Bloomin' Brands (NASDAQ:BLMN) Surprises With Q3 Sales

Restaurant company Bloomin’ Brands (NASDAQ:BLMN) reported Q3 CY2025 results beating Wall Street’s revenue expectations, but sales fell by 10.6% year on year to $928.8 million. Its non-GAAP loss of $0.03 per share was 76% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Company Overview

Owner of the iconic Australian-themed Outback Steakhouse, Bloomin’ Brands (NASDAQ:BLMN) is a leading American restaurant company that owns and operates a portfolio of popular restaurant brands.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years.

With $3.95 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, Bloomin' Brands is one of the larger restaurant chains in the industry and benefits from a well-known brand that influences consumer purchasing decisions. However, its scale is a double-edged sword because there is only so much real estate to build restaurants, placing a ceiling on its growth. To expand meaningfully, Bloomin' Brands likely needs to tweak its prices, start new chains, or enter new markets.

As you can see below, Bloomin' Brands struggled to increase demand as its $3.95 billion of sales for the trailing 12 months was close to its revenue six years ago (we compare to 2019 to normalize for COVID-19 impacts). This was mainly because it didn’t open many new restaurants.

This quarter, Bloomin' Brands’s revenue fell by 10.6% year on year to $928.8 million but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 2.7%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to remain flat over the next 12 months. While this projection implies its newer menu offerings will fuel better top-line performance, it is still below average for the sector.

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Restaurant Performance

Number of Restaurants

The number of dining locations a restaurant chain operates is a critical driver of how quickly company-level sales can grow.

Bloomin' Brands listed 1,483 locations in the latest quarter and has kept its restaurant count flat over the last two years while other restaurant businesses have opted for growth.

When a chain doesn’t open many new restaurants, it usually means there’s stable demand for its meals and it’s focused on improving operational efficiency to increase profitability.

Same-Store Sales

A company's restaurant base only paints one part of the picture. When demand is high, it makes sense to open more. But when demand is low, it’s prudent to close some locations and use the money in other ways. Same-store sales is an industry measure of whether revenue is growing at those existing restaurants and is driven by customer visits (often called traffic) and the average spending per customer (ticket).

Bloomin' Brands’s demand within its existing dining locations has barely increased over the last two years as its same-store sales were flat. This performance isn’t ideal, and we’d be skeptical if Bloomin' Brands starts opening new restaurants to artificially boost revenue growth.

In the latest quarter, Bloomin' Brands’s same-store sales rose 1.2% year on year. This growth was a well-appreciated turnaround from its historical levels, showing the business is regaining momentum.

Key Takeaways from Bloomin' Brands’s Q3 Results

It was good to see Bloomin' Brands beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also glad its full-year EPS guidance trumped Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its EBITDA missed and its EPS guidance for next quarter fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this print was mixed but still had some key positives. The stock traded up 3.3% to $7.49 immediately after reporting.

Bloomin' Brands put up rock-solid earnings, but one quarter doesn’t necessarily make the stock a buy. Let’s see if this is a good investment. The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free for active Edge members.