Shake Shack (SHAK) 2026年第三季度业绩电话会：营收增长15.2%

核心要点

• 2026年第三季度营收同比增长15.2%至4.233亿美元，主要得益于新门店开业以及同店销售额增长2.5%。
• 直营门店同店销售额增长2.5%，其中包括客流量增长0.8%以及价格/组合贡献1.7%。这标志着客流量连续第五个季度实现正增长，可比销售额连续第23个季度实现正增长。
• 餐厅层面利润达到9170万美元，占门店销售额的22.5%。该利润率同比下降30个基点，主要由于外卖配送佣金增加及人工投入加大抵消了食材和纸制品成本的下降。
• 调整后EBITDA增长16%至6280万美元；归属于Shake Shack, Inc.的净利润增长31.9%至1650万美元。
• Shake Shack在本季度新开直营门店达创纪录的21家，年内迄今累计新开54家。管理层维持了2026年新开60至65家直营门店的目标。
• 管理层预计全年调整后EBITDA将接近2.25亿美元至2.35亿美元指导区间的低端，全年同店销售额增速将保持在低个位数百分比水平。

关键财务数据

业务与运营表现

Shake Shack的销售额增长继续受益于外卖配送和公司自营数字化渠道。自助点餐机、App和网页平台在第三季度合计占门店销售额的约60%。管理层表示，数字化客群在一年内的到店频次更高、消费总额更多，而第三方外卖配送业务也保持增长。

名义提价幅度约为4%，但精准优惠、促销活动以及特定渠道的营销推广使净价格/组合贡献降至1.7%。公司在10月份对菜单进一步实施了1%的提价，并预计到2026年末名义提价幅度约为2%。

食材及纸制品成本有所改善，面包坯、鸡肉和乳制品成本的下降足以抵消牛肉成本的持续通胀。管理层将部分改善归功于采购和供应链举措，并表示该计划目前正处于“第三或第四局”（初期阶段）。预计第四季度牛肉成本将出现环比通缩，而整体大宗商品篮子成本预计将继续保持低个位数百分比的降幅。

菜品创新拉动了客流量、到店频次和客单价的增长。BBQ烧烤系列、西海岸风味菜单、Reese's花生酱奶昔以及重新回归的黑松露菜单均获得了良好的顾客反响。Shake Shack计划保持四个主要的限时特惠（LTO）推广期，同时降低不必要的运营和供应链复杂度。

公司在第三季度新开21家直营门店和16家特许经营门店。新直营门店的初始年销售额通常在300万至350万美元之间，利润率处于15%至19%的高位区间。对于已批准的项目，管理层仍以第三年实现30%的现金回报率（cash-on-cash return）为目标。

特许经营业务表现受到美国机场、加拿大和英国新开门店的拉动，而中东地区的冲突持续对当地业绩产生不利影响。此外，Shake Shack还宣布了进军巴西市场的计划。

管理层指引

• 截至第三季度累计新开54家直营门店后，管理层维持了2026年新开60至65家直营门店的目标。
• 特许经营新开门店数量预计将达到40至45家指导区间的高端。
• 全年同店销售额增长率预计将维持在低个位数百分比水平。
• 全年调整后EBITDA预计将接近2.25亿美元至2.35亿美元指导区间的低端。
• 计入新开门店的拖累影响后，餐厅层面利润率的目标仍为22%至23%。
• 全年一般及行政费用（G&A）占营收的比例预计将接近12%至13%目标区间的低端。
• 2026财年的股权激励费用预计约为2000万美元。
• 管理层指出，年度营收增长目标仍维持在15%左右的中双位数百分比水平。

风险与关注点

低收入消费群体依然面临压力，特别是在城市市场，不过高收入客群的客流量抵消了这一疲软态势。管理层还重点提及了燃油及其他运营成本高企、第三季度牛肉通胀持续以及外卖佣金增加等不利因素。

门店的快速扩张给短期利润率和可比销售额带来了压力。新门店开业初期的销售额和利润率通常较低，而第三方外卖配送区域的重叠通过销售额分流造成了估计20至50个基点的客流量阻力。

第四季度的同比基数包含去年成功的超值套餐和媒体宣传活动。此外，随着在技术和团队成员方面的持续投入，第四季度营销支出预计也将环比增加。

分析师问答亮点

• 新店单店经济效益：管理层表示，尽管新开门店的年销售额在300万至350万美元之间，但全系统平均单店销售额仍保持在400万美元左右。新门店初期的利润率通常在15%至19%的高位区间，随后逐步向公司设定的第三年回报目标迈进。
• 利润率策略：Shake Shack无意通过削减餐厅人工这种可能损害员工或顾客满意度的方式来拉动EBITDA增长。公司预计供应链节约和运营生产率提升将有助于抵消新门店及成本带来的压力。
• 营销效率：在营销支出低于去年同期的情况下，公司仍实现了可比销售额和客流量的正增长。受去年同期基数较高以及既定品牌投资计划的影响，第四季度支出将有所增加。
• 会员体系推出时间：Beta测试版可能在2026年第四季度或2027年第一季度推出，前提是该平台达到管理层的标准。管理层预计该会员计划不会在短期内带来巨大的销售额或利润率收益。
• 定价策略：管理层表示，定价旨在抵消通胀和投资成本，而非扩大利润率。2027年的定价决策将综合考虑大宗商品、劳动力、运营成本、消费环境以及对性价比的认知。
• 消费者行为：管理层表示客单价行为未出现显著恶化，近期还观察到单笔交易购买件数有所增加，这在一定程度上得益于高端奶昔产品的创新。

业绩电话会完整纪要

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完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to Shake Shack's Third Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Alison. Please go ahead.

Alison Sternberg

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Joining me for Shake Shack's conference call is our CEO, Rob Lynch; and our CFO, Michelle Hook. During today's call, we will discuss 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 or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release and the financial details section of our shareholder letter.

Some of today's statements may be forward-looking, and actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K filed on February 26, 2026, our other quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and our other SEC filings.

Any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements if our views change. By now, you should have access to our third quarter 2026 shareholder letter and our Q3 quarterly report on Form 10-Q which can be found at investor.shakeshack.com in the quarterly results section and as an exhibit to our 8-K for the quarter.

I will now turn the call over to Rob.

Robert Lynch

Thanks, Alison, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by thanking our team members around the world who bring in light hospitality to life in our Shacks every single day. Your care for our guests is what makes this company special, and I'm grateful for it.

