Thank you, and welcome to the call. We will be discussing the 2018 third quarter results for both Boston Pizza Royalties Income Fund or the Fund and for Boston Pizza International or BPI.

For complete details on our financial results, please see our 2018 third quarter materials filed earlier today on SEDAR or visit the Fund's website at bpincomefund.com. Should you require additional information after the call, you can reach us via the Investor Relations phone number listed in our press release.

The Fund is a limited purpose open-ended trust established under the laws of British Columbia to acquire indirectly certain trademarks and trade names used by BPI in its Boston Pizza restaurants in Canada, whereby BPI pays an amount to the Fund based on franchise revenues of Royalty Pool restaurants. For a complete description of the Fund, please see the Annual Information Form dated February 7, 2018 which is filed on SEDAR.

Before I turn the call over to Jordan Holm, President of BPI and the Fund, I have to remind everyone about the risks inherent in forward-looking information. Certain information in the following discussion may constitute forward-looking information that involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, future expectations, and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Fund, Boston Pizza Holdings Trust, Boston Pizza Royalties Limited Partnership, Boston Pizza Holdings Limited Partnership, Boston Pizza Holdings GP Inc., Boston Pizza GP Inc., BPI, Boston Pizza Canada Limited Partnership, Boston Pizza Canada Holdings Inc., Boston Pizza Canada Holdings Partnership, Boston Pizza Restaurants or industry results to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information.

For a more complete definition of forward-looking information and associated risks, please refer to the Fund's management discussion and analysis issued earlier today. Forward-looking information is provided as of the date of this call and except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances.

With that, I will turn the call over to Jordan.

Thank you, Wes, and welcome everyone to Boston Pizza's third quarter investor conference call. Today, I'll discuss our results for the 3 and 9-month periods ended September 30, 2018 and Wes will review the key financial items.

Later, I'll discuss Boston Pizza's plans for the remainder of the year and we'll leave time for your questions at the end. As you can see from the press release and financial statements filed this morning, Boston Pizza posted system-wide gross sales of $290.3 million for the period, $836.7 million year-to-date, representing increases of 1.3% and 1.6% respectively versus the same periods in 2017.

In addition, the Fund posted franchise sales from restaurants in the royalty pool of $224.4 million for the period and $643.8 million year-to-date, representing increases of 1.3% and 1.1% respectively versus the same periods in 2017. The key driver of our sales results for the period and year-to-date was the additional sales from 8 net new Boston Pizza restaurants opened during 2017 and added to the royalty pool on January 1, 2018.

Same-store sales growth or SSSG for the period was 0.0% and 0.2% year-to-date. The same-store sales growth for the period and year-to-date was principally due to menu repricing and increased take-out and delivery sales, offset by weak, general economic conditions in regions directly connected to the Canadian oil and gas industry and lower guest traffic.

Much of the menu price increases were made in response to the minimum - provincial minimum wage increases, and these menu price increases have contributed to reduce guest traffic compared to the same periods last year. BPI continues to monitor reactions to pricing strategies in order to adapt to the competitive restaurant environment.

Take-out and delivery sales have been positively impacted by our delivery partnership with Skip The Dishes. BPI completed 9 restaurant renovations during the period, compared to 7 in the third quarter 1 year ago.

This brings our total to 27 renovations completed year-to-date compared to 15 completed in the same period 1 year ago. Restaurants, typically close for 2 to 3 weeks to complete the renovation and experience an incremental sales increase in the year following the re-opening.

We started the third quarter with our campaign to celebrate Boston Pizza as Canada's summertime patio destination featuring the popular thin crust pizzas, $5 Coronas and cocktails, including the Moscow Mule and the Bourbon Fizz. The campaign was supported by mass medium, including a television campaign celebrating summertime in Canada.

On Monday, August 30 - 13th rather, we held our Annual High Five Day to thank customers for being loyal fans of Boston Pizza. Individual sized gourmet pizzas were sold for just $5 for the day, resulting in more than 123,000 individual pizzas sold across Canada that day, a 37% increase compared to last year's event.

Towards the end of the third quarter, we launched our annual BP Kids Cards promotion, which offers guests 5 free kids meals for a donation of $5 to the Boston Pizza Foundation future prospects. The 6-week-long promotion ran through the fall back-to-school period and represented another record year raising over $1.2 million in donations for the foundation.

Turning to restaurant development. We opened 2 new Boston Pizza locations during the third quarter of 2018.

