Person to Watch
Greg Trojan
Trojan is chief executive of Huntington Beach-based BJ’s Restaurants Inc., a casual-dining chain that reported several quarters of results overlapping 2014 and 2015 that exceeded analyst expectations. BJ’s share price rose by two-thirds between October 2014 and this past February.
Results came from a plan executed by Trojan and his team to cut costs and open smaller restaurants, coupled with improved marketing, such as an ordering app to trim wait times.
Results leveled off through midyear as Wall Street expectations were “baked in” to ongoing operations. BJ’s traded recently at a $1.1 billion market cap—still a third higher than this time last year.
Third-quarter revenue grew 11% to $229 million, and income rose by more than two-thirds to $5.4 million. Trojan’s team as of early November ran 170 restaurants in 22 states, including several that test new menu items and operational ideas.
Company to Watch
Habit Restaurants Inc.
Habit had gone public during the restaurant IPO fanfare in 2014 and planned to open 26 to 28 locations for a 30% growth clip.
On one day early this month, it opened four restaurants—one in New Jersey and three in California—including its most recent Orange County location, at the Village at Orange. It now has about 140.
The chain’s third-quarter results, which it issued in early November—about a year after its IPO—beat analyst expectations on revenue at $58.6 million and on earnings at $2.2 million.
Enthusiasm for restaurant stocks, along with Habit’s share price, fell this year. It recently traded at a $620 million market cap, about two-thirds its IPO value.
Habit’s veteran restaurateur Chief Executive Russ Bendel, in other words, has plugged along, growing the business as irrationally exuberant investors move on to other things.
