“I think overall, if you think about the year, I think we certainly expect, if I use company-operated margins as a proxy for those to be down a little bit from where we ended in 2023.”

In context

“Let me try and get that one. Well, look, I think as you would have seen through the first half, even with more muted top line growth. Restaurant margins have held up pretty well. Obviously, as you noted, we will take or certainly expect to take less pricing through the year, just obviously managing through the current context we're in. We still got a fair bit of carryover pricing from 2023. So that certainly helps a little bit. And as I talked about earlier, certainly, inflation on food and paper and other cost items outside of wages has come down substantially from where it's been over the last couple of years. So that's helpful. The US, obviously, as I talked about, we've got the wage pressures, particularly from California. So that's certainly a headwind that we're working through. And I think overall, if you think about the year, I think we certainly expect, if I use company-operated margins as a proxy for those to be down a little bit from where we ended in 2023. But I think pretty good in terms of when you consider the overall context of what we're working through this year. Mike Cieplak: Okay. That concludes our call. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Ian. Thank you, Joe. Thanks, everyone for joining. Have a great day. Operator: This concludes McDonald's Corporation Investor Call. You may now disconnect and have a great day.”