And subsequent to September 30th, we've opened 4 more Boston Pizza locations, bringing our total to 6 Boston Pizza restaurants opened so far this year. This continued expansion further solidifies our position as Canada's Number 1 casual dining brand by serving more than 50 million guests annually in more locations than any other full service restaurant brand in Canada.

We have some exciting initiatives planned to drive sales for the remainder of 2018, which I'll speak about more in a moment. But now I'd like to turn the call back over to Wes for a review of the Fund's financial performance.

Wes?

Thanks, Jordan. The Fund posted royalty income of $9 million for the period and $25.8 million year-to-date compared to $8.9 million or $25.5 million respectively for the same period 1 year ago.

This represents increases of 1.3% for the period and 1% year-to-date. The Fund posted distribution income of $3 million for the period and $8.6 million year-to-date compared to $2.9 million and $8.1 million from the same periods 1 year ago.

Royalty and distribution income in respect of the period and year-to-date were based on the royalty pool of 391 Boston Pizza restaurants reporting franchise sales of $224.4 million for the period and $643.8 million year-to-date. In the third quarter and year-to-date of 2017, royalty and distribution income were based on the royalty pool of 383 Boston Pizza restaurants reporting franchise sales of $221.5 million and $636.6 million respectively.

The Fund posted net and comprehensive income of $0.9 million for the period and $9.6 million year-to-date compared to $5.4 million and $19.9 million for the same period 1 year ago. The $4.5 million decrease in the Fund's net and comprehensive income for the period compared to the third quarter of 2017 was primarily due to a $5.9 million change in fair value adjustments and lower interest income of $0.3 million, partially offset by higher royalty and distribution income of $0.2 million, lower income taxes of $0.7 million and lower interest and financing expenses of $0.7 million.

The $10.3 million decrease in the Fund's net and comprehensive income year-to-date compared to the same period in 2017 was primarily due to a $14.1 million change in fair value adjustments and lower interest income of $1.2 million, partially offset by higher royalty and distribution income of $0.8 million, lower income taxes of $2.1 million and lower interest and financing expenses of $2 million. While, net and comprehensive income is the measurement of the Fund's earnings under International Financial Reporting Standards or IFRS, the Fund is of the view that net income does not provide the most meaningful measurement of the Fund's ability to pay distributions as the calculation of net income contains non-cash items that do not affect the Fund's cash flow.

Non-cash items include the fair value adjustments on the investment in Boston Pizza Canada Limited Partnership Class B unit liability, interest rate swaps and changes in deferred income taxes. Consequently, the Fund reports the non-IFRS metrics of distributable cash and payout ratio to provide in the Fund's opinion investors with more meaningful information regarding the Fund's ability to pay distributions to unitholders.

The Fund generated distributable cash of $8 million for the period, compared to $7.9 million for the third quarter of 2017. The increase in distributable cash of 0.6% was primarily attributable to a decrease in BPI Class B unit entitlement of $0.2 million and higher royalty and distribution income of $0.2 million, partially offset by higher SIFT tax of $0.3 million.

The Fund generated distributable cash of $22 million year-to-date compared to $21.3 million year-to-date in 2017. The increase in distributable cash of $0.7 million or 3.1% was primarily attributable to a decrease in BPI's Class B unit entitlement of $1 million and higher royalty and distribution income of $0.8 million, partially offset by higher SIFT tax of $0.8 million and interest paid on debt of $0.2 million.

The Fund generated distributable cash per unit of $0.364 for the period, compared to $0.389 per unit for the third quarter of 2017. The decrease in distributable cash per unit of $0.025 or 6.4% was primarily attributable to the British Columbia Provincial government increasing the general corporate tax rate by 1% effective January 1, 2018, which increased the Fund's SIFT tax rate by 1% to 27% for the period and negative same store sales growth on a franchise sales basis for the period.

The Fund generated distributable cash per unit of $1 year-to-date compared to $1.5 per unit for the same period in 2017. The decrease in distributable cash per unit of $0.045 or 4.3% was primarily attributable to higher SIFT tax and negative same-store sales growth on a franchise sales basis year-to-date.

The Fund's payout ratio for the period was 94.7% and 103.1% year-to-date compared to 88.4% and 98.5% respectively for the same periods in 2017. The increase in the Fund's payout ratio for the period compared to the same period in 2017 was due to the combined effects of distributions paid increasing by $0.6 million or 7.9% and distributable cash increasing by $0.1 million or 0.6%.

