Investing.com -- Shares in The Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ:CAKE) surged more than 5% in after-hours trading after the California-based restaurant chain posted quarterly comparable sales gains on Wednesday for the 22nd straight quarter.
During the company's second quarter, which ended on June 30, The Cheesecake Factory reported comparable restaurant sales gains of 2.8%, in comparison with increases of 1.5% for the same period in 2014. For the first half of fiscal year 2015, the Cheesecake Factory realized comparable restaurant sales gains of 3.5%.
In addition, the restaurant chain earned revenues of $529.1 million, up 6.6% from the same quarter last year. The revenues slightly missed analyst's expectations of revenues of $530 million for the quarter.
“We delivered high quality results in the second quarter driven by a strong comparable sales increase at The Cheesecake Factory, marking our 22nd consecutive quarter of comparable sales gains and another in which we outperformed the industry by a solid margin,” CEO David Overton said in a statement.
The Cheesecake Factory also saw its margin increase from 8.6% to 9.4%, while its total expenses rose by 5.7% to $479 million for the period. As a result, it reported earnings of $34.7 million on 0.69 per share. Analysts had anticipated per share earnings of 0.62. Last year in the second quarter, the restaurant chain reported earnings of $30 million or 0.59 per share.
"Our business is performing well across multiple dimensions. We are operating our restaurants effectively, improving in key areas such as food efficiency, and maintaining our high guest satisfaction scores. In addition, favorability in the cost areas that heavily impacted us last year contributed to significant margin expansion and growth in earnings per share. We are well positioned as we enter the second half of the year, with our newer restaurants performing well and our core business on solid ground,” Overton added.
Shares in The Cheesecake Factory gained 2.83 or 5.13% to 57.95.