I've now met with 61 franchisees and toured our restaurants in Ohio, New York City, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vegas and Atlanta.
Collectively, Applebee's and IHOP has been serving communities for more than 100 years.
Specifically, Applebee's second quarter comps increased by 10.5%, and IHOP's comps declined by 3.4%, which reflects an improvement of 17.8 percentage points compared to the first quarter.
We achieved revenue of $233.6 million and EBITDA of $71.7 million, which reflects the continued strength of our franchise model and a gradual return to steady state.
We generated free cash flow of $107.3 million during the first six months of the year, which is consistent with Dine's track record of generating strong and stable adjusted free cash flow.
And finally, in Q2, we opened 10 new restaurants signaling the growing confidence our franchisees have in our brands and in putting their capital back to work.
And in our call center, approximately 150 Applebee's are on our new AI and fully automated voice ordering platform.
That includes handheld devices for servers that are now in 500 Applebee's restaurants.
And by end of the year, approximately 75% of our digital technology tools will be modernized or new.
Vance spent the past 20 years in both banking and building high-growth consumer and healthcare companies.
I spent the past 20 years in my career in advising, investing and building high-growth consumer healthcare companies providing strategic leadership during times of meaningful change.
We finished the second quarter with a total unrestricted cash of $259.5 million.
This is a 44% increase over the first quarter's unrestricted cash balance of $179.6 million.
Franchise revenues for the second quarter were $167 million compared to $67.9 million for the same quarter of 2020.
Sales for the second quarter were $38.2 million compared to $16.8 million for the second quarter of 2020.
Rental segment revenue for the second quarter of 2021 were $27.4 million compared to $23.7 million for the same quarter of 2020.
Adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter of 2021 was $1.94 compared to an adjusted net loss per diluted share of $0.87 for the same quarter of 2020.
Our effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2020 was 24% expense compared to an 8.2% benefit for the same quarter of last year.
G&A for the second quarter of 2021 was $39.3 million compared to $30.9 million for the same quarter of 2020.
Cash from operations for the first six months of 2021 was $106 million compared to cash used in operating activities for the first six months of 2020 of $10.5 million.
Second, higher incentive compensation is expected in the second half which is a variable component of G&A that will fluctuate based on our business performance.
Turning to our 2021 financial performance guidance.
We now expect G&A to range between $168 million and $178 million.
This compares to our previous expectation for G&A to range between $160 million and $170 million.
Our guidance for capex of approximately $90 million for 2021 remains unchanged.
In early 2020, Dine took pre-emptive steps to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on its operations and its franchisees including voluntarily increasing the interest reserve for our securitized debt from the required $16.4 million to $32.8 million.
I would like to highlight that due to the improved -- strong improvement in our business over the last 12 months, we have decided to reduce the interest reserve back to $16.4 million.
Our leverage ratio as of June 30 was 4.9 times compared to four times as of March 31.
With our leverage ratio back below 5.25 times, we will no longer be required to make principal payments on our 2019 Class A-2 notes after September.
I would also like to highlight that we continue to have significant cushion in our debt service coverage ratio, or DSCR, at 4.6 times as of June 30.
This is an improvement from the DSCR of 3.45 times as of March 31.
As a reminder, the first key DSCR measurement is not tripped until the ratio falls below 1.75 times.
When compared with our 2019 baseline, April, May and June comp sales were positive 11.7%, positive 8.1% and positive 11.4%, respectively.
This combined plus 10.5% result marks the best quarterly sales performance throughout the 14-year history of Dine Brands.
Restaurant sales delivered approximately $53,000 per week throughout the quarter.
According to Black Box Intelligence, Applebee's has now outperformed the casual dining category on comp sales for 25 consecutive weeks by an average of 596 basis points.
To better understand this trajectory, dine-in mix moved from 67% in April to 72% in June, with 16% Carside To-Go and 12% delivery in June, reflecting this gradual migration to a normalized post-pandemic mix.
Applebee's off-premise weekly sales in June was $14,700 per restaurant.
And as a percentage of total sales, it's reasonable to assume our off-premise mix may ultimately settle in the low to mid-20% range.
I should note, this represents about double our pre-pandemic off-premise mix of 12%, illustrating Applebee's enhanced relevance within this convenience-driven occasion.
Hoping to generate 10,000 applications, our franchise partners ended up securing more than 40,000 applications with a single day event, ultimately hiring about 5,000 new team members that week, a terrific result.
We also shifted our brand messaging to focus on the genuine emotional connection Applebee's has with its guests, a connection we believe is more important and relevant than ever given all this country has endured over the past 16 or 17 months.
Dwayne has proven to be a tremendous partner as these signature $7 Mana Margaritas are now available everywhere and proving to be extremely popular with our guests.
Our second quarter comp sales improved sequentially by 17.8 percentage points compared to the first quarter and outperformed the family dining category as well by 150 basis points according to Black Box.
For the second quarter, average weekly sales were 28% higher than Q1.
Average weekly sales per week were approximately $38,000 in April and increased to just over $39,000 by June, reaching a high for the quarter of approximately $40,000.
Off-premise sales accounted for 26.1% of sales mix for the second quarter compared to 33.3% for the first quarter.
However, we continue to believe that we'll retain the majority of the off-premise sales growth attained over the last 15 months, partly due to changes in consumer behavior.
Additionally, off-premise comp sales increased 169% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same period of 2019.
For the second quarter, our sales mix consists of 73.9% dine-in, 13.9% delivery and 12.2% To-Go.
Approximately 85% of our domestic restaurants are open for standard operating hours or greater and approximately 27% are operating 24/7.
Over the past 12 months, we've invested in CRM, loyalty and digital experiences.
This location will be approximately 3,500 square feet and is a freestanding structure with 55 seats.
This location is a conversion space that will be approximately 1,800 square feet with only 25 seats.
At the sites we've approved for the future this year, approximately 42% are conversions.
For 2021, we believe the brand can develop 40 to 50 new restaurants.
Given that approximately 70% of our domestic restaurants have two full kitchens, we have capacity that can accommodate multiple virtual brands.

Summary:
We achieved revenue of $233.6 million and EBITDA of $71.7 million, which reflects the continued strength of our franchise model and a gradual return to steady state.
Adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter of 2021 was $1.94 compared to an adjusted net loss per diluted share of $0.87 for the same quarter of 2020.
Second, higher incentive compensation is expected in the second half which is a variable component of G&A that will fluctuate based on our business performance.
Turning to our 2021 financial performance guidance.
We now expect G&A to range between $168 million and $178 million.