The increase in the Fund's payout ratio year-to-date compared to the same period in 2017 was due to the combined effects of distributions paid increasing by $1.7 million or 7.9% and distributable cash increasing by $0.7 million or 3.1%. The increase in distributions paid in the period and year-to-date compared to the same periods in 2017 was due to BPI having exchanged approximately 1.9 million Class B general partner units of Boston Pizza Royalties Limited Partnership and 40.8 million Class 2 general partner units of Boston Pizza Canada Limited Partnership for 1.6 million units in September 2017.

The Fund strives to provide unitholders with consistent monthly distributions. And as a result, the Fund will generally experience seasonal fluctuations in its payout ratio.

The Fund's payout ratio is likely to be higher in the first and fourth quarters each year compared with the second and third quarters each year since Boston Pizza restaurants generally experience higher franchise sales during the summer months when restaurants open their patios and benefit from increased tourist traffic. Higher franchise sales generally result in increases in distributable cash.

Given the top line structure of the Fund and no current mandate to retain capital for other purposes, it is important to note that a payout ratio close to 100% is to be expected over time. On a trailing 12-month basis, the Fund's payout ratio was 103.4% as at September 30, 2018.

For additional context, the Fund's annual payout ratio for the prior 3 years ended December 31 were 100% in 2017, 98.9% in 2016 and 94% in 2015. The Fund also ended the quarter with $2.6 million in cash.

On November 7, 2018, the trustees declared a monthly cash distribution to unitholders of $0.115 per unit for October 2018. This distribution will be payable on November 30 to unitholders of record on November 21.

This represents the 196th consecutive monthly distribution since the Fund's initial public offering and with this distribution, the Fund will have paid out total cash distributions of $302 million or $20.41 per unit since the IPO in July 2002. With that, I'll turn the call back to Jordan, for the outlook.

Thank you Wes. As I mentioned, we have some excellent promotions and new menu items in store for our guests at Boston Pizza for the remainder of the year and into 2019.

We kicked off the fourth quarter with a national digital campaign to promote our new Appy Hour with drinks and appetizers starting at just $4 daily between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM to closing and that runs Sunday through Thursday nationally. The promotion is supported by a customized digital and social media campaign as well as local radio.

On October 31, we began a new national take-out and delivery campaign to continue to drive awareness of our mobile and online take-out and delivery experience, supported by our Boston Pizza website and MyBP app. The promotion includes a 30-second and a 15-second TV ads and is also supported by digital and social media.

Our 2018 holiday promotion begins on Tuesday, November 13 and includes a selection of shareable starters, plus a bonus promotion card offer. Boston Pizza's holiday menu features our Four Cheese Lasagna and delicious pasta dishes.

We've also got some tasty additional entries like slow roasted pork back ribs and our new baked salmon with avocado smash. And for dessert, we have our chocolate explosion cheesecake.

Sharing the spotlight with the new holiday menu is our annual gift card incentive when a guest purchases at least $50 worth of gift cards, they receive a promo card for $10 off their purchase early in 2019. Boston Pizza has 392 locations today and seven more locations currently under construction.

So we are optimistic about the continued expansion opportunities for our brand. We've also completed 27 renovations to date and have many more scheduled for completion during the rest of the year.

These renovations help keep Boston Pizza restaurants looking fresh and modern and bring technology and equipment up to the latest standards. In addition, our experience shows that the franchisee's investment in a store renovation is rewarded with an incremental sales increase when the location reopens and guests are attracted to the great new look.

Although we continue to see challenges in certain areas of the business such as regions directly connected to the Canadian oil and gas industry and rising labor costs across Canada, we have many exciting initiatives underway that we believe will drive customer traffic and contribute to our results going forward. With this continued momentum, we remain Canada's #1 casual dining brand.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator and begin the question-and-answer session.

A couple of questions. My first question is can you give any color just on same-store sales growth by region and areas where you see strength and weakness?

Yes, I mean we don't breakdown our national SSSG number by province, but we always sort of provide directionally and it's been a pretty consistent story over the last three years. The areas affected directly by oil and gas, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan and also Newfoundland, for us continue to see headwinds.

There has been a better recovery in Alberta and we talked about that on the last quarterly call. They've definitely come back, Saskatchewan has lagged.

And I think that sort of typical for the economy in Saskatchewan that they would follow Alberta down and lag on the recovery end. So we continue to see softness in those areas.

The strength for us is British Columbia and Ontario. BC has got some stronger economic conditions right now.

The economy itself, but also tourism has been good, so places like Vancouver Island and the Okanagan even Vancouver benefit from that. In Ontario, it's a little bit different because they had such a sudden increase to their minimum wage on January 1 of this year, going up 21% just all at once.

