“Now, while Omicron had the largest impact on our sales in January '22, our sales recovered throughout the first quarter, so we expect our comp to moderate throughout the remainder of the first quarter.”

In context

“, and conversion. An example here is our digital work inside the Shacks, where we are on target to roll out kiosks to nearly all domestic company-operated Shacks by the end of the year. Kiosks remains our highest-margin channel and guests spend more on kiosk orders than non-traditional in-check orders. In the fourth quarter, urban Same-Shack sales grew 8%. This was a function of positive price/mix and traffic growth. Suburban Shack sales grew 3% in the quarter, driven by positive price/mix and modest traffic declines year-over-year. Going into January, return to work and overall mobility trends remained strong and, in some instances, improved. Our fourth quarter openings also performed well. We generated AWS of $72,000 and same-Shack sales of 17%, driven by increases in traffic and price. Now, while Omicron had the largest impact on our sales in January '22, our sales recovered throughout the first quarter, so we expect our comp to moderate throughout the remainder of the first quarter. In addition, we expect a number of the strong fourth quarter openings to see sales come back to more normalized levels in the coming months. Licensing sales in the fourth quarter were $134.1 million, up 13% year-over-year, and licensing revenue was $8.6 million. Strong holiday demand and travel benefited our licensed Shacks, however, license sales saw a significant impact from COVID pressures in China and pressures from the stronger U.S. dollar. In 2022, our licensed partners opened 33 new Shacks, including 13 in the fourth quarter, bringing our net licensed Shack count to 182 at the end of the year. Our licensed Shack expansion is off to a strong start this year with six licensed Shack openings quarter-to-date and we expect to open a total of 25 to 30 licensed shacks in 2023. Fourth quar”