As Darden Restaurant's Olive Garden franchise lags, Guggenheim analysts Gregory Francfort and Arian Razai say that investors should appreciate the strengths of the company's smaller brands, including LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House and Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen. They added Darden is asking more of its smaller brands going forward for both sales and margins, as well as development. Store growth for the smaller brands is also accelerating due to a change in Darden's development leadership four years before and Chief Executive Rick Cardenas's view that Darden has previously demanded an excessively wide gap between the internal rate of return for new stores and the cost of capital. (grace.yoon@wsj.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

1507 ET - As Darden Restaurants' Olive Garden franchise lags, Guggenheim analysts Gregory Francfort and Arian Razai say that investors should appreciate the strengths of the company's smaller brands, including LongHorn, Yard House and Cheddar's. They added Darden is asking more of its smaller brands for both sales and margins, but also development. Store growth for the smaller brands is also accelerating due to a change in Darden's development leadership four years before and Chief Executive Rick Cardenas' view that Darden has previously demanded an excessively wide gap between the internal rate of return for new stores and the cost of capital. (grace.yoon@wsj.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 14, 2026 15:07 ET (19:07 GMT)

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