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BJ's Restaurants (BJRI) Opens its Latest Outlet in Ohio

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BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. (BJRI - Free Report) opened its latest restaurant in North Olmsted, OH, a west side suburb of Cleveland, on Dec 12. The 7,500 square feet restaurant is located on Brookpark Road at The Great Northern Mall and can accommodate nearly 250 guests.

The outlet features BJ’s Restaurants’ extensive menu, including its signature deep-dish pizza, award-winning hand-crafted beer and the famous Pizookie dessert. In addition, BJ’s unique contemporary décor creates an ideal environment for dining.

The company has opened 17 new restaurants year to date and is currently operating 187 casual dining restaurants across 24 states in the U.S., under its brand names – BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, BJ’s Restaurant & Brewery, BJ’s Pizza & Grill and BJ’s Grill. This marks its tenth restaurant in the state of Ohio, and the last slated restaurant opening this year.

However, BJ’s Restaurants loses out in terms of international presence. While several other restaurateurs including Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM - Free Report) , McDonalds Corp. (MCD - Free Report) and Papa John’s International, Inc. (PZZA - Free Report) are capitalizing on the emerging market potential, BJ’s Restaurants seems to be weak on this front.

Given various social and political issues, weakening consumer spending in the restaurant space and increasing global uncertainties the company also expects traffic and sales to remain soft in the near term.

Shares of the company have underperformed the Zacks categorized Retail-Food & Restaurants industry year-to-date. While the industry grew nearly 3%, the company’s stock declined 11.6%. We note that the weak performance this year was the result of declining investor confidence after the company’s last two below-expectation quarterly results. Consequently, estimates have also moved downward over the last 60 days for both current quarter and current year earnings.

Nevertheless, going forward, the Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company anticipates its prudent domestic expansion plans, along with various marketing, operational and technology-driven initiatives to aid top and bottom-line growth. Moreover, the company has been refining and streamlining its menu to make it easier for guests to order, and thereby improve traffic. Additionally, the company’s Project Q initiatives have led to strong margins in the past few quarters and are likely to continue doing so.

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

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