you run the bowling business? Just give us some insights on kind of things you take from the bowling playbook and apply to the water park area, the family entertainment center area, where it could kind of you could get some synergies or just kind of use the same playbook to drive incremental profitability in these businesses you acquire? Thanks.
Thomas Shannon, Founder and CEO, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Well, Randy, it’s largely the same playbook, right? It starts with making the asset nicer. One of the reasons that we’re buying these assets in some cases at two times forward EBITDA is because they’ve been neglected and unloved or in some cases we’re buying assets at a bankruptcy for no good reason. The businesses are fundamentally strong. There’s a lot of consumer demand.
The replacement cost of these things is usually a multiple of the purchase price. And so it starts with making the asset physically better. We clean it up, we put in new gains, we repaint stuff, we fix any deferred maintenance items. And then we execute our playbook of enhanced food and beverage. We focus a lot on package pricing because you’ll have multiple elements.
I’d say a boomers, there’ll be go karts, mini golf, bumper boats, batting cages and maybe some ride elements. And so getting the come for the day price right is very similar to the amusement park. So pricing and now marketing, Bob, you mentioned marketing, but it’s important to realize that our marketing spend had dwindled to under 1% of revenue, which was just not enough. And so we are investing in building a marketing team, a world class marketing team that will be able to deploy whatever it is we decide the budgeted marketing number should be, but then brand building with those dollars on the Lucky Strike brand, the AMF brand, which we’re going to rejuvenate, the Boomers brand, which is relatively nascent for us and then the individual water parks. But to sum up, the playbook for the water parks and the FEC is the same as it has been for bowling.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Can I ask one last follow-up? If you had a crystal ball, let’s say five to ten years from now and you think about the portfolio construction and how obviously the last five years obviously almost exclusively bowling. If you kind of think about the pie chart bowling, water parks, FEC, what kind of what would you think about the crystal ball looking like with a pie chart looking like, let’s say, five to ten years from now?
Thomas Shannon, Founder and CEO, Lucky Strike Entertainment: From a revenue perspective?
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Just from a bowling versus waterpark versus FEC, either on a revenue yes, revenue perspective, units, etcetera.
Thomas Shannon, Founder and CEO, Lucky Strike Entertainment: I would say that you would probably end up with 40% Boeing, 40% water parks and 20% FECs if I had to guess. I’ve never really thought of this question before, but the thing about the water parks is they’re much larger than the other assets. And so you don’t have to do nearly as many deals to get to large revenue numbers. For example, we’re about to close on Raging Waters in San Dimas, is outside of Los Angeles. And that’s a part that in $2,024,000,000 to $24,000,000 versus our average bowling unit volume of about $3,400,000 right?
So about eight times. So you can see how you could scale that business more quickly. But yes, I view this as ultimately becoming sort of a mini Disney. It’s funny because I don’t think our business gets nearly the respect it deserves, but Disney is going all in on water sorry, on theme parks, including water parks. They’re spending $60,000,000,000 of CapEx in that business and that is driving their profitability overwhelmingly as their legacy media business declines.
So Disney is leaning heavily into the same business that we’re in, that we’re heavily leaning into. And I think that’s underappreciated in the market, just how good these assets are, just how we’re replaceable these assets are and that you’re buying them at a fraction of replacement value or in many cases they could never be built again.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: That’s really helpful. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from Jason Tulchin from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Great. Thanks. Good morning and thanks for taking the questions. Two for me. The first is just a little bit of follow-up on the comments around marketing investments.
Just wondering how much of this acceleration in comps you’ve seen over the past few months you would attribute to maybe early results from those marketing investments? And how much of an increase maybe from a quantitative perspective is sort of contemplated within the EBITDA guidance that you’ve put out today? Hey, Seth. This is Lev. I’ll give you
Lev Exter, President, Lucky Strike Entertainment: a quick example. You saw the results of our summer season pass program. Last year, we did $8,500,000 this year, dollars 13,400,000.0. That came with a $1,000,000 incremental marketing increase. So we can see those dollars really driving results for us.
And we look at holistically the entire business the same way. We’ve really underinvested almost to an anemic amount in awareness marketing and brand building. We’ve really focused on performance marketing. And I think the market opportunity right now really affords us an ability to gobble up a lot of market share with increased brand building and awareness marketing. So we want to get much closer to industry benchmarks.
Those are 3% plus. Maybe we get to like the 2.5% range, but it will be a significant increase to what we’ve been spending over the years.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Very helpful. And then, second one for me, maybe one for Bobby. Wondering if you could, I noticed you filed a shelf registration this morning. I wonder if you could just share a bit more about, how you’re thinking about, that decision and maybe some of the background there?
