Thomas Croal; Chief Financial Officer; GEN Restaurant Group Inc
David Kim; Co-Chief Executive Officer, Director; GEN Restaurant Group Inc
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the GEN Restaurant Group, Inc. fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Croal, the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Thomas Croal
Thank you, operator, and good afternoon. By now, everyone should have access to the fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings release. If not, it can be found at www.genkoreanbbq.com in the Investor Relations section.
Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that our discussions today will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities law, including, but not limited to, statements regarding growth plans and potential new store openings as well as those types of statements identified in our annual report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2024, and our subsequent reports filed with the SEC.
These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore, you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements represent our views only as of the date of this call and are also subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we currently expect.
We refer you to our recent SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K for a more detailed discussion of the risks that can impact our future operating results and financial position. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events.
During today’s call, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings press release and our SEC filings which are available in the Investor Relations section of our website.
Now I’d like to turn it over to our Chairman and CEO, David Kim.
David Kim
Thank you, Tom, and good afternoon, everyone. To begin the call, I wanted to summarize what we promised and delivered on our guidance for 2024. For revenue, we gave a range of $200 million to $205 million for the year. We finished the year with $208 million in revenue.
For restaurant level EBITDA, we estimated that we would reach 17% to 18% for the year; we ended the year at 17.7%. For G&A expenses, we estimated total G&A expenses between $18 million and $19 million for the year before noncash stock-based compensation. We ended the year at $18.3 million.
For new restaurant development, our goal was to open 10 to 11 restaurants in 2024. We opened six restaurants during the year, have opened three additional restaurants in January of 2025, and are about to open a fourth restaurant in this next week.
Even though our timing was off by a month for opening new restaurants, we still achieved our overall revenue goals for the year. These one-month delays were caused by continuous local and state government permits. The restaurants were built and ready to open in December of 2024, but could not, due to these permit issues.
Continuing from this summary, we closed out 2024 with a strong fourth quarter as we delivered 21% year-over-year total revenue growth and 25% year-over-year growth in total adjusted EBITDA. For the full year, I’m proud to report we delivered our highest total annual revenue figure as a public company while maintaining healthy unit-level economics, primarily driven by the continued success of our new restaurant openings.
Total revenue for the year increased to $208.4 million exceeding the upper end of our 2024 guidance range and analyst expectations even with the three restaurants opening one month late. We also achieved our goal of our restaurant level adjusted EBITDA margin approaching 18%, with total restaurant level adjusted EBITDA of $36.9 million.
Additionally, we achieved adjusted EBITDA of $16.7 million. If you exclude preopening costs, adjusted EBITDA totaled $22 million. Net income before income tax for the year was $4.9 million, which equated to $0.13 of diluted earnings per share, and we delivered $7.4 million in adjusted net income, which equated to $0.21 of adjusted diluted earnings per share for the year.
Looking at our new restaurant development since our year-end call last year, we’ve opened nine new restaurants, six of which were opened in 2024 and three since the beginning of 2025, bringing our total restaurant count to 46 locations nationwide. The three stores we opened in January of 2025 were originally planned to launch in December 2024. Additionally, we had a fourth restaurant opening in the next week.
Our restaurant development process is strong and is positioned to reach our 2025 target of opening 10 to 13 new restaurants, which does not include the three recent openings that shifted into the new year from 2024. Our current restaurants have maintained steady profitability with new restaurant driving consistent revenue growth in the fourth quarter benefiting as expected from the holiday season. With that, we delivered full-year restaurant level adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.7%.
While our total revenue exceeded our guidance and analyst expectations, our comparable sales, same-store sales for 2024 were down 5.6% year over year. As we have discussed at length, GEN’s business model does not rely on comparable restaurant sales growth and primarily revolves around the expanding store count to generate our robust average unit level economics. Our new units deliver returns on investment in the 40% range.
That being said, we have been proactively working to return to comparable restaurant sales growth through pricing adjustment, enhancing training programs, additional premium drink options on the menu and our latest incubator projects. During quarter four, we began to see impact on our efforts with premium menu sales increasing at our incubator projects receiving positive feedback as we continue rolling out these initiatives on a limited basis.
We also implemented a 3% increase to our menu price, which went into effect across majority of our locations at the end of 2024. We’re happy to report that this price increase has not influenced customer traffic and GEN remains a high-quality value dining experience for our customers. We’re even more pleased to announce, these initiatives have resulted in comparable restaurant sales return to growth, generating positive 1% comp figures in the first two months of 2025.
As a sign of confidence in the company’s future, the Board of Directors have approved a stock buyback program for up to $5 million while still maintaining our goal of opening a total of around 75 restaurants by the end of 2026.
Transitioning now to our key incubator initiatives, last quarter, we announced the launch of GEN gift cards at 78 Costco locations all within the 5-mile radius of most of our restaurants across the US. The gift cards have been selling exceptionally well with Costco’s buying department saying that we are one of the best-selling restaurant gift cards ever. This is a testament to GEN’s brand strength and position as a leader in the Korean barbecue. We look forward to expanding this avenue with additional big box retail partners in 2025.
Entering this next year, we’re well positioned to achieve our growth target with 13 leases for new restaurant locations signed or in the process of being finalized with an additional 16 leases and negotiations. Additionally, we expect to maintain our restaurant level adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 18% and to generate $245 million to $250 million in total revenue for the year. All of this positions us nicely for our medium-term goal around 75 total restaurants by the end of 2026.
Growing GEN’s footprint is at the heart of our business model, and we’re excited to finally announce our international expansion. In the near future, we will be bringing the GEN experience to South Korea with at least two locations planned for 2025.
Overall, 2024 marks a year of consistent progress towards our key growth objectives as reflected by exceeding our revenue projections and meeting our restaurant level adjusted EBITDA margin goal for the year. With strong demand for GEN Korean BBQ and our growing brand strength backed by our robust balance sheet, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on our promising pipeline of new restaurants and achieve our growth targets, both in the United States as well as internationally.
Thank you for all your continued support. We’re excited for the future ahead and look forward to delivering sustainable value to our shareholders. Now I’d like to hand the call over to Tom for a deeper look at our fourth quarter and full year financial performance.