We did pass along menu pricing increases specific to that province to adjust for some of that as well as to work on strategies for efficiencies to offset the labor change increase. And as a result of that, we did see positive sales growth from the menu price increases, but - and we referred to this in our materials.

It does have an effect on guest visitation because of the slightly higher prices.

Okay, that's great. And then, has the Saskatchewan meal taxes are still impacting your same-store sales growth in that province?

Yes, we've rolled over when that tax came in - that was April of 2017 I believe. It was a 6% provincial tax on restaurant meals that didn't exist before.

So simply raising the cost of eating out in restaurants. We did see an effect of that as well as the drinking and driving legislation that came in provincially in Saskatchewan around that same time, but we've rolled over on those numbers.

So it isn't affecting the third quarter of 2018 results.

Okay. And then, just one last question from me, what do you expect for the net new restaurants expected in 2018 today?

2018, Wes do you want to take that?

Yes, sure. The net new restaurants are sort of going to be in five to seven range.

When I round - 11 openings and five closures. So that's our preliminary projection right now.

Just in terms of your marketing and sales strategies, do you find that your general strategy year-to-year is still mostly effective or do you find that the consumer is changing the way that they want to interact with you from a marketing perspective or the way that they want to experience their in-restaurant visits?

Yes, that's a great question. I mean, we're definitely seeing consumers change and particularly impacted by technology.

I think we're at the 11-year mark of the iPhone and that's definitely a piece of technology that's affected the way people consume information and how connected everyone is through social media and other platforms and we've adapted to that and we're lucky enough given our size that we can invest in ways to reach the consumer. We have the MyBP app for example, with now over 1 million people in Canada have signed up for the MyBP platform and that allows us to learn about their preferences, their interactions, their online orders, there kids cards, their various different things and deliver appropriate messages to them and given what their interests are regionally and so forth, but we still have a really big traditional base as well.

We have a lot of people who have known the brand, particularly in Western Canada, for many years. And so, we still reach them through traditional media.

So we have a big television campaign running for the next seven weeks promoting take-out and delivery and reaching people through sports broadcast, but other traditional television shows and so forth. So it is a balance of growing towards the modern media.

And each year, we see more and more of our efforts and our resources put towards social, digital, more targeted modern media, but we still have a big percentage that goes towards traditional. So yes, it's definitely a balance and we have a new Head of Marketing that joined us earlier this year and leads a team of people internally works with our creative and digital agencies externally to make sure that we stay as efficient and effective with our marketing campaigns as we can be.

Great. And you mentioned the MyBP app, it's been a couple of years now you had that.

Do you find that you're still seeing good growth in the use of that app for ordering compared to phone or other channels? And do you still see that an opportunity to further grow that channel through either the MyBP app or a third-party delivery?

Yes, I mean we still see double-digit growth in online ordering. We relaunched our by MyBP e-commerce site essentially a year ago in August.

The MyBP app we continue to enhance and add value to it. So a year ago, we launched team headquarters which allows sports teams to sign up at a local store and then collect receipts and receive a 10% value to spend for their year-end team party and so forth.

We are testing different things that will attract people to use the app like pay at the table and online payment. We are seeing orders through digital platforms grow double-digits, but we still see as I mentioned about our traditional guests, we still see a large number of our take-out and delivery orders coming through telephone.

So, we still have to manage that part of it, but we really like the online ordering capabilities. The average check is higher when we get people to work through an online platform because it is the perfect server, it remembers what you ordered last time, it prompts you about things that you may want to add on to your meals.

We see an average check that's higher through either the app or the online platform for online ordering, but you don't always get through telephone. If you call a busy location, they may not ask or remember your last order.

So yes, we continue to invest in the online ordering capabilities and see growth there. And I mentioned in some of the scripted remarks upfront that we do have a national partnership with Skip the Dishes for delivery and we have many, many stores that have signed up for that.

It is an additional way to drive delivery sales and it's a part of our business we've been doing for many, many years as part of the Boston Pizza kind of three concepts under one roof with the dining room, sports bar, and take-out and delivery components already established. So we're seeing good growth from that third-party delivery service partnership as well.

And in terms of the split right now, are you able to give us a sense in terms of all of your off-premise sales, how much of that is coming through a digital channel?

I don't have that number at hand. Elizabeth, we can follow up with you after the call.

But it is growing and I can provide that information after the call.

Okay, great. And just going - turning over to the topic of results by region and you mentioned energy focus region, which in particular Alberta, I guess, just wondering what do you think is either holding back or pressuring the recovery in that region specifically?

