Total on-premise biz might have just started to see slow climb back to overall health, but new locations and some easy comps lifted Q4 results for one of biggest US brewpub chains. BJ's Restaurants booked total rev gain of 9.1% for fiscal yr 2014 after 4th qtr revs up 7%. But co got much bigger profit jump by shaving a little here and there off costs and getting added benefit of not incurring big one-off costs as it did during end of 2013. Full-yr net income popped 30% to about $27.4 mil. BJ's went from operating at loss of about $2.2 mil in 4Q13 to operating income around $11 mil for final qtr of 2014. Fourth qtr net income zoomed from about half a million bucks in '13 to almost $8.3 mil last yr.
BJ's closed out 2014 with 156 restaurants, adding another 11 thruout the yr, 3 in the final qtr alone. That's fewer new outlets than it opened the yr prior (helping lower costs). But the co has aggressive plans. It's opened 2 more already in 2015 (including one near our office in the suburbs of NYC) and with "national capacity for at least 425 BJ's Restaurants, we see many years of continued growth," prexy/CEO Greg Trojan said presenting financial results. "Comparable restaurant sales" grew 1.2% in 4th qtr and slightly slower, +0.8%, for full yr. "Reigniting comparable restaurant sales" remains key focus for co, Greg said, along with "refining" operations and menu options and "launching a new higher return restaurant prototype" for most new outlets. BJ's stock price shot up 17% in day after releasing these results, tho it's since moderated to over $53/share, 13% higher than before release.
It'll release full beer volume data with annual filing soon, but thru the end of the 3d qtr, BJ's held on to target of 75K bbls for the full yr. It expected to contract 80% of that. In 2013, it contracted nearly 45K bbls and reported brewing about 15K bbls at restaurants with small in-house systems. So it upped contract production about 33% to support anticipated 25% increase in beer volume requirements at its restaurants.