And anyone -- annual reference to pre-COVID is the trailing 12 months -- ending February of fiscal '20.
Going forward, we will be referencing industry data provided by Technomic which sizes the casual dining and fine dining categories for fiscal 2020 at $189 billion and for fiscal 2019 at $222 billion.
Given the strong demand we're seeing in the financial health of the consumer, we believe the categories will return to that size or greater, it's quite having approximately 10% fewer units than before the onset of the pandemic.
Over the last 15 months, we have made numerous strategic investments.
Off-premise sales accounted for 33% of total sales at Olive Garden, 19% at LongHorn and 16% at Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen.
As a result, during the quarter, 64% of Olive Garden's To Go orders were placed online, and 14% of Darden's total sales were digital transactions.
During the quarter, we opened 14 new restaurants and these restaurants are outperforming our expectations.
While, Raj will discuss specific new restaurant targets for fiscal '22, we are working to develop a pipeline of restaurants and future leaders that would put us at the higher end of our long-term framework of 2 %to 3% sales growth from new units as we enter fiscal 2023.
Total sales for the fourth quarter were $2.3 billion, 79.5% higher than last year, driven by 90.4% same restaurant sales growth and the addition of 30 net new restaurants, partially offset by one less week of operations this year.
The improvements we made to our business model combined with fourth quarter sales accelerating faster than cost grows strong profitability, resulting in adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations of $2.03.
Our reported earnings were $0.76 higher due to a non-recurring tax benefit of $99.7 million.
Looking at our performance throughout the quarter, we saw same restaurant sales versus pre-COVID improving from negative 4.1% in March, positive 2.4% in May.
And same restaurant sales for the first three weeks of June were positive 2.5% compared to two years ago.
Turning to the fourth quarter P&L, compared to pre-COVID results, food and beverage expenses were 90 basis points higher, driven by investments in both food quality and pricing below inflation.
For reference, food inflation in Q4 was 4.3% versus last year.
Restaurant labor was 190 basis points lower driven by hourly labor improvement of 320 basis points due to efficiencies gained from the operational simplification and was partially offset by continued wage pressures.
Marketing spend was $44 million lower, resulting in 200 basis points of favorability.
G&A expense was 30 basis points lower driven primarily by savings from the corporate restructuring earlier in the year.
As a result, we achieved record restaurant level EBITDA margin for Darden of 22.6%, 310 basis points above pre-COVID levels and record quarterly EBITDA of $412 million.
We had $5 million in impairments due to the write-off of multiple restaurant-related assets and our effective tax rate for the quarter was 12% excluding the impact of the non-recurring tax benefit I previously mentioned.
Fiscal 2021 was a year like no other and despite the challenges of constantly shifting capacity restrictions and an uncertain guest demand, we delivered $7.2 billion in total sales.
The actions we took in response to COVID-19 to solidify our cash position and transform our business model help build a solid foundation for recovery and resulted in over $1 billion in adjusted EBITDA and over $920 million of free cash flow.
This results in a yield of 3.2% based on yesterday's closing share price.
Based on these assumptions, we expect total sales of $9.2 billion to $9.5 billion, representing growth of 5% to 8% from pre-COVID levels, same restaurant sales growth of 25% to 29% and 35 to 40 new restaurants.
Capital spending of $375 million to $425 million, total inflation of approximately 3% with commodities inflation of approximately 2.5%, and hourly labor inflation of approximately 6%.
EBITDA of $1.5 billion to $1.59 billion, and annual effective tax rate of 13% to 14% and approximately 131 million diluted average shares outstanding for the year.
All resulting in a diluted net earnings per share between $7 and $7.50.

Summary:
Going forward, we will be referencing industry data provided by Technomic which sizes the casual dining and fine dining categories for fiscal 2020 at $189 billion and for fiscal 2019 at $222 billion.
Off-premise sales accounted for 33% of total sales at Olive Garden, 19% at LongHorn and 16% at Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen.
Total sales for the fourth quarter were $2.3 billion, 79.5% higher than last year, driven by 90.4% same restaurant sales growth and the addition of 30 net new restaurants, partially offset by one less week of operations this year.
The improvements we made to our business model combined with fourth quarter sales accelerating faster than cost grows strong profitability, resulting in adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations of $2.03.
Based on these assumptions, we expect total sales of $9.2 billion to $9.5 billion, representing growth of 5% to 8% from pre-COVID levels, same restaurant sales growth of 25% to 29% and 35 to 40 new restaurants.
All resulting in a diluted net earnings per share between $7 and $7.50.