Lev Exter, President, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. So we haven’t had
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: a shelf, on file since we IPO ed in December 21. It’s purely housekeeping. It’s good housekeeping to have a shelf on file. We did raise a bridge loan in July to effectuate the repurchase of 58 properties. And to pay down that bridge loan, we have been looking at sort of the unsecured debt market.
We had to put that shelf on file to be able to hit that market. The debt markets are on fire right now. But we’re still evaluating what our opportunities are there, but there’s nothing really planned other than hitting the debt markets at this point.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Great. Very helpful. Thanks a lot.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from Ian Zaffino from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Ian Zaffino, Analyst, Oppenheimer: Hi, great. Thank you very much. Would you be able to tell us the magnitude of the cadence in the quarter as far as how much maybe was April down and how much did it recover? I’m just trying to get a sense of the ramp during the quarter. And then also just one more question about the quarter is aside from California, are there any other pockets that you’re kind of seeing of any weakness?
Because I think some restaurant companies have called out D. C, New York and just kind of trying to understand what you’re seeing. Thanks.
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. So April was minus 6%, May was minus three June was minus 1%, and July was better than plus 1%, and August is trending similar. So again, the cadence is everything that we’ve kind of committed to. We’re pretty happy. And the comps, by the way, for you guys know the comp for last year was very strong.
In the June ending quarter, the comp for August is very tough. We’re very happy with sort of the recent performance. From a pockets of weakness, it’s it’s all about California. You know, New York is looking good now. New York is, you know, one of our home markets.
You know, it’s it’s where the company started. We have been leaning into marketing testing in New York. So, you know, I get a lot of feedback from people in New York who see our ads, it’s working. So New York is comping positive at this point. You know, ultimately, California gets a lot easier from a comp perspective.
We’re also very focused on inflecting the two year there positive. We think that, that is coming in the next few months.
Ian Zaffino, Analyst, Oppenheimer: Okay. Thanks. And then as a follow-up, I
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: just wanted to touch on
Ian Zaffino, Analyst, Oppenheimer: the F and B side of it. Kind of again, I guess mixed signals and maybe help us understand, is this alcohol thing a trade down to reduce the bill size or is it people are truly trading into non alcoholic options? I mean, that’s a demographic thing. What are you actually seeing there? Any kind of thoughts?
Lev Exter, President, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Thanks. Ian, I think it’s unpredictable where society goes with alcohol consumption. We obviously noticed it was softening. And rather than just accept it, we lean into innovation in the non alcohol category. So we launched our first ever craft lemonade program and the performance was incredible.
So we’re going to keep leaning into that. Now that’s not to say that we’re not going to focus on our alcohol program. We have new signature cocktails launching at the October. But innovation has been working for us. And I think we’ve proven with food and alcohol that we’re a real option for our guests to eat and drink at our locations.
And that’s why you’ve seen food and alcohol outperform the overall comp. So, I look back in preparing for this call. Last Q4, we set out as a major goal to lean into food and beverage attachment. And I think we’ve proven that with these results in the last fiscal. I think we’re realizing that we can do this through marketing, through enhanced employee training, through innovation on the food and beverage side, through offering value to our consumer in the form of combos and platters that are being a great attachment.
And I think we still have a lot more upside in this program, especially as we convert more Valero’s into Lucky Strike, because inherently Lucky Strike just it’s an entertainment concept. And I think eating and drinking there is a lot more accepted than at a bowling alley, and we’re seeing really outside results there.
Ian Zaffino, Analyst, Oppenheimer: All right, great. Thank you very much.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Kupinski from NOBLE Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Michael Kupinski, Analyst, NOBLE Capital Markets: Thank you. Most of my questions have been answered, but I do have a couple here. In terms of location operating costs, they were a little elevated in that quarter. I know there’s some seasonality there and I know that you acquired 58 properties and there’s obviously some variances with the parks that you’ve acquired. I was just wondering, can you kind of give us a trajectory in terms of where you think that is?
Because in the quarter, represented about 38% of total revenues. I was just wondering what you think that trajectory might be on an annualized basis.
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. So in the location operating cost is a $21,000,000 noncash charge. So you have to back that out to kind of get back to sort of normal. So really, ultimately, the percentages are going to be highly seasonal, but it will run where we’ve been historically over the year.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: So that’s how much it
Thomas Shannon, Founder and CEO, Lucky Strike Entertainment: would be.
Michael Kupinski, Analyst, NOBLE Capital Markets: Yes. Once you back that out, but it’s a little bit elevated, but you’re saying that it would be more in the trend line of historic numbers then. And then in terms of your marketing spend, I kind of want to look back strangely in the last quarter Topgolf ran a campaign that targeted bowling customers and was kind of odd that I thought. Did this campaign have any effect on your customer base? And are there similarities between targeted demographics between golf and bowling?
