DALLAS — Wingstop Inc. (“Wingstop” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: WING) today announced financial results for the fiscal first quarter ended March 28, 2020.

Business Update from Charlie Morrison, Chairman and CEO of Wingstop:

In our last business update to investors and fans of the brand, I was happy to report that the Wingstop brand remained resilient during this unprecedented time for us all. Our performance actually improved in the last two weeks of the first quarter ended in March. I attribute that resiliency and performance to the strength of our system, led by our team members, our franchisees (whom we affectionately call our brand partners) and our supplier partners – all of whom remain committed to our mission of Serving the World Flavor! We have leveraged our core values of Authentic, Service-Minded, and Entrepreneurial as our guide for the decisions and actions we have taken to ensure Wingstop remains one of the best-positioned brands to navigate a situation like the COVID-19 crisis. We call it the Wingstop Way, and I believe in times like these, our shared, behaved values are the best indicator of the past, present, and future success of any company.

As I shared in my letter on April 7, we proactively focused on three key priorities to navigate this trying time:

• Support the well-being and safety of our team members, brand partners, and guests
• Continuing to serve our Wingstop fans flavor in a safe and clean environment
• Give back to our communities where we operate

These priorities are the foundation of our operations for our 1,400+ global restaurants each day. The strength of our performance is certainly reflected in our results, including a very strong start to the second quarter, with April same-store sales growth in our domestic operations exceeding 30%. This topline performance, coupled with significantly reduced bone-in wing prices, means that our brand partners are seeing incredibly strong four-wall performance in their restaurants. Because of our good fortune and anchored in our core values, we launched our “Flavor for Good” week. From April 19 through April 25, we engaged our brand partners as well as the support of Wingstop Charities to give back and serve flavor to the teachers, healthcare workers and first responders in our communities, who are on the front-lines of this pandemic. Our generous brand partners, along with Wingstop Charities, provided more than one million meals to those impacted by the pandemic through cash and food donations. In addition to our outreach to those on the front lines, we also supported our brethren in the restaurant industry by joining forces with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation and Guy Fieri to support the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund. Wingstop donated $1 million to the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund to provide access to $500 grants per person for restaurant workers who will desperately need aid in the coming weeks and months as our industry gets back on its feet post-COVID-19.

I would like to provide more clarity on our performance and a preliminary update on domestic same-store sales for the first four weeks of the second quarter of 2020. As a reminder, our domestic same-store sales experienced a slight uptick as we closed out the first quarter with an 8.9% increase from March 15 to March 28. The first four weeks of April were even stronger. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, our off-premise sales accounted for 80% of our domestic system sales, and digital sales consisted of just over 40% of our sales. Since closing our dining rooms on March 16, 2020, 100% of sales are off premise and digital orders account for nearly 65% of our sales. We believe the investments made over the past few years to build a world-class digital and delivery foundation for our brand positioned us for the success we have seen during this time. To quantify that, our domestic same-store sales increased more than 30% in the month of April, far exceeding our own expectations. However, our brand partners, supplier partners, and our delivery partner Doordash have not missed a beat with this strong increase. We are humbled by our performance and remain confident in the solid positioning of our brand in life during the COVID-19 outbreak and after the pandemic subsides. Our international business, which consists of 160 restaurants, has not fared as well during this time. Our international brand partners rely more heavily on the availability of dining rooms for locations in large malls as well as a market like Mexico, where our business is more of a casual dining model. Internationally, we have been more adversely impacted due to the closure of these dining rooms in response to COVID-19, but have seen the teams react well to this change by leveraging our domestic experience to provide access to take-out and delivery in all markets. We continue working closely with our international brand partners by providing support to help mitigate the impact financially so they can re-emerge stronger and ready for continued growth.

In addition to acknowledging our team members, brand partners, supplier partners and guests, I would like to close by thanking our shareholders who have provided so much support and confidence to us during this time and throughout the past five years. At Wingstop, we recognize the corporate responsibility we have to the various stakeholders we serve, including our team members, brand partners, supplier partners, shareholders and the communities in which we operate. We appreciate how these stakeholders have come together in a supportive way to enable us to continue our mission to Serve the World Flavor.

With my prayers for your health and safety during this challenging time,
Charlie

Highlights for the fiscal first quarter 2020 compared to the fiscal first quarter 2019:

• System-wide sales increased 18.6% to $429.9 million
• 28 net openings in the fiscal first quarter 2020
• Domestic same store sales increased 9.9%
• Digital sales increased to 47.0% at the end of the fiscal first quarter 2020
• Total revenue increased 15.4% to $55.4 million
• Net income increased 22.6% to $8.1 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, for the thirteen weeks ended March 28, 2020, compared to $6.6 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, in the prior fiscal first quarter.
• Adjusted EBITDA*, a non-GAAP measure, increased 17.8% to $16.4 million

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