Darden Restaurants, the parent of Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, plans to open roughly 100 new eateries this year and in fiscal 2024 combined, building on double-digit sales growth from patrons who still consider eating out an affordable luxury.

The Orlando, Florida-based company reported its fiscal 2023 third-quarter results Thursday and increased its guidance for store openings in 2023. Darden also said its net sales for the three months ending Feb. 26 increased about 14%, to $2.79 billion. Same-restaurant sales across all its chains rose an average 11.7%, with Olive Garden seeing the biggest jump, up 12.3%.

Darden's portfolio has 1,890 restaurants, in addition to Olive Garden and LongHorn, its other eateries include Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Yard House, Capital Grille, Seasons 52, Bahama Breeze and Eddie V’s.

"I'm proud that we significantly exceeded the industry for both same-restaurant sales and traffic this quarter, outperforming even more on traffic than on sales," Darden CEO Rick Cardenas said in a statement. He also touted the company's strategy of pricing below inflation.

In updating its fiscal 2023 guidance, Darden said it will have 55 new restaurant openings for the full year. The company debuted seven new restaurants in the third quarter and is on track to open 25 net new restaurants in the fourth quarter, according to Cardenas. In the fourth-quarter openings, there will be about 20 new Olive Gardens, while new LongHorn restaurants will number in the "mid-teens," with the rest of the company's chains making up the rest, Raj Vennam, Darden's chief financial officer, said on an earnings call.

For fiscal 2024, Darden now expects to open 50 to 55 new restaurants, according to company officials. Darden will allocate $300 million to $350 million in capital expenditures for those roll-outs. It's planning to spend another $200 million to $225 million on restaurant maintenance, refreshes and technology.

As for the new stores, Vennam said, "We do want to target as much growth as we can. Now, we're going to be disciplined in how we do that. We're being a little bit more selective, but still, we feel like we have opportunity to take share. ... We are still opening quite a few [stores]."

Darden doesn't want to move too quickly when it comes to expanding its physical footprint, according to Cardenas.

"The world is littered with brands that grew too fast," he said on the call. "And we're very, very strategic on how we grow our brands."

With inflation, Darden has seen its costs increase across the board, for menu items like beef to construction costs for new stores, according to Vennam.

After the peak of the pandemic, many Americans changed their spending to services and entertainment — including restaurants — instead of durable goods, and they don't want to forego dining out, according to Cardenas.

“There is a tension between what people want and what they can afford,” he said. “Consumers continue to seek value, which is not about low prices. Consumers are making spending trade-offs, and food-away-from-home is one of the most difficult expenses to give up because going out to a restaurant is still an affordable luxury for them.”

In today's era of high inflation, retailers ranging from the two major dollar-store chains to Target and Walmart have reported they are attracting more higher-income shoppers who are looking to save money during the current inflationary period of rising prices. But Cardenas said Darden hasn't seen customers switching away from its full-service restaurants to limited-service eateries, according to the CEO.

"Most customers aren't trading down," Cardenas said. "Some are, but most aren't. And in prior big downturns and things like that, we had a lot more consumers trade down."

Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse posted new weekly sales records during the week of Valentine’s Day, according to the CEO, and all of Darden’s chains hit new sales records for the third quarter.

Darden is slated to report its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings June 22.