CluenexDarden Restaurants DRI
Darden Restaurants scores average on business quality (5.3 of 10). Here is why, in plain words, and what our sealed record shows.
Why it matters
- What Darden Restaurants does
Darden Restaurants operates casual dining chains like Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, generating revenue primarily from food and beverage sales to retail consumers.
- What it does best
Darden excels in scale-driven supply chain management across its restaurant portfolio, achieving an ROE of 55.9% that outpaces peers like DASH at 8.5%, creating a durable cost advantage.
- The main risk
Rising debt levels pose a primary threat, with total debt reaching $4.1 billion against just $220 million in cash, exposing margins to higher servicing costs if consumer traffic softens.
Quality, check by check
Scored against its own industry, from company filings.
Operating margins hold at 11.9% with a net margin of 8.8%, showing stable profitability that translates efficiently to returns on equity as scale increases.
Scale advantages lock in supplier pricing power, yielding an ROE in the top quartile of its sector at 76th percentile, though low gross margins limit pricing defensibility.
Revenue grew 9.4% to $13.4B, maintaining a steady expansion rate that tracks closely with its historical multi-year top-line progression.
Debt-to-equity sits at 1.8x with net debt climbing to $3.9B while free cash flow registers $1.0B, reflecting a softer balance sheet requiring disciplined capital allocation.
Insiders
Executives and directors, from SEC Form 4 filings we read ourselves. Open market trades only; grants, option exercises and pre-planned sales left out.
7 sold $14.0M outside pre-planned sales.
Our sealed record on DRI
Verdicts appear here 30 days after we publish them; members see today's. Each one is in the nightly ledger, fingerprinted the night it was made.
The first sealed verdicts appear here on Oct 11, 2026.
Questions
Darden Restaurants scores average on the Cluenex quality check (5.3 of 10), measured against its own industry. Profitability is fair, moat fair, growth steady and financial health weak.
In the last 90 days of SEC Form 4 filings: 7 sold $14.0M outside pre-planned sales.
Dec 16, 2026.
See DRI today
- Today's verdict on DRI, and why
- Fair value with cautious, base and optimistic cases
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- Which stocks each signal names, the night it fires
Cite this page: Cluenex, “Darden Restaurants (DRI)”, https://cluenex.com/stocks/dri/, data as of Oct 10, 2026.