10:34 AM EDT, 09/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Darden Restaurants ( DRI ) maintained its full-year outlook on Thursday despite reporting lower-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results amid slowing traffic in July.

The parent company of Olive Garden ( DRI ) and LongHorn Steakhouse continues to project per-share earnings to come in between $9.40 and $9.60 for fiscal 2025 and sales to be in a range of $11.8 billion to $11.9 billion, according to an earnings presentation. The consensus on Capital IQ is for GAAP EPS of $9.52 and revenue of $11.84 billion.

Same-restaurant sales are still pegged to grow by 1% to 2% for the ongoing fiscal year, while the Street is looking for a gain of 1.4%. Darden reiterated plans to open about 45 to 50 restaurants during the year, the presentation showed.

"Following the softness in July, our sales trend has continued to improve," Chief Financial Officer Raj Vennam said in a statement. "Considering this recovery as well as the planned initiatives to support the remainder of the fiscal year, we are reiterating our guidance for fiscal 2025."

Shares of the company spiked 7.5% in Thursday trading.

For the quarter ended Aug. 25, Darden's adjusted earnings declined to $1.75 a share from $1.78 the year before, missing analysts' estimate for normalized EPS of $1.83. "The significant step down in traffic during July, led to our first quarter earnings being lower than expected," according to Vennam. Sales ticked up 1% year over year to $2.76 billion, driven by revenue from 42 net new restaurants, but trailed the Street's view for nearly $2.8 billion.

Same-restaurant sales decreased 1.1% for the quarter, more than the market consensus for a 0.1% decline. Same-restaurant sales dropped 2.9% for Olive Garden ( DRI ) and moved 3.7% higher at LongHorn Steakhouse. The fine dining segment fell 6%.

"We operate in a very dynamic, competitive industry and we have proven we can successfully navigate challenging environments due to our strategy," Chief Executive Rick Cardenas said. "While we fell short of our expectations for the first quarter, I firmly believe in the strength of our business."

In a separate joint statement, Darden and ride-hailing company Uber Technologies ( UBER ) said they entered into an exclusive multi-year delivery partnership, beginning with Olive Garden ( DRI ) later this year.

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