In the second quarter, Chili's increased its two-year trend of taking share and leading the category with an 18% beat in sales and a 25% beat in traffic according to KNAPP-TRACK.
The second-quarter fiscal 2021, Brinker delivered adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.35.
Brinker's total revenues were $761 million, and consolidated reported net comp sales were negative 12.1%.
The brand's operating profit was $22 million below last year, constituting virtually all of the reduction in consolidated operating profit for Brinker.
The impact on consolidated comp sales and restaurant operating margin were also outsized with the brand reporting net comp sales of negative 47% and a restaurant operating margin of 5.5%, down more than 11% from prior year.
Operating income for the brand was relatively close to last year and only $1.6 million.
Chili's reported net comp sales for the second quarter of negative 6.3%.
This result does contain a holiday flip, which benefited the brand by approximately 100 basis points as Christmas moved out of Q2 and into Q3.
Traffic gaps in the KNAPP index exceeded 20% throughout the quarter.
Included in the consolidated adjusted net income for the quarter with a tax benefit of approximately $2.4 million, primarily driven by employment tax credits.
Part of this benefit is a $1.8 million catch-up related to Q1, which was over accrued relative to our current expectations for our annual tax liability.
The consolidated restaurant operating margin for the second quarter was 10.7%.
Most of the variance to prior year is the result of the lower-than-normal contribution from Maggiano's, which impacted the consolidated margin by 130 basis points.
A food and beverage expense was unfavorable year over year by 40 basis points primarily a result of menu mix, some higher costs from items such as cheese and produce.
Labor costs were favorable 10 basis points with savings in hourly expenses, offset by deleverage.
Restaurant expense was unfavorable year over year by 170 basis points, driven by top-line deleverage, increased delivery, and packaging, partially offset by lower advertising and restaurant maintenance expenses.
Even with the volatile operating environment, Brinker has delivered solid cash flow, generating $130 million of operating cash flow year to date.
After capital expenditures of $37 million, our free cash flow for the first six months totaled nearly $93 million.
So far, during this fiscal year, we have retired over $66 million of revolving credit borrowings, and plan for further meaningful reductions as we progress through the second half of the year.
As I've indicated during prior earnings calls, we are strengthening our balance sheet by deleveraging to below 3.5 times lease-adjusted debt, which we anticipate achieving next fiscal year.
From a total liquidity perspective, we ended the quarter with $64 million of cash and total liquidity of just under $658 million.
Underlying this performance is improvement in the net comp sales to a range of negative 5% to negative 6% for the last four weeks combined.
3 and 4 markets of California and Illinois.
Factoring out these two markets, the rest of the brand during the last four weeks of the January period should record net comp sales of approximately positive 2%, again, clearly indicating the brand's ability to perform in a strong positive sales manner with dining rooms open.

Summary:
The second-quarter fiscal 2021, Brinker delivered adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.35.
Brinker's total revenues were $761 million, and consolidated reported net comp sales were negative 12.1%.
Chili's reported net comp sales for the second quarter of negative 6.3%.
Restaurant expense was unfavorable year over year by 170 basis points, driven by top-line deleverage, increased delivery, and packaging, partially offset by lower advertising and restaurant maintenance expenses.