Olive Garden Dominates The Darden Story Post Earnings

A primary contributor to the strength of the chain-restaurant operator has been Olive Garden's turnaround story. In Q1, Olive Garden outperformed the industry by over 410 basis points, driven by remodels (60 units in FY17) and improved service initiatives. Customer satisfaction has reached an all-time high.

Related Link: Darden Restaurants Is Cautious On Industry, Confident In Its Own Stores

Olive Garden remains a bright spot for Darden, delivering eight straight quarters or positive same store growth, and posted a strong 2 percent increase in same-store sales in the latest quarter.

Despite Olive Garden's recent strength, SunTrust has a Neutral rating on Darden, saying, "We expect outperformance to persist but narrow to 200–300bps in F2H17, which may prove conservative given Olive Gardens momentum and sales driving initiatives."

SunTrust has a $70 price target on Darden.

At time of writing, Darden was up 0.98 percent on the day at $61.76.

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