Revenue during the quarter grew 8.15 percent to $105.34 million from $97.40 million in the previous year period. Gross margin for the quarter expanded 56 basis points over the previous year period to 73.03 percent. Total expenses were 91.82 percent of quarterly revenues, down from 93.08 percent for the same period last year. This has led to an improvement of 126 basis points in operating margin to 8.18 percent.

Operating income for the quarter was $8.61 million, compared with $6.74 million in the previous year period.

However, the adjusted EBITDA for the quarter stood at $14.62 million compared with $13.13 million in the prior year period. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA margin improved 40 basis points in the quarter to 13.88 percent from 13.48 percent in the last year period.

Paul J.B. Murphy, III, chief executive officer of Del Taco, commented, “We delivered a successful quarter characterized by comparable restaurant sales and profitability growth, despite traffic challenges across our industry and other external headwinds. With our expectation for continued sales momentum in the second quarter and our underlying operational and product initiatives in place for the balance of the year, we are increasingly confident that we can achieve our 2017 annual guidance and reach our stated goal of $1.5 million in average unit volume by 2018.”

Del Taco Restaurants expects revenue to be in the range of $466 million to $476 million for financial year 2017. For financial year 2017, the company projects diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $0.52 to $0.55.