And do you believe that maybe your efforts to move towards upscale dining options or bowling centers have had an impact on traditional golf customers? I was just curious.
Lev Exter, President, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Look, I think, first of all, very few people saw that ad. In fact, I believe after they posted it, they had to take the comments off because they were more so negative towards Topgolf than us. I think
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: that might have backfired.
Lev Exter, President, Lucky Strike Entertainment: And it felt a little desperate. So we don’t want to really play in the dirt with them. I just think you should look at their specials and basically giving the product away at this point. It feels like a fire sale. I think the experience is probably lackluster at this point.
And we’re very much focused on our business and our product, which we feel is obviously superior and I think the results show that as well.
Michael Kupinski, Analyst, NOBLE Capital Markets: I agree. It was an odd add. You. That’s all I have.
Conference Operator: Next question comes from Eric Handler from ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Eric Handler, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Yes. Good morning. Thank you very much for the question. Bobby, just wonder if you could sort of drill in a little bit in terms of the guidance revenue range that you have. Sort of what is that implying for same store comps versus sort of your new builds and acquisitions?
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. I mean, implies a positive comp. There’s a range between sort of one and five. Right now, we’re trending well on that. But ultimately, we want to get to event season before we get more excited about the organic for this year.
Eric Handler, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Got it. And then as far as the Lucky Valero, the Lucky Strike transition, can you maybe give a sense of what type of financial lift you’re seeing as the transition occurs?
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. I mean, we it’s still early. We’re at 55 Lucky Strikes at this point. We’ll be at 100 by year end, and we’ll sunset the Bolero brand by the end of next calendar. We invested in marketing in New York, but we also rebranded Chelsea Piers in Times Square.
And those centers are comping up, right? So it’s a big change in the business. California is still to kind of be rebranded. So sort of as California rebrands, it should create this lift for California. But ultimately, we’re getting a lot of trial.
But ultimately, the proof will be in the pudding when we get out of sort of summer season pass and we see the organic lift that’s happened, which we expect to be a good move to the business.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: Thank you much.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from Jeremy Hamblin from Craig Hallum Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Jeremy Hamblin, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital: Thanks for taking the questions. So I wanted to drill down a bit on cost structure and also just CapEx kind of non acquisition CapEx expectations for FY 2026. That’s question number one. But two, Bobby, there’s been pretty dynamic change in terms of how the cost structure is presenting now with a higher mix of FEC and water parks. But you’ve really done a great job of controlling your corporate spend, your SG and A.
And so wanted to just see if you could provide a bit more color on how we should be thinking about kind of COGS throughout FY 2026. Historically, that’s kind of peaked in Q3, but now with the FECs and water parks, presumably maybe Q4 might be your highest. And then just thinking about where your baseline SG and A expense run rate is at this point, I mean Q4 was pretty low. Can you help us provide a little bit of color on that?
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: So on the SG and A side, where we were for the fourth quarter is what you should run through for the rest of the year or for the fiscal twenty twenty six.
Jackson Gibbs, Analyst, Stifel: We’ve done a lot
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: of cost cutting. We’ve done a lot of streamlining. We will be investing in marketing. Marketing flows into the location operating costs. So you’ll see a 10,000,000 to $15,000,000 lift there.
Ultimately, as we build out our hospitality culture, I think that the payroll benefit cost line will grow some. But ultimately, from an organic basis, there’s going to be good incrementals 50% plus on the positive comp. The drag, as I talked at the beginning of the call, is that the boomer’s assets and the water parks, they run negative for most of the year and then they dramatically over earn their they get to 50%, 60% EBITDA margins in the summer. And so ultimately, as you sort of model that out, you will see that on a revenue basis, fourth quarter ends up being stronger than second quarter, But you’re still going to have a lower EBITDA relative to the second quarter because you’re having those negative months in April, May, you have a big positive month in June. So I think what gets really exciting is the profitability flow through that happens in the September.
Jeremy Hamblin, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital: Got it. What is the total annualized cost to operate
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Boomers? Boomers right now is running close to a 25% EBITDA margin. And excluding the water parks, it’s about $40,000,000 of revenue. We think we can get over that the kind of the next twelve months. But ultimately, we’ve gone in, invested in processes, systems, rides, maintenance and ultimately the customer is responding to that.
Jeremy Hamblin, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital: Got it. And then kind of the non acquisition CapEx guidance for FY 2026?
Bobby Lavin, Chief Financial Officer, Lucky Strike Entertainment: Yes. So it’s about $130,000,000 So it’s going be down from where we were this year as we continue to kind of streamline activities, we’re really only focusing on high ROI initiatives. We’re going to continue driving CapEx down.
Jeremy Hamblin, Analyst, Craig Hallum Capital: Great. Thanks so much for taking the questions.
Conference Operator: We have no further questions in queue. This will conclude today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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