Irvine fast casual burger chain The Habit Restaurants Inc. continues its push on service, modernizing its fleet of stores on the digital front and adding drive-thrus in its recently ended quarter.
Shares were trading up 15% in midday trading Thursday to $10.44, a day after the company reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter ended Sept. 24.
The company had a recent market value of $273 million.
The Habit capped the September period with sales up 12.1% from a year earlier to $117.3 million. That beat Wall Street expectations of $116.3 million.
The company’s earnings also beat analyst expectations with $1 million, compared to consensus estimates of $200,000.
Modernizing and improving service offerings continued in the quarter. Habit had 51 drive-thrus at the end of its third quarter ended Sept. 24 and is also focused on digital with kiosks to place orders inside 20 restaurants. Use and downloads of the company’s mobile app also ticked up in the September quarter.