This week, we had the opportunity to host over 20 new restaurant GMs in our Atlanta offices for training and development. Their enthusiasm to be a part of Shake Shack was infectious, and I'm so thankful to everyone in our organization for creating the type of company and culture that make Shake Shack a great place to build a career.

On to our third quarter results. In a tough environment, our team stayed focused on what matters most. Taking care of each other and our guests. And I'm incredibly proud of how our 15,000 team members and our license partners showed up over the last few months and for the results they produced.

Company-operated same-Shack sales grew 2.5%, including 0.8% traffic growth, which marks our fifth consecutive quarter of positive traffic and our 23rd consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales. These results were delivered against our toughest prior year comparison of the year, which included the debut of this by choice and our initial significant investment in paid media.

We lapped those investments with less marketing spend this quarter as we continue to improve our marketing productivity. Our continued comp sales and traffic growth while opening a large number of new Shacks gives us confidence in our ability to reach our long-term guidance of 1,500 company-operated shacks.

Our Shack level margins remained healthy at 22.5%, and we grew adjusted EBITDA 16% versus the prior year. We delivered these results while absorbing elevated input costs across multiple line items. Underscoring our disciplined cost management across the company and the excellence of execution throughout our company run operations.

The consumer backdrop remained challenging throughout the quarter. While higher income guests continue to spend, lower income guests remain under pressure. Our data tells a similar story with traffic growth from higher income guests offsetting softness among lower-income guests, particularly in our urban markets.

As I've mentioned before, we have less exposure to the low-income segment due to our real estate portfolio and our premium positioning. However, we aspire to serve all guests. And while we continue to see pressure on the consumer, we remain focused on delivering a compelling value proposition while maintaining our premium positioning in the marketplace.

In a highly competitive industry environment, where every brand is competing for declining traffic, we know we have to earn every visit. Three primary components of our strategy continue to drive our consistent same-Shack sales growth, strong restaurant operations, distinctive culinary excellence that differentiates our brand and targeted media and digital investments that productively drive awareness and engagement.

First, our improvements in restaurant operations continue to elevate the guest experience while delivering strong margins. Our focus on using the highest quality ingredients delivered with operational excellence and enlightened hospitality continues to deliver a strong value proposition while supporting our premium positioning.

Our labor attainment levels have continued to exceed our expectations, reducing our overtime and helping to maintain our strong margins. Our Shacks are clean, comfortable and cared for, bringing pride to our teams and the communities that we serve.

Second, culinary innovation continues to differentiate Shake Shack and drive just excitement. Shakeshack is grounded in a history of culinary innovation. Our core menu of burgers, fries and shakes is the foundation of everything we do, and we will continue to deliver excellence every day with abundant portions and the highest quality ingredients.

We complement our core menu with premium innovation on a select number of LTOs. This strategy balances our core menu, which is what attracts most new guests, with premium LTOs that build the brand and aim to drive frequency and check among our current highest lifetime value debt.

This approach allows us to reach more guests without compromising the soul of the brand or significantly discounting our core menus. Starting in Q2 and continuing into Q3, our barbecue platform drove strong trial, frequency and check.

This platform was anchored by the baby back rig sandwich, which has been recognized as one of 2026 best new culinary innovations. In July, we introduced our West Coast inspired platform. The West Coast platform delivered strong guest satisfaction while generating a surprisingly strong organic social media response.

Positive creator and desk reviews highlighted the quality of our ingredients and distinctive flavors helping sustain momentum beyond the initial launch. This excitement and the brand buzz around new figures and limited time culinary experiences is why we offer them. This is not new at Shake Shack. We have always brought culinary innovation, beginning when we started as a hotdog stand and proceeded to then launch burgers and shakes.

Innovation is in our DNA. As long as it improves our best experience, without materially disrupting our operations or supply chain. In September, we complemented the Wesco sandwich platform with the launch of our premium Reese's peanut butter cup shake.

Similar to our Dubai chocolate pistachio shake from 2025, this shake featured our signature chocolate crackable shell and was premium positioned in our lineup, which helps support comp and traffic growth. We are excited about our premium shake innovation, and we'll continue to bring new culinary forward shake offerings.

As we closed out Q3, we welcomed back our Black Truffle menu, our #1 requested LTO and are very excited about the continued positive response that we see from our guests when we feature this unique high-quality ingredients. Looking ahead, our innovation pipeline is strong and will continue to include premium shakes new burger sandwich offerings and delicious side items that combine distinctive flavors with memorable culinary experiences.

The continued quality of our core menu with the best ingredients possible, coupled with our unique culinary initiatives, build the brand, drive trial, frequency and check growth. We do this while minimizing operational and supply chain complexity.

We are delivering proven guest favorites alongside bold new flavors, all supported by disciplined testing to identify the strongest opportunities to bring to market. Third, our targeted media and digital investments continue to strengthen guest engagement and drive traffic growth.

As we build out our loyalty program and focus on expanding our best database and targeting capabilities, we now define our digital mix as the channels where we control our communication and interaction with our guests. Our own digital channels now include inject kiosks, App and web platforms and represented approximately 60% of Shack sales in Q3.

As we have communicated in the past, our digital guests visit more frequently and spend more over the course of the year. Delivery, which we now view independently from our own digital channels continues to be a healthy part of our business with strong growth as we partner with third-party providers to reach new guests.

Throughout the quarter, we continued testing personalized marketing across all channels to identify efficient ways to drive traffic and sales while maintaining healthy margins. These efforts are helping us attract and retain guests. Increased lifetime value and strengthen the foundation for loyalty and life cycle marketing, all while maintaining promotional and pricing discipline.

Turning to margins. We delivered another quarter of healthy restaurant level profitability despite a challenging operating environment. The work we have done over the past several years to strengthen our restaurant operations and supply chain have improved service levels and delivered productivity across the business.

This allows us to balance margin expansion with investments that support traffic growth, strengthen our value proposition and enhance the guest experience. We believe that this approach positions us to drive sustainable growth while continuing to build a strong, resilient business over time.

This productivity also reduces our dependency on pricing to completely mitigate ongoing inflationary pressure. On the development front, this was our largest third quarter of unit growth ever.

We opened 21 new company-operated Shacks, including our first South Carolina Shacks in Charleston and Greenville, bringing the year-to-date total to 54. We remain on track to open 60 to 65 this year, and we'll continue to grow with a disciplined approach to ensure that we open new Shacks that will deliver on our expected returns over the long term.

