BJ's Restaurants (BJRI) Opens Outlet In New York

BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ:BJRI) opened its new restaurant at Valley Stream, NY on Sep 26, 2016. The 7,300 square feet restaurant is located at the Green Acres Mall on a free standing pad and can accommodate nearly 225 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. This marks its second restaurant in New York, following the success of the one located in Nanuet at The Shops at Nanuet.

Among the casual dining chains, BJ’s Restaurants is one of the few that have been expanding its footprint aggressively.The company has opened 12 new restaurants year to date and currently operates 182 casual dining restaurants across 23 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.

Moving ahead, the company is slated to open three new restaurants in Oct 2016 in La Jolla, CA, Teterboro, NJ and Charlottesville, VA.

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

BJ'S RESTAURANT Price

Nevertheless, going forward, the company anticipates driving top and bottom-line growth given its prudent domestic expansion plans, along with various marketing, operational and technology-driven initiatives.

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.

BJ’s Restaurants currently holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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