We know there are still challenges out there, especially with independents, yet Brinker continues its strong recovery, posting a better-than-expected first quarter and also delivering earnings of $0.28 a share.
Both brands increased their progression from last quarter with Chili's reporting comp sales of negative 7.2% and Maggiano's negative 38.6%.
And both brands delivered solid sequential improvement throughout the quarter, with Chili's ending September down just 1.4% and Maggiano's down 32.5%.
This brand continued its nearly three-year streak of outperforming other casual dining chains in KNAPP-TRACK, driving a 16-point gap in sales and 23 points in traffic this quarter.
Current credit card data shows a whole category down 30%, which reflects our ongoing impact of this pandemic and the reality of what is likely to be a meaningful shift in the competitive landscape.
For the quarter, they improved restaurant operating margin 60 basis points year over year.
When we rolled out It's Just Wings overnight to more than 1,000 restaurants.
We're excited with how the brand is already performing, and we're well on track to meet our first year target of more than $150 million in sales.
We continued our recovery by delivering adjusted diluted earnings per share of positive $0.28, marking the return to profitability after just a one quarter hiatus.
Now for the quarter, Brinker's total revenues were $740 million and consolidated reported net comp sales were negative 10.9%.
Importantly, comp sales materially improved as the quarter progressed, with September consolidated comp sales down only 5.2%.
Chili's has continued to lead the casual dining sector, ranking as the #1 brand in the KNAPP-TRACK index each month in this quarter.
In September, Chili's achieved another important milestone in its recovery, posting positive traffic for the brand of 2.2%.
These restaurants represent approximately 86% of the Chili's system, and they were only negative 1.3% for the quarter and positive 3.6% for September.
Restaurant operating margin for the first quarter was 11.6%, a noteworthy 60 basis points improvement versus prior year.
Food and beverage expenses were favorable 10 basis points versus prior year due to the favorable menu mix, offset by low level of commodity inflation.
Labor was also favorable 120 basis points versus prior year.
The labor favorability was partially offset by the increase in restaurant expenses, which was up 70 basis points for the first quarter versus prior year.
With the business improving, we generated operating cash flow of $83 million.
After capital expenditures of the approximately $14 million, our free cash flow for the quarter totaled more than $69 million.
We have increased our capex budget for the year and now expect to spend approximately $100 million during this fiscal year.
As such, our second cash priority is to pay down debt, and we executed against this strategy during the quarter, reducing our long-term debt by approximately $50 million.
We will continue to lower leverage as we move forward from here targeting an adjusted debt level of about 3.5 times EBITDAR.
Adjusted earnings per diluted share are estimated to be in the range of $0.40 to $0.60 and weighted average diluted shares are estimated to be in the 45 million to 46 million share range.

Summary:
We know there are still challenges out there, especially with independents, yet Brinker continues its strong recovery, posting a better-than-expected first quarter and also delivering earnings of $0.28 a share.
Both brands increased their progression from last quarter with Chili's reporting comp sales of negative 7.2% and Maggiano's negative 38.6%.
We continued our recovery by delivering adjusted diluted earnings per share of positive $0.28, marking the return to profitability after just a one quarter hiatus.
Adjusted earnings per diluted share are estimated to be in the range of $0.40 to $0.60 and weighted average diluted shares are estimated to be in the 45 million to 46 million share range.