This planful pace of growth reflects our confidence in both the strength of our development pipeline and a significant white space opportunity we see ahead. As we continue to densify existing markets and enter new ones, we expect some near-term effects that naturally accompany this rate of expansion.

Understandably, opening this number of new Shacks this year has had some negative impact on our comp sales which makes our consistent positive comp performance that much more exciting. However, what is most important is that our new class of Shacks continue to perform well and are tracking in line with our 3-year return expectations.

This performance reinforces our confidence in the long-term opportunity to scale Shake Shack and create shareholder value to renew Shack growth. We will remain focused on balancing the revenue and EBITDA growth contributed by new Shacks with the margin and comp headwinds that they create in the first couple of years of their existence.

Turning to our license business. Our license partners delivered a solid quarter despite a challenging global backdrop. Licensing sales increased 8.3% to $236.8 million, while licensing revenue grew 4.7% to $15.3 million. While the conflict in the Middle East continue to impact results in the region, those pressures moderated relative to the first half of the year.

At the same time, we saw strong performance from new Shacks in U.S. airports in Canada and the United Kingdom. During the quarter, we opened 16 new licensed Shacks, and we have now opened 32 new licensed Shacks year-to-date. We continue to see attractive opportunities to expand the brand through our licensing model partnering with experienced operators who share a commitment to quality, hospitality and long-term brand stewardship.

We're also excited about the recent announcement of our entry into Brazil, one of the world's largest restaurant markets in a country with a vibrant food culture. Finally, an update on project catalysts. We continue to make meaningful progress on the technology foundation that will support Shake Shacks next chapter of growth.

The work underway across our restaurant systems, digital platforms, loyalty capabilities, data infrastructure and AI tools is all focused on a simple goal. Making it easier for guests to use Shake Shack and easier for our teams to deliver great experiences.

We're taking a thoughtful phased approach as we can introduce these capabilities, but we're excited about the opportunity ahead. Over time, we believe these investments will help us strengthen guest relationships, increase efficiency, enhance personalization and support our ability to scale the brand while delivering a light hospitality at every touch point.

These investments in our technology infrastructure are designed to support improved restaurant operations and help us leverage G&A moving forward. Before I turn the call over to Michelle, I want to share how I'm thinking about the balance of the year. I recognized that we had a challenging start to 2026.

As we opened more restaurants in Q1 than ever before and experienced an outsized drag on our margins, but I'm proud of the progress we're making in the position we're in. We have learned a lot in 2026 about striking the right balance between new Shack growth, comp growth and margin maintenance.

I couldn't be more thankful to our corporate and restaurant teams for staying focused working hard and believing in our future. The perseverance, leadership and the care for our teams that our managers have shown in 2026 inspires me every day, and I'm humbled to be a part of the Shake Shack team.

The actions that this team has taken to strengthen restaurant operations, deliver culinary innovation, expand our development pipeline and build scalable marketing and technology capabilities are the reasons that we delivered our 23rd consecutive quarter of same Shack sales growth, this straight quarter of comp traffic growth and continue to have strong operating margins and have confidence in our future.

As we close out 2026, we will remain disciplined and focused on what we can control. Delivering the highest quality food, coupled with a commitment to enlightened hospitality that continues to drive consistent, dependable top and bottom line growth.

We've built a resilient business with a differentiated brand, positive comp momentum strong unit economics and a significant runway for expansion. We remain committed to executing our strategies with excellence and creating sustainable long-term value for our shareholders.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Michelle.

Michelle Hook

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results demonstrate the continued resilience of our business and the progress we're making across our strategic priorities. We are energized by our fifth consecutive quarter of positive traffic growth and extending our streak of positive same-Shack sales growth to 23 consecutive quarters.

Against the dynamic consumer backdrop, we remain focused on disciplined execution, profitable growth and creating long-term shareholder value. Now let me walk you through the quarter in more detail. Third quarter total revenue was $423.3 million, up 15.2% year-over-year driven primarily by our new Shack openings as well as 2.5% Shake Shack sales growth.

Licensing revenue was $15.3 million in the quarter, with licensing sales of $236.8 million, up 8.3% year-over-year. The growth in our licensing revenue was the result of a steady pace of new license openings. Given our strong development pipeline, we now expect to land at the high end of our 40 to 45 licensed Shack opening range in 2026.

We while also bringing Shake Shack to Panama, Vietnam and U.S. regional casinos with pet entertainment in the fourth quarter. In our company-operated business, Back sales grew 15.6% year-over-year to $408 million. We generated approximately $75,000 in average weekly sales compared to 78,000 last year.

The decline in average weekly sales was primarily driven by the rapid expansion of our restaurant base as newer shifts continue to ramp towards a mature sales volume and represent a larger portion of the system.

We delivered 2.5% Shake Shack sales growth, including 0.8% positive traffic and 1.7% price mix. Traffic growth continues to be driven by strength in our third-party delivery and own digital channels, which, as Rob mentioned earlier, we now define as kiosk app and web.

We have been intentionally investing in our own channels to acquire valuable guest data, deepen our understanding of guest behavior and drive higher lifetime value through more personalized engagement.

Gross pricing across all channels was approximately 4% for the quarter. Mix was pressured as we deliberately invested in guest engagement through trigged offers, promotions and channel-specific marketing initiatives designed to drive traffic and strengthen value perception.

In October, we implemented an additional 1% menu price increase to help offset inflationary pressures. Together with continued supply chain savings and productivity initiatives, we remain focused on balancing margin protection with thoughtful pricing and targeted investments to drive traffic.

We now expect to exit the year with approximately 2% gross pricing. We continue to advance our development pipeline with a Q3 record of 21 new openings, bringing us to 54 openings year-to-date as of the end of the quarter versus 30 this time last year.

We remain positioned to open 60 to 65 new company-operated shacks in 2026. Our confidence in the long-term opportunity to expand our footprint remains unchanged. And we are encouraged by the productivity of our newer class of shares as they track towards our expected cash-on-cash returns.

Third quarter restaurant level profit was $91.7 million or 22.5% of Shack sales. Margins declined 30 basis points versus the prior year quarter, driven by increased operating expenses primarily related to higher delivery commissions and investments in labor, partially offset by lower food and paper costs.

Supply chain optimization remains a key opportunity and continued progress will be important to mitigating cost pressures and supporting sustainable profitability. In the third quarter, food and paper costs were $115.3 million or 28.3% of Shack sales, 100 basis points lower than last year. The percentage decrease year-over-year was mainly driven by menu pricing and lower commodity costs. partially offset by promotional activity during the quarter.

