Kura Sushi USA Reports Q3 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

On Tuesday, Kura Sushi USA (NASDAQ: KRUS ) discussed third-quarter financial results during its earnings call.

The full transcript is provided below.

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Access the full call at Summary Kura Sushi USA Inc reported fiscal third quarter 2026 total sales of $85.9 million, with comparable sales at -0.4% due to a 5.1% decline in traffic offset by a 4.7% increase in price and mix.

The company improved its restaurant-level operating profit margin by 90 basis points to 19.1% and adjusted EBITDA margin by 40 basis points to 7.7%, despite higher costs due to tariffs.

Seven new restaurants were opened in the third quarter, with plans to open 16 in total for the fiscal year; however, unexpected delays have impacted revenue expectations.

Kura Sushi is launching several marketing initiatives, including collaborations with popular IPs like Persona and Yoshi, and is enhancing its rewards program to boost guest satisfaction and repeat visits.

Labor costs improved by 250 basis points to 30.6% due to operational efficiencies, and the company expects to achieve further improvements with upcoming automation initiatives.

Guidance for fiscal year 2026 predicts total sales between $330.5 million and $331.5 million, maintaining an annual unit growth rate above 20%, and expects restaurant-level operating profit margins to be approximately 18.5%.

Management expressed confidence in their strategic initiatives and operational improvements, despite the challenging macro environment.

Full Transcript OPERATOR Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for standing by.

Welcome to the Kura Sushi USA Inc Fiscal Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call.

At this time, participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the lines will be open for your questions following the presentation.

Please note that this call is being recorded.

On the line today, we have Hijame Jimmy Uba, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Benjamin Porten, SVP Investor Relations and System Development.

And now I would like to turn the call over to Mr.

Benjamin Porten.

Benjamin Porten, SVP Investor Relations and System Development Thank you, Operator.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you all for joining.

By now, everyone should have access to our fiscal third quarter 2026 earnings release.

It can be found at in the Investor Relations section.

A copy of the earnings release has also been included in the IQ submitted to the SEC.

Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of our discussions today will include forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore you should not put undue reliance on them.

These statements are also subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect.

We refer all of you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition.

Also, during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance.

The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation nor as a substitute for results reported in accordance with GAAP, and the reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release.

With that out of the way, I would like to turn the call over to Jimmy.

Hijame Jimmy Uba, President and CEO Thanks, Benjamin, and thank you to everyone who's joining us on our call today.

During the fiscal third quarter, we were able to make significant progress towards our goals of sustainable margin improvement and returning to our historical 20% restaurant-level operating profit margins regardless of tariff relief.

Despite our cost of goods sold as a percentage of sales being 200 basis points higher than last year due to tariffs, our operational testing allowed us to more than offset this impact and improve our restaurant-level operating profit margin by 90 basis points over the prior year to 19.1%.

We were also able to improve adjusted EBITDA margins by 40 basis points to 7.7% and grew our adjusted EBITDA dollars by more than 20% over the prior year.

Our ability to improve profitability in a challenging environment speaks to what we do best: responding rapidly to control what we can control.