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Nonetheless, several brands spoke about the opportunities they seized to market effectively and provide timely, albeit limited, service to their customers in need of a port in the snowstorms. While several chains had some plans for the past two quarters delayed and pushed to the spring, most report they will aggressively make up for lost time in the coming months and still make their yearly projections for sales or unit openings.
Officials for Chicago-based Potbelly Corp. estimated that bad weather had a negative effect of 3.1 percent on its same-store sales for the month of December and 1.2 percent for the whole fourth quarter. Despite that drag on sales, the chain still managed to open 13 of last year's 34 new restaurants in the final period and is maintaining 2014's projections for as many as 40 company-owned openings and five new franchise units.
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"We have not changed [development plans], and actually that's one phase of the business weather hasn't impacted," chief executive Aylwin Lewis said during Potbelly's fourth-quarter earnings call. "We have very good visibility on 2014 in terms of what's under lease and construction, and we feel very good about the targets we've got."
Similarly, Checkers Drive In Restaurants vice president of franchise development Jennifer Durham noted that the Tampa, Fla.-based company would remain on track with its development goals for the year, though many restaurant openings planned for the fourth quarter of last year or the first quarter of this year were pushed back.
"I wish I had some super fun stories of how people persevered to get stores open, but I don't," she said. "You can...