Funded food and paper costs declined by low single digits in the third quarter as lower costs across our buns, chicken and dairy, more than offset continued beef inflation. These costs increased by low single digits year-over-year, but moderated sequentially while remaining elevated relative to historical levels.

Our ongoing supply chain and procurement initiatives continue to help mitigate cost pressures. Labor and related expenses were $103.8 million, representing 25.4% of Shaft sales 50 basis points higher versus last year, primarily due to investments made in our team members. Our priority continues to be team member engagement and guest satisfaction.

We, therefore, take a disciplined approach to labor ensuring our share for staff to deliver the level of hospitality and execution our guests expect while continuing to drive productivity and efficiency. We are also making investments in our restaurant manager development to help support our rate of new share growth over the coming years.

Other operating expenses were $65.8 million or 16.1% of Shaft sales, 90 basis points higher versus last year. The increase was driven primarily by higher delivery commissions, reflecting the continued growth of our delivery business and the impact of the expanded number of new Shack openings.

Occupancy and related expenses were $31.4 million or 7.7% of Shack sales flat year-over-year. Third quarter G&A totaled $45 million of total revenue, an increase of $0.6 million compared to the prior year. The year-over-year increase primarily reflects investments in our team members and technology capabilities partially offset by efficiencies in our marketing spend.

We remain disciplined in our approach to G&A while investing in technology capabilities that we will leverage as we scale the business. We continue to expect all year G&A to trend towards the low end of our 12% to 13% target range as a percentage of total revenue.

Equity-based compensation was $5 million versus $4.4 million in Q3 of 2025 with $4.4 million hitting G&A. For fiscal 2026, we now expect equity-based compensation of approximately $20 million. Preopening costs were $7 million, $2.4 million or 51% higher than the prior year driven by our Q3 record number of new Shack openings in the quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA of $62.8 million or 14.8% of revenue increased 16% year-over-year resulted primarily from higher restaurant level profit, partially offset by higher preopening expenses. We continue to expect full year adjusted EBITDA to trend towards the low end of our $225 million to $235 million target range.

Depreciation was $32.9 million. We continue to see an increase in depreciation year-over-year as a result of more company-operated Shack openings and new technology investments. Net income attributable to Shake Shack, Inc. was $16.5 million, an increase of $4 million or 31.9% versus prior year quarter.

Our GAAP tax rate was 24% and our adjusted pro forma tax rate, excluding the tax impact of equity-based compensation was 24.2%. We ended the quarter with $319 million in cash and cash equivalents on our balance sheet with $250 million in convertible notes outstanding and we have full availability under our revolving credit facility, leaving us well capitalized to fund our growth.

We are encouraged by our results through the third quarter and the progress we continue to make across the business. We delivered positive traffic. Our development pipeline is on track and our operational and supply chain initiatives continue to create flexibility within the model.

As we look to the fourth quarter, we remain mindful of the dynamic macro environment, including elevated fuel and other costs and the lap of last year's successful value and media initiatives, including our 135 platform.

We remain focused on disciplined execution, operational excellence and sustainable long-term growth as we close out 2026 and in the years to come. Thank you for your time. And with that, I will turn it back to Rob.

Robert Lynch

Thank you, Michelle. Before we open the call for questions, I want to thank our team once again for their hard work, dedication and passion for Shake Shack. Their commitment to our guests to each other and to our culture is what continues to power our progress and gives us confidence in our long-term growth opportunity.

I also want to thank our investors. We appreciate everyone joining us today. and for your continued interest in Shake Shack. With that, operator, please open up the call for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Brian Vaccaro with Raymond James.

分析师问答

Brian Vaccaro

I just wanted to ask about the new unit sales performance that you mentioned, Rob? I think you said you're densifying more markets. Could you just elaborate just on the impact you're seeing there? And are there any differences in the type of units or markets that you're opening that's also worth highlighting? .

Robert Lynch

Brian, it's pretty consistent with what we've seen in the past. We obviously are in more markets at this point than we were a few years back. So a larger proportion of our new units are in existing markets versus kind of greenfield markets.

So we are -- I think we've talked about it in the past, but our new units tend to open up somewhere in the $3 million to $3.5 million range, and they obviously open up with lower margins than our run rate Shacks because they require more training, they get off the ground, and they have lower AUVs to start.

So obviously, they don't get the flow-through in the leverage. So when you think about the path forward and this isn't any different than the than how we have operated the last couple of years, but we just want to make it really clear on the path forward.

Our AUVs have remained at $4 million. despite a larger number of new Shacks coming in at lower initial sales volumes. And that's a function of our core Shacks and our top Shacks growing comps in the low single digits. That growth on those higher volume Shacks mitigate kind of the entry point for the newer Shacks leaving our AUVs right in that million range.

And then on the margin side, the new Shacks come in. And like I mentioned, they come in, in the high teens on margin because they require extra investment to open and launch -- and so that's a little bit of a drag on our holistic margin, but it's encouraging because that means our comp Shacks have margins higher than what our average that we reported is because that's blended across both comp and noncomp Shack.

So that's kind of the big impact on kind of the run rate of the business. Our objective when we approve any project regardless of which market or which format is always to deliver 30% cash on cash in year 3. And we've been able to continue to do that.

Throughout this -- the development over the last decade, if you will. So we are -- our plan moving forward as well. So as we can -- we are growing the number of Shacks every year and that we build.

And so those headwinds are going to continue to be present and we're going to continue to track them very closely to make sure they're delivering on our returns. And we feel great about the impact that it's having on our revenue growth and our EBITDA growth, and we've been able to mitigate some of the margin and comp headwind that comes.

And I just want to call it a comp headwind. As I stated in the past, we have a lot of white space. So we're not building Shacks in close proximity to each other. It's not outside of Manhattan.

We're not building Shacks for mile or 2 miles away. Most of our projects are 10-plus miles away from our existing check. The cannibalization really comes from the delivery side of the business. We don't get to control the radius around each Shack that the delivery providers control. So when we open a new Shack that's 10 miles away, and the radius around the prior Shack with 7 miles, you're going to see some cannibalization of that delivery business, and that's primarily where it shows up.

So that's the model moving forward. We're going to open 60-plus units every year. and we're going to drive revenue and EBITDA growth with new Shacks but we're also going to have to continue to drive comps and be productive to mitigate the short-term margin and comp implications from those new Shack openings.

