What Happened?
Shares of american restaurant chain BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) jumped 12.3% in the afternoon session after the company reported strong first-quarter 2025 results, which significantly beat analysts' EPS and EBITDA expectations. Sales were in line, up just over 3% year-on-year, a modest gain reflecting limited same-store sales growth of 1.7%, while a 2.7% increase in guest traffic carried most of the weight. Zooming out, we think this was a solid print.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
BJ’s shares are somewhat volatile and have had 14 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for BJ's and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 12 months ago when the stock gained 15.4% on the news that the company reported strong first-quarter results that beat analysts' same-store sales, gross margin, and EPS expectations. The results could have been better as same-store sales fell 1.7% due to heavier-than-usual winter weather in January. This affected restaurant traffic, which fell approximately 9% in January before recovering to negative mid-single digits in February and March. As these headwinds were mostly concentrated in the first quarter, management expected second-quarter comp sales to be only slightly negative due to less pricing partly offset by improving traffic trends. The second quarter was expected to benefit from key events, including Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduation celebrations. Zooming out, we think this was a great quarter that shareholders will appreciate.
BJ's is up 5.6% since the beginning of the year, and at $37.90 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $38.63 from February 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of BJ’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,861.
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