Jersey Mike's Guides 2.5-3% Comp Sales, 20% EBITDA Growth for 2026

What Jersey Mike's reported

Jersey Mike's Subs closed its second quarter of fiscal 2026 with same-store sales up 2.3%, an acceleration from 1.7% in the first quarter, and told investors it expects that momentum to keep building through the rest of the year. For the 13 weeks ended June 28, the sandwich chain posted systemwide sales of $1.21 billion, up 10% year over year, and total revenue of $208 million, also up 10% 18911. The company opened 83 new restaurants during the quarter, pushing net unit growth to 8.1% and lifting its store count to 3,378 locations 81114. Net income fell to $37 million from $59 million a year earlier, which the company attributed to non-routine expenses, advertising-fund timing and higher interest costs, partly offset by a $14 million gain on the sale of corporate-owned stores 811.

Looking ahead, management guided to full-year same-store sales growth of 2.5% to 3%, including 3% to 4% in the third quarter, net unit growth of at least 8%, and adjusted EBITDA growth of at least 20%, including at least 13% in the third quarter 189111214. CEO Charlie Morrison said the acceleration had already carried into the third quarter, with comparable sales tracking above 3% at the time of the call, a run-rate he said was outperforming broader fast-casual traffic trends 91014.

The digital angle behind the numbers

For a company built almost entirely on franchising, the most notable shift is how much of its business now runs through digital channels. Digital sales — encompassing the company's own app and website plus third-party delivery — reached 43% of systemwide sales in the quarter, up from 41% a year earlier, and management has set a long-term target of 60% to 70% 19101417. That expansion has been fueled by a sharp reallocation of marketing spend: digital media rose from less than 1% of total advertising spending to more than 20% in 2026, aimed at reaching younger, Hispanic and other underpenetrated customers 1014. Loyalty program registrations climbed 22% year to date, and the company's MyMike's program has grown to more than 12.5 million active members, up from roughly 7.9 million in 2021, according to its IPO prospectus 1314.

But Jersey Mike's own regulatory filing draws a distinction worth noting: the 43% figure is a broad channel-mix measure, not a gauge of how much revenue flows through the company's proprietary ecommerce platform alone. Delivery — most of it still routed through third-party aggregators rather than Jersey Mike's own systems — makes up just under 20% of total sales, while first-party delivery accounts for only about 3% of that delivery volume 91415. Management has said it sees room for first-party delivery to eventually reach as much as 10% of total sales, which would shift more of the customer relationship, data and margin back to the company rather than to delivery marketplaces 914.

Where the growth is coming from

Across nearly every account of the earnings call, one point is consistent: management insists the comparable-sales gain was driven by more transactions, not higher menu prices. Chief Financial Officer Michele Allen said pricing is expected to contribute about one percentage point or less to comparable sales in the second half, with the rest expected to come from traffic 810141720. A digitally marketed chicken-salad limited-time offer and the relaunch of the Mike's Hot Italian sub were cited as concrete drivers of the acceleration into the third quarter 915.

On profitability, the picture is more complicated than the 20% full-year EBITDA target suggests. Reported adjusted EBITDA rose only 7% to $114 million in the quarter, but management said it would have grown 18% excluding a roughly $10 million adverse swing tied to advertising-fund timing, plus about $8 million in savings from unwinding the company's former area-director field-support model 911151718. That means a meaningful share of this year's projected EBITDA growth reflects one-time transitional benefits — the shift to a corporate-led support structure and the normalization of an advertising-timing mismatch — rather than a repeatable structural improvement in margins.

Where the reporting agrees

The hard numbers are consistent across every outlet that covered the release: 2.3% same-store sales growth (up from 1.7% in Q1), $1.21 billion in systemwide sales, $208 million in revenue, 83 new stores, 8.1% net unit growth, 3,378 total locations, a 43% digital sales mix, and full-year guidance of 2.5%-3% comparable sales growth with at least 20% adjusted EBITDA growth 1891011121417. Coverage from Seeking Alpha, Investing.com, Ticker Report, Daily Political and the company's own release all describe the growth as transaction-led rather than price-led, and all note management's characterization of the industry backdrop as challenging for traffic broadly 189101417. Analysts at Mizuho and Evercore ISI both point to the same underlying drivers — digital marketing, value-oriented promotions, and expanding reach among Hispanic and Gen Z consumers — as reasons to expect further acceleration 1920.

Where it doesn't

The most consequential divergence isn't about the numbers themselves but about what they mean. Morningstar's analysis treats the 43% digital penetration figure skeptically, noting it lags the roughly 52% rate Morningstar attributes to fast-casual peers, and argues that further digital gains may be necessary just to keep pace with competitors rather than a catalyst for pushing comparable-sales growth meaningfully above the low single digits over time 18. That reading sits in tension with the framing from Evercore ISI and Mizuho, both of which treat the same digital investment — plus easier upcoming comparisons and value-driven promotions like an $8.95 chicken salad bundle — as grounds for raising estimates; Mizuho lifted its 2026 comparable-sales forecast to 2.8% from 2.5%, while Evercore projects 3% third-quarter growth against a 2.5% consensus and 3.5% in the fourth quarter against a 3% consensus 1920. Morningstar, notably, kept its $14.90 fair value estimate unchanged and continues to call the stock overvalued after its post-earnings pop, a more bearish stance than the sell-side commentary from Evercore and Mizuho 18.

There is also a smaller but real inconsistency in how the EBITDA story gets told. Some accounts lead with the headline 7% adjusted EBITDA growth figure as the quarter's result 91120, while others foreground management's adjusted 18% figure that strips out the advertising-timing distortion, treating it as the more representative number 151718. Both figures are accurate and sourced to the same call, but which one a reader encounters first shapes whether the quarter reads as a soft profit result or a strong one obscured by accounting timing.

A final point of divergence, though not a contradiction, is scope: several outlets in this batch cover Jersey Mike's alongside unrelated retail stories — Walmart's slowing comparable sales, Casey's convenience-store deceleration, Deloitte's holiday retail forecast, and Five Below's expansion — without drawing any explicit connection between them 234567. These appear to be separate retail-sector items rather than competing accounts of the Jersey Mike's story itself.

The reading the evidence supports

The numbers themselves are not in dispute — every outlet that reported them agrees on the 2.3% comparable-sales figure, the 43% digital mix and the 2.5%-3% full-year guidance. The real question is interpretive, and here the evidence leans toward a middle reading rather than either extreme. Jersey Mike's has clearly digitized a large share of its ordering volume and is converting that into measurable traffic gains without leaning on price, which is the healthier growth pattern management and multiple analysts describe. But the company's own admission that first-party delivery remains only about 3% of delivery sales, combined with Morningstar's peer comparison showing digital penetration still trailing fast-casual rivals, supports treating the 2026 outlook as a productivity story for an already-scaled franchise system rather than evidence that Jersey Mike's has built a differentiated ecommerce advantage. The bigger swing factor for 2026 profitability is not digital adoption at all — it's the one-time G&A savings from retiring the area-director model, a transitional benefit that won't repeat indefinitely and that investors should not mistake for a durable margin structure.