But that's not additive to what is already embedded in our business. the numbers we just reported already reflect all of that happening. So we have high confidence that we can continue to deliver our guide of low single-digit comps and 22% to 23% margins as we continue to grow.

Brian Vaccaro

All right. That's super helpful. And just a quick follow-up, if I could, on G&A. Your third quarter dollars were flat year-on-year driving pretty significant leverage. And then I think your guide embeds maybe a bump back into the low $50 million kind of plus range.

Could you just unpack what we're seeing in both Q3 and within that 4Q guide and maybe specifically what that reflects from a marketing perspective?

Robert Lynch

Yes. I mean we're 5 quarters into this marketing journey, right, where Q3 of last year was the first quarter where we materially upped our investment in marketing. And as I've stated in the sequential quarter since we continue to learn and optimize our marketing model.

And I feel I give a lot of credit to our marketing team under our new leadership and marketing of really optimizing our media mix and being more effective at targeting the right guest at the right time. And we've also optimized kind of our own channel digital offers.

So we are reaching the right people to drive trial and the right people to drive frequency, and we're doing it in a more efficient and effective way. So despite the investments in some of the promotions that are a bit of a drag on mix, we've still been able to maintain our margins.

And I'm really proud of that in this environment, being able to go out and drive traffic while holding on to our margins where a lot of our competitors have had some margin degradation.

So that's really a function of the effectiveness of our marketing coupled with the operations. So marketing is a big part of our G&A. And the flow of that is really going to be driven by where we choose to invest in our marketing, right?

I mean our SMB and our other investments in G&A kind of stable throughout the year. So the fluctuations throughout the year in G&A are really driven by our decisions on marketing, and we're being very strategic and where we invest in Q4 is one of our biggest quarters of the year from a volume standpoint.

We've got some big lapse in Q4. Last year, we launched 135 in Q4, and we launched the Big Shack in Q4. So we are making bigger investments in Q4 than we felt were needed in Q3 to deliver the results we just reported.

So that's why the G&A changes quarter-to-quarter and why we're maintaining kind of our guide on EBITDA despite a lower spend on G&A. Michelle, would you like to add anything on G&A?

Michelle Hook

Now just to reiterate, Brian, that we do see it sequentially stepping up in Q4 to Rob's point, because of the higher marketing spend and then our continued investments in our team members and our technology initiatives. So that's the only add I'd make.

Operator

Our next question is from Michael Tamas with Oppenheimer & Company.

Michael Tamas

You've driven 5 quarters in a row of positive traffic, and you lapped the positive traffic you started from the third quarter last year, what you think is a hurdle that market was kind of looking for.

So as we think about the path forward from here, your marketing is still going to grow with sales, but there won't be the big step-up that you've had over the last year.

So help us unpack how you're thinking about the same-store sales drivers into next year between maybe loyalty, its timing and impact? How are you going to get more dialed in on your targeted marketing and then the innovation calendar that you talked about?

Robert Lynch

Yes. Thank you for the question and the recognition of the 5 straight orders. Yes. I mean, look, this was a big quarter for us. I think there was a lot of question marks on whether or not we could lap the 5% comp we delivered last Q3 without a big infusion of marketing.

And the team has just continued to improve our go-to-market model and our media purchasing and the way we implement our offers across our own digital channels and the way we work with our delivery partners. So not only did we comp positively, we did it with less marketing versus a year ago.

And that is the biggest source of encouragement for me and our ability to continue to drive solid comp and traffic growth. So we are growing revenue almost as fast as anybody in the industry. So if we maintain the same rate of spend on marketing moving forward, that means our marketing budget is going to increase at the rate of revenue increases.

So this quarter, we grew 15.2%. And this year, we're planning to grow mid-teens and guided to mid-teens growth. So every year, if we continue to deliver that type of revenue growth, we're going to get that amount of increased marketing.

And that's -- a lot of brands aren't growing the revenues and market is usually spent as a function of revenue. So with one with mid-teens revenue or marketing investment growth every year, coupled with the continued productivity that we see in every channel of our marketing mix, we have a lot of confidence in our ability to continue to drive traffic.

And when we talk about traffic, we all talk about comp traffic, and that's obviously the biggest KPI. So when you think about traffic as a whole, with the number of restaurants we're opening up every year and you think about the revenue growth this quarter of 15% revenue growth was only 1.7% check growth.

That revenue growth is coming from almost entirely from traffic as our company's footprint in these markets. So our traffic growth as a company is in the low teens. So we continue to take care.

Every time we go in and open up a Shack and it does $3.5 million out of the gate, that's coming from somewhere. So we have been able to go in and build restaurants and be very successful building new restaurants that make a lot of money right out of the gate while being able to maintain that comp growth is 23 straight quarters of comp sales growth.

And I've been here 2.5 years now, and it's always been a question of whether we can do that and can we do it with traffic and now 5 straight quarters of traffic growth. So we're building the engine that can replicate that year in and year out without needing a big additional infusion of marketing.

Michael Tamas

And then just on the margin, I know you're not giving guidance beyond '27 and you're reviewing the longer-term restaurant margin targets. I think the implication was that the new unit growth was pressuring margins which adjusted that your comp base units were growing margins.

This quarter, we saw a slight shift, I think labor delevered for the first time in about 4 years as you made some investments. So can you just help us qualitatively think about margins after '26. Are your comp base units going to be growing margins and that pressure is really from the new units? Or are you now in this investment cycle that started with labor here this quarter that we're going to see going into '27 as well.

Robert Lynch

So qualitatively, strategically, our #1 priority is team member and guest satisfaction. As a company, full stop. So we did a ton of work on the labor line over the last few years to get the operating procedures and the labor modeling and the scheduling and everything in place that we can run as effective as possible.

We feel great about that accomplishment and where we are. But we are not going to continue to try to leverage the labor line. We are really focused on investing in our team members to support our rate of new unit growth, right?

We are opening up more Shacks than we have ever opened up. And those Shacks, the #1 limiting factor is having great people to go and open up those Shacks. So we are investing in our team member development, where we just had our GMs -- our first GM Capstone event here in Atlanta this week with over 20 new GMs, teaching them, coaching them on how to open up and run restaurants effectively.

Like those are investments we're making and training and development. That's all going to affect the labor line. Now we don't see a material increase in our labor rate but it's definitely not a source for us to continue to drive increased productivity. We do not want to be a brand that has to make their EBITDA number by cutting labor that negatively impacts our team member or guest satisfaction.

