Jack in the Box delivered some surprising sales results last quarter, reporting a 0.4% increase in same-store sales in the company’s fiscal first quarter ended Jan. 19.
Its sister chain could not say the same thing. Del Taco’s same-store sales declined 4.5% in the period. Company executives told analysts on Tuesday that they expected similar results in the current quarter.
“It was another challenging quarter with pressured same-store sales results, and Del is also expected to post negative same-store sales in the second quarter,” Lance Tucker, who is overseeing the company, told analysts, according to a transcript on the financial services site AlphaSense. Tucker is the interim principal executive officer.
Still, investors had been bracing for worse results from Jack in the Box. Fast-food chains, for the most part, have reported weak starts to 2025. Jack in the Box had reported negative numbers each of the three previous quarters and traditionally underperforms its larger burger rivals, all of which are showing weakness earlier this year.
Tucker acknowledged the difficult environment. “We’re seeing the same things that everybody else in the industry is seeing right now with the consumer,” he said. “But I do think we’re well positioned as we look at the rest of the year. We’ve got a good calendar. We’ve got good innovation. We’ve got value where we’ve always been a leader.”
Del Taco, on the other hand, appears to be slowing. Its 4.5% same-store sales decline last quarter was a slowdown from the 3.9% decline each of the two previous periods.
Neither chain could get the unit growth that the company had been promising. Despite a major focus on development agreements, pushing operators of both chains to add locations, progress on that front has been slow.
Jack in the Box has opened a net of four locations since the beginning of 2024. It now operates 2,190 restaurants, all but 152 of which are owned by franchisees.
Del Taco has closed a net of three locations, over that period, notably six closures last quarter. It operates 589 locations.
Jack in the Box finds itself in a difficult spot. Harris’s departure forces the company to change management again. That new executive will take over a company whose stock has lost nearly half its value over the past year.
The company acquired Del Taco in 2021. But it now operates two chains with a heavy concentration in California, which just required fast-food chain restaurants to raise wages to at least $20.
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