Darden Restaurants Hitting Expectations Through a Balanced & Well-Run Brand Portfolio. HQ Visit Coming Up July 17.

Research evidence excerpt

Darden Restaurants Hitting Expectations Through a Balanced & Well-Run Brand Portfolio. HQ Visit Coming Up July 17.

J P M O R G A N North America Equity Research

26 June 2026

Darden Restaurants Overweight

DRI, DRI US

Hitting Expectations Through a Balanced & Well-Run Price (25 Jun 26):$212.76

Brand Portfolio. HQ Visit Coming Up July 17. ▲Price Target (Dec-27):$225.00 Prior (Dec-26):$220.00

Darden ended F26 with a strong F4Q26 that reinforced its position as a high-quality

share gainer, posting blended SSS of +4.6% in line vs our +4.5%. These comps beat Restaurants

Black Box casual-dining (ex-Darden) by >300bps. Olive Garden at +2.4% SSS John Ivankoe AC

included positive traffic but was a touch below our 3.8%. Offsetting strength at (1-212) 622-6487

LongHorn of +9.5% SSS was vs our 6.8% and included a hefty 5.3% price increase john.ivankoe@jpmorgan.com

absorbed by consumers understanding of elevated steak prices, reflecting very Rahul Krotthapalli

strong execution at the store level. Fine Dining was up 1.9% vs our 3.5% and (1-212) 622-2408

rahul.krotthapalli@jpmorgan.com

“Other” was 4.6% vs our 4.5%. After three quarters in which commodity inflation

Christabel Rocha

exceeded menu pricing, 4Q26 was the quarter where pricing was met with a

(1-212) 622-9184

normalizing y/y commodity increase. christabel.rocha@jpmchase.com

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

We look forward to hosting investors with the CEO Rick Cardenas, CFO Raj

Vennam and IR Courtney Aquilla on July 17 in Orlando FL for an extended

lunch at a Darden brand. Please contact us or your JPM salesperson to express Quarterly Forecasts (FYE May)

interest. Adj. EPS ($)

2026A 2027E 2028E

Q1 1.97 2.04 2.19

• Establishing Dec-27 price target of $225 (up from our $220 Dec-26 target) Q2Q3 2.082.95 2.273.16 2.523.39