So that's kind of the strategic component. Now in terms of the financial piece, I'll let Michelle speak to kind of what our financial outlook on labor looks like.

Michelle Hook

Yes. And I'll get back, Michael, to just the overall margins and your point on us assessing the 2020 or the long-range outlook. That's correct. We currently have out there, we're going to grow margins 50 basis points.

But as Rob mentioned earlier, our new Shacks don't come out of the gate doing the 22% to 23% that we're targeting this year in 2026. And so generally, right, those first couple of years, they were doing more high teens margins. And so that's the assessment we're making as we look forward and say, okay, how many new Shacks are coming into the portfolio, what is that margin drive?

Because there is a margin drag. There's a margin drag this year, there's going to be a margin drag next year. but how are we mitigating against that with other things going on in the business.

Rob mentioned we're not going to compromise on labor in terms of investments and our team members and hospitality. But we've also talked about opportunities within supply chain and some of the initiatives that we're driving there to get efficiencies on that line item.

So as all of that comes together, there's puts and takes on both sides. And so that's the assessment that we're making. But for right now, all of that's embedded in our annual outlook of 22% to 23%.

And so we feel good about that. More to come as we enter 2027 on what that long-term algo looks like as we continue to assess that.

Operator

Our next question is from Gregory Francfort with Guggenheim Partners.

Gregory Francfort

On the new stores, I mean, there's been a lot of talk on the margin impact. But can you maybe just remind us what the comp trajectory looks like as sort of they open up maybe lower margin, but are you seeing a difference in waterfall? And maybe what does that look like in year 1, year 2, year 3 on the comp side?

Michelle Hook

Yes, Greg. And so as you know, we don't enter Shacks into the comp base until after 24 months. So there -- the reason we do that is there is a honeymoon curve generally to new Shacks. And so rates are going to start out at a level of sales. We're going to see a little bit of a dip in year 2 and then the expectation is as they get into year 3, right, their comp and positive.

And along that journey, as we mentioned, we expect to see margin expansion over the course of those years, but there is a honeymoon curve to that, Greg.

Gregory Francfort

Okay. And then just maybe on pricing and commodity inflation going forward. I mean beef, it seems like it's rolling, but you obviously have diesel and a bunch of upward pressures.

And I think you're going to carry 2% to the start of next year, but you said, what are your thoughts in terms of how much coverage you need to do and kind of what level of pricing you need to run?

Michelle Hook

Yes. Correct on your -- what you stated, Greg, which is exiting the year, we'll be at about 2% pricing. We have some pricing that rolls off in December of this year, putting in that 2%. Generally, we're not in the mindset that we want to take price to bolster margins, right?

We're looking at pulling that lever in terms of how we offset inflationary cost pressures. And not to, again, bolster mergers. And so as we enter next year, being mindful of that and also being mindful right, of where we sit in terms of value perception in the marketplace.

So all those play a role as we go into next year as we think about the pricing lever. And so as we get into that time period, we're going to look at all those input costs, whether it's on to your point on the commodities our operating expenses, labor, et cetera, and make the decisions on when and where we're going to take price.

But we're definitely very mindful about where we sit and then also the consumer environment that we're heading into next year.

Operator

Our next question is from Margaret-May Binshtok with Wolfe Research.

Margaret-May Binshtok

I know you guys talked a little bit about some of the softness with that lower income gas, especially in your urban markets. I just want to understand, given a lot of your value sits in the app, how are you thinking about balancing value for that walking gas to visit in the app?

And then I just wanted to follow up to make our the time line of the loyalty launch is that something that we should still be expecting towards the end of this year.

Robert Lynch

Yes. So the majority of our orders in Shack are on kiosk at this point. And for anybody that is in our fat universe has signed up for our app or offers, able to execute those offers in our kiosks.

So it's not app only where the value shows up. It's also in the kiosk. And that's why we changed the definition of our digital platforms because we want to kind of reflect the work that we're doing to make sure that we're delivering value and we're delivering growth on our highest lifetime value guests on a run rate basis.

And so we pulled delivery out of digital and added our key open because we are able to deploy offers and track purchase behavior on our kiosks. So that's the whole reason why we made that definition change, and we're very focused on driving our digital business, both in Shack, with our kiosk as well as our app and web business.

Loyalty. We don't look at loyalty as like a short-term driver -- huge driver of sales or profit out of the gate. Loyalty programs tended by definition, be leveraged by your current guests. And so sometimes there's even in other instances a drag when you launch a loyalty program because you're launching it with your current guest is not necessarily a tool to go and attract new guests.

So we're being very thoughtful about loyalty because we want it to be a long-term value creator, like our vision for loyalty is being able to deliver enlightened hospitality in our digital footprint right, in our digital universe.

So we are really investing a lot of time and energy to make this more than just a point-based program. We want it to be an engagement tool, harkening back to Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group, when someone walks in and they know your name and they know what you've ordered in the past, they know that it's your anniversary or your birthday, like that's our aspiration.

So we are working very diligently and planfully to execute against that. And so we talked about launching loyalty in some beta form in Q4 this year, Q1 next year. that may still happen, but only if we have confidence that it's going to be the representation of light hospitality that we aspire to.

And it's not really a financial implication because we don't expect loyalty to have an outsized comp or margin impact when we launch it, it's much more of a long-term investment to cultivate our highest lifetime value guests.

Operator

Our next question is from Chris Carril with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Christopher Carril

So on the 4Q same track sales growth, is there anything else you can provide in terms of how we should think about the current quarter just given the wide range implied by the guidance. Michael, I know you mentioned some of the dynamics to consider.

But any additional detail, including what you're seeing quarter-to-date would be helpful.

Michelle Hook

Yes, Chris, we're not going to comment on quarter-to-date trends. Obviously, we know there's a range of outcomes because there is a range of outcomes, right? And so I'll just refer you back to our annual guide, which is the low single-digit comp for the full year.

But as Rob talked about, we've had 23 straight quarters of positive comp growth and 5 straight quarters of positive traffic growth. And we want to continue that trend. So our goal is obviously to continue that trend. But we feel we have the strategies in place based on everything that we've talked about today. to continue that trend.

And so but commenting on the quarter-to-date trends are something that we're not going to do at this point in time. And again, the low single digits for the full year is what we're guiding to.

Christopher Carril

Okay. Great. And then, Rob, I did want to ask you about just how you're feeling about LTO cadence maybe both from a Shack perspective, but then also what you're seeing across the industry?