I know last time we spoke on this, you did indicate that things are that - results are better in that region. But still playing catch-up for.

So I was just wondering what you think needs to change or what you'd be looking to see to have that continue to get to the level that you're seeing across Canada?

I mean the trend is positive. In terms of recovery, it's been slower than we had anticipated.

And having spent several days in the province over the last couple of months, meeting with franchisees there, I think that it's really coming down to kind of consumer confidence that yes employment has come back a bit, the price of a barrel of oil is $65 which is a long way back from where we were a couple of years ago, but the Alberta market and what they're receiving for a barrel of bitumen now has a large gap to what the world value is. And I think that comes down to distribution.

I think the provinces sort of holding back and maybe waiting for a pipeline to be approved or to be constructed and running which would bring that gap between what they receive and what the world market is closer. And that would give them confidence that the recovery that's underway right now is going to continue and really consumer confidence leads to consumer spending.

And being a large operator of retail restaurants in that province, that's what we - that's a metric that we would watch to see how people feel about the future of the economy and the stability of their jobs and employment and therefore their ability to go out and treat themselves and spend a need out and those kind of things. And it feels like the economic conditions are recovering, but that confidence that is going to continue isn't translating into strong sales and the full recovery that we would expect.

That's our take on it. We're not official economists, but just speaking with the people in Northern Alberta and Southern Alberta over the last couple of months, they feel like there's still a hesitance out there about confidence.

Okay, that's helpful, thanks. And when it comes to more broadly speaking about the challenging environment for restaurants, minimum wage, the availability of labor, do you think that those kinds of things will impact your ability to both attract new franchisees and get new locations open?

I don't think that it's had that impact to this point, but we do feel and certain regions British Columbia and Quebec being the two that I would point to right now. They do have some extreme labor shortages, particularly for us in what we call the heart of the house, the kitchen staff and we used to have access to programs that would allow us to bring workers into remote communities that would provide stable trained labor in those areas and we would encourage programs like that to be developed and supported and provincially or federally because it really does help the small business operators in those communities to have just stable consistent labor in markets that are extremely short of that.

And we know that there are initiatives underway to hopefully bring some of those workers back. But right now, we don't have that.

It isn't restricting our growth. We're not closing operations because of it, but it is a major pain point, not just for Boston Pizza, I mean industry wide I think in a survey that I saw through Restaurants Canada was ranked the number one issue was scarcity of labor and the number two was the cost of labor and those two things go hand in hand.

So when it comes to any potential headwind on new store openings, it's really not their interest from franchisees but more so labor or potentially real estate if anything?

Yes, it's - we have a pipeline of franchisees. It is finding real estate and certainly with 390-plus restaurants across the country, their territories that we're very well developed and other areas that are less well-developed.

I mean, I look at Quebec for example, we opened a store in La Sarre up north last month and this month will open one up in Jonquiere. There's a lot of room for development for Boston Pizza in the province of Quebec.

Atlantic as well, I mean as of last year, I think of the 12 new store openings, I think they were spread across seven different provinces. So we're still finding lots of places to open Boston Pizzas.

We have two opening in Alberta this month, which is where we started 54 years ago. So there's still room to grow.

It is about finding real estate that's appropriate for the size and scale of the business that we need to generate. The average unit volume has to be there and then the profitability metrics of the lease and so forth so yes, the restriction for us is just finding great sites that can be long-term stable Boston Pizza restaurants.

Right. And if you wouldn't mind just repeating for me the number of restaurants that you currently have under construction.

Seven under construction right now. Not all of them will finish by the end of the year.

Just the way construction schedules work, we might have to push one or two of them into the new year. Wes sort of gave our preliminary estimate that we'll have 11 done by the end of the year.

That's our goal and just what it's like with permitting and trades and so forth. And as winter comes in different places that we're building, it does slowdown our ability to complete.

But, that's what we're pushing towards.

That's great. Thank you.

Those are all my questions. Elizabeth, just answer your question on online for take-out and delivery.

So we're closing in on close to 40% of our take-out and delivery, transactions being processed online. So, in that, we would include both our online platforms being MyBP and our website.

But we also include aggregators, as Jordan talked about. Skip the Dishes being the main one in that.

So we've seen some great growth in online - in the online aspect for our take-out and delivery. That's great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, operator and thank you everyone for joining us on the call today. Appreciate the questions and the interest and we look forward to speaking with you all on our fourth quarter conference call in February of 2019.