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Papa John's Reports Robust Preliminary Comps for August

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Papa John's International, Inc. (PZZA - Free Report) recently reported preliminary comparable restaurant sales for the second month of third-quarter fiscal 2020.

Preliminary Comparable Sales

From Jul 27 through Aug 23, preliminary comparable sales at domestic company-owned restaurants, North America franchised restaurants, system-wide North America restaurants and system-wide international restaurants rose 18%, 26.1%, 24.2% and 23.3%, year over year, respectively.

In this regard, president & CEO Rob Lynch stated, “Papa John’s sales, driven by product innovation, remained strong in August. Our international business gained further momentum in August too and continues to improve as more countries across the globe open back up for business.”

Other Updates

Although the virus has triggered a catastrophe in terms of lives lost and financial impact, the company appears resilient enough to navigate through these uncertain times. Restaurants in North America were fully operational, while non-traditional restaurants located in universities and stadiums remained temporarily closed.

Notably, the number of restaurants temporarily closed due the pandemic is currently around 150 (primarily in Europe and Latin America) compared with 225 as of Jun 28, 2020.

So far this year, shares of Papa John's have surged 56.3% compared with the industry’s 2.7% growth.

Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks

Papa John’s currently carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Other top-ranked stocks in the same space are Jack in the Box Inc. (JACK - Free Report) , Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI - Free Report) and El Pollo Loco Holdings, Inc. (LOCO - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Jack in the Box’s 2021 earnings are expected to rise 17.7%.

Darden has a three-five year earnings per share growth rate of 15.4%.

El Pollo Loco has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 94.1%, on average.

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