Do you feel you have the right LTO cadence today? Or do you think that there's opportunity to kind of review that. And then any other further thoughts on just kind of LTO cadence and operational impact would be helpful.

Robert Lynch

Yes, great question. So I mean, we launched 4 big LTO windows here. So it's a lot less than maybe some of the fast-cycle innovation brands launch, but maybe more than some of the non kind of innovation-driven brand launch. So I feel like we're kind of like right in the middle.

And the reason why we choose that kind of model is we believe that our food is differentiated in the space. We believe that we can deliver culinary that other folks can't. And so it's not just about bringing in traffic in one month to kind of juice the jam.

Like we bring in our LTOs and they're in for 3 months, sometimes 4 months or even longer if they're really performing and we want to extend them like we did truffle last year. So our -- it's not like a standard calendar.

It really is a thoughtful approach about how we can build the brand through the news that is generated in the on the culinary experience and then driving repeat with our most valuable guests.

I mean, we are seeing a huge awesome response to bring him back truffles. I mean this is the third time we've had truffled is like it's a new LTO that we've never launched. So we're going to strike a good balance between like new-to-the-world stuff like the baby back rib and stuff that's driving true like truffle, and we're going to do it in a way that is the least impactful on operations and supply chain.

We're trying to limit the number of unique ingredients in our LTOs, which can create some supply chain and operating issues. We also have an opportunity, I think, to get a little bit more refined on some of the ancillary items that we bring in some of these windows.

We come with 3 new shakes. We come with different flavors of some of our side items and chicken bites although we have 1 big LTO and that's what we focus on, there's other things there, too.

So we're exploring ways to kind of decrease some of the operating pressure not by doing less big not by moving from 4 to 3 or 2 LT of big LTOs, but also by optimizing kind of the portfolio of new items that we bring within the context of those 4 big windows.

I would call out, we're also doing some like not LTOs, but we're doing some collaborations right now that we're really excited about in the news right now, there's a collaboration with Mama's Too which is one of the best pizza restaurants in New York City. And this isn't going to generate a bunch of system-wide sales but the social media discussions about it and the excitement and brand buzz of Shake Shack collaborating with this amazing cult-like following pizza restaurant, like those are the kind of stories we won out in the world to reinforce our culinary prowess and our connectivity into some of these great chefs and some of these great restaurants.

So there's as much brand building and news and buzz that we're trying to drive with some of this culinary innovation as it is kind of a comp sales story.

Michael Tamas

Great. And I definitely appreciate you bringing back the Black topple menu. It's amazing the love for that product. And when you really think about it, we get those couples literally from Italy.

I mean this is why one of the big reasons why I'm here at Shake Shack. I mean, this brand and this company is committed to doing things the right way and getting the highest quality ingredients we can possibly deliver. And the more we can just bring news about that.

It has a halo effect back on our core business. And so once again, we've got to do it in a way that doesn't disrupt operations and supply chain and negatively impact accuracy or fee of service, but there's a huge amount of like halo benefit from launching things like Truffle and the Mama's Too collaboration.

Operator

Our next question is from Sara Senatore with Bank of America.

Sara Senatore

Just maybe a question on the margin and then a quick modeling question. Gross margin performance was better this quarter, even though I think the gap between pricing and input cost is roughly the same, maybe 200 basis points more price.

You help if you just talk about what the drivers were? Is that -- are you starting to see the benefits of some of the supply chain initiatives? Is this more to do with kind of a full quarter of 246 versus 135 just as I think the articulated kind of view on margin has been more coming from cost of goods and maybe electron labor. I'm curious where you are in seeing that?

And then the modeling question was just about royalty rates on licensing. I guess your licensing revenue grew more slowly than licensing sales. Is that just a difference between higher royalty rates outside the U.S.

Michelle Hook

Yes, I'll take the margin question, Sara. So to your point, yes, we're definitely seeing a benefit from what I would characterize as price when you -- we came in with the 4% gross price. But then to your point, and going from 135 to 246 obviously, that is definitely going to provide a benefit to your point, on the gross profit.

And then when you look at our overall commodity basket in the third quarter, we were down low single digits. These were so up low single digits. But when you look at the rest of the basket, and I called out our bonds dairy and chicken being down in the quarter, definitely contributed.

And that's in the form of what we've been talking about which is our supply chain team going after certain categories and finding ways that we can buy more efficiently within our supply chain.

So all those things contribute to what you saw on the gross profit side. And on the licensing side, Rob, if you want to take that one, I'll turn it over to you.

Robert Lynch

I mean licensing -- obviously, licensing sales are higher than revenue, and our revenue effectively is just the royalties minus G&A that we extend to derive those royalties. And there are inputs where sometimes we make investments in some of the partnerships or in some of the other infrastructure that we're building around the licensing business.

So that's really a reflection of just some investment that we made that flows through to that EBITDA line.

Michelle Hook

Yes. I would just add, Sara our royalty rates are generally in line. So there's nothing I'd call out there.

Robert Lynch

Yes, just more just the investments that we chose to make.

Operator

Our next question is from Chris O'Cull with Baird, please proceed.

Christopher O'Cull

Yes. I just had a follow-up on the supply chain questions or comments, Michelle. Can you help us understand the rough magnitude of the supply chain initiatives that contributed to this quarter? And then how we should think about that dynamic over maybe the remainder of this year and into next year?

Michelle Hook

Yes, Chris, I'll point to what I called out, which is we definitely saw some slight inflation on beef lower on the other categories. Paper and Packaging was also down in the quarter.

As we go into Q4, we do expect quarter-over-quarter beef to actually become deflationary. We've seen that come down into Q4, but we still expect generally our basket to still be down in that low single-digit range when you look at all the categories combined.

And so that's what I comment on in Q4. We don't expect to be materially different, but we do expect it to be down low single digits apology.

Christopher O'Cull

And then I apologize -- I'm talking about supply chain initiatives, like the efforts to kind of improve the supply chain not just the commodity inflation.

Michelle Hook

Got it. Okay. .

Robert Lynch

So I would say we're kind of in inning 3 or 4 of our supply chain journey. We've made a lot of progress. We're starting to derive some of those benefits. I mean, some of those savings that Michelle is talking about on dairy and buns and some of these other nonbeef items. Those aren't just macro prices.

Those are a result of some of the work that our team has done to RFP those businesses and optimize the way we make and distribute those ingredients. So it's not just commodity prices. There's definitely benefit from some of the things that we've done internally.

