Silver Diner ends '99 fiscal year with net loss, same-store gains

Nation's Restaurant News, April 17, 2000 by Richard Papiernik

ROCKVILLE, MD. -- Robust same-store sales growth and an increase in operating margins were the silver lining in a dark cloud of continuing bottom-line losses at Silver Diner Inc., operator of 11 diner-themed restaurants.

Despite a 5.8-percent year-to-year comp-store sales growth and an 11-percent improvement in restaurant margins, to $6.46 million in fiscal 1999 vs. $5.82 million in the prior 12-month period, the company posted a loss of $971,879 for the year ended Jan. 2, 2000. In fiscal 1998 Silver Diner lost $1.99 million.

Total sales for the year grew 2 percent, to $29.16 million, compared with sales of $28.56 million in fiscal 1998.

In the fourth quarter of 1999, Silver Diner posted a loss of $387,600 vs. an $849,420 loss in the comparable year-ago period. For the quarter sales increased 3.9 percent, to $6.64 million, from $6.39 million in the same period of 1998.

Net loss per common share for the fourth quarter was 8 cents compared with a loss of 16 cents for the year-ago period.

"Restaurant operating income reached $2.4 million in 1999, a $1 million increase over last year," said Robert Giaimo, president and chief executive of Silver Diner.

Giaimo described fiscal 1999 as "the most successful in our history."

Silver Diner will open a new restaurant in Virginia Beach, Va., early in the summer. A new mall prototype is under construction at the Lake Forest Mall in Gaithersburg, Md., and is scheduled to come on line late in the summer of 2000.

Silver Diner operates restaurants in the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia metropolitan areas.