And as we look forward, we have a lot of opportunity ahead, and we are actively working those opportunities. We've built an infrastructure, and that's where some of the G&A increases over the last year, 1.5 years have gone into our supply chain capabilities and the leadership there and the competencies there.

So we're really excited about our ability to continue to find savings there. Now that being said, some of those savings are going to be mitigated by some of the margin pressure from our new Shack openings like we talked about.

So we're constantly working to strike that right balance on the margins while delivering the guide on top line revenue and EBITDA growth. So our margins we feel really good about 22.5%. Obviously, for them to move materially higher, there's things that would have to happen that are kind of outside our control.

But we feel confident that even with the rate of openings we're having and the drag that brings the margins that we're going to be able to continue to deliver these types of strong margins as the supply chain and operations.

Operator

Our next question is from Lauren Silberman with Deutsche Bank.

Lauren Silberman

So Rob, I know you mentioned high consumers continue to outperform the lower income. As you move through the year, have you seen any change in performance across low middle or high income cohorts? Any signs of check management that you're seeing? .

Robert Lynch

Not dramatically. In fact, I've been a little bit surprised recently that we're actually seeing a higher items per check show up in our business. I know there's been a lot of industry discussion around this whole idea of GLP-1 and people having to cut back and they're not cutting back occasions, but they're cutting back on the items per check.

We've actually seen really some strength in our items project recently. I think that's a testament to the culinary that we have launched and particularly some of the shakes.

We're seeing people buy shakes. The Reeses peanut butter to shake has been a big win for us and similar to the way Dubai Chocolate shake was. So I think as long as we can continue to bring offerings that are new and unique and different, we're going to get people to want to try those things.

I mean when you go to Shake Shack, it's a different dynamic than when you go to traditional fast food. And so it's kind of an occasion, right? I mean we have really high attack beverage attachment rates. We have very high fry attachment rates.

Like we don't have to do a lot of like inject combing and stuff to sell beverages price People that come to Shake Shack once a full experience. So we just haven't seen as much pressure on items per check as maybe the QSR segment of the industry is seeing.

Lauren Silberman

Great. Very helpful. And then on the cost side, any color you can provide on Cadence moving through the quarter. And I know you guys don't want to talk about quarter-to-date specifically. But given like the volatility in the industry, a lot of companies talking about a slowdown in early October, like anything you could at least share qualitatively on the consumer environment or how you're thinking about it broadly?

Robert Lynch

Yes. I'll just build on what Michelle said, we are absolutely focused on continuing to deliver positive comps and positive traffic. And we are really happy, as we called out in the call, really happy with the performance of Truffle it's doing really well.

And we're getting really efficient and effective with our marketing and media. So we have a lot of confidence, not just for Q4, but like moving forward, that we're going to continue this positive same Shack sales and traffic story.

Operator

Our next question is from Andrew Charles with TD Cowen.

Andrew Charles

I'm curious what your decision to take price in October. You guys have talked about macro pressures on the consumer. It's obviously been a favorable 3Q and 4Q commodity backdrop as well as the productivity efforts in the supply chain. So what was the rationale for the price increase?

Robert Lynch

Look, we talked about the investments we want to make in our teams on the labor line. So we're making those investments. There's a cost to those investments. We also have talked about some of the OpEx that we are incremental OpEx costs that we're incurring because of our growth of our delivery business.

And we want to make sure that our Shacks, that our legacy Shacks that are now 20 years old and some of them doing $8 million to $10 million in sales that we continue to invest in those Shacks through restaurant maintenance and make sure that they're a great experience for our guests.

Because they're delivering huge returns for our business. So there's other costs outside of the commodities, and we try to take pricing to reflect take pricing that mitigate those costs and maintain the margins.

And that's why you see in Q3 and Q2, Q3 and our guide for the year, like pretty consistent margins right? Regardless of kind of just the commodity up and downs, we're seeing pretty consistent margins, and that's by design, right? We're making investments where we think we need to make investments.

And some of those investments are funded through pricing and some of those are funded through revenue growth, and some of those are funded through productivity.

Michelle Hook

Yes. And I would just add to that, Andrew, that when you look at the 4% gross pricing in the quarter and when you look at our net price mix at 1.7%. To Rob's point, we're making deliberate investments in those targeted offers, promotions, channel-specific marketing, right, but adding down that pricing impact.

And so even though you see 4% price is really a 1% or 1.7% net price mix. And so we do have pricing that's falling off in December as well. And so as we exit the quarter being up at 2%, we feel at 2% growth is a good range to be at, knowing that when you look at food away from home inflation and the most recent data, I think it was at like 3.5% price. So exiting the quarter at 2% growth with the October price action, you feel really good about that.

Andrew Charles

That's helpful. And then just a quick follow-up. You guys talked about sales transfer from delivery as you started development.

Obviously, we're still putting up positive traffic overall. But maybe just expand a bit on how much impact you saw in 3Q traffic from that intentional sales transfer? And how should we think about the magnitude of you anticipate from this on 4Q relative to 3Q.

Robert Lynch

Yes. I mean I think it's been really consistent. I mean we tend to see between 20 and 50 basis points of headwind to our traffic from our new Shack openings. And that once again, that's not a function of us going in and building Shacks right next to each other.

They have a ton of white space that we can be really choiceful on where we're building our Shacks. It really comes down to just kind of this delivery transfer that we have very little control over. I'd love to be able to go and strategically build like the concentric circles around our Shacks and make sure there's no overlap, but that's just the way the 3PD model works.

So we've been able to recognize that. We know that, that happens, and we're building our strategic plans around optimizing for that mitigating it.

Operator

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for closing remarks.

Robert Lynch

Yes. I just sincerely want to thank everybody for joining the call today. I know there's a lot of calls over the last couple of days. And so your time valuable and we appreciate your participation. .

I would just say, reiterate what we talked about a lot here today, I couldn't be more thankful to our teams. We had a tough start to the year. And everyone in this organization has like stayed focused on delivering the business model that we know we can deliver over the long term.

And we've learned a lot about some of these growing pains that we incurred in Q1 with opening 16 shacks versus 3 the year before. And we're building that into our plan moving forward, so we can have more consistent delivery of all while still delivering the growth and the shareholder value creation that we aspire to.

So thank you for joining and really look forward to the follow-up calls and going into more detail about what's going on at Shake Shack. So thanks.

Operator

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your time.