Burger King, Popeye’s strong in Restaurant Brands 3Q

Impossible Whopper propelled Burger King to its best third-quarter comparable sales increase in four years, chain’s owner said Monday.

Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported a 5% increase in same-store sales at Burger King locations in U.S. during quarter, crediting launch of Impossible Whopper for improvement.

Burger King anunced in August that it would start selling plant-based Impossible Whopper nationwide after a successful test run in seven markets. It first started selling soy-based burgers, which are made by Impossible Foods, in April.

Toronto-based Restaurant Brands also said that Popeye’s had comparable sales growth of more than 10% in U.S., one of its best quarters in almost two decades. chain offered a limited-time chicken sandwich over summer and anunced Monday Popeyes Chicken Sandwich will be back on Sunday.

strong performances from Burger King and Popeye’s helped offset weakness at Tim Horton’s, which experienced a 1.4% decline in comparable sales.

Restaurant Brands earned $201 million, or 75 cents per share, for period ended Sept. 30. That compares with $134 million, or 53 cents per share, a year earlier.

Stripping out one-time items, earnings were 72 cents per share. That’s in line with expectations of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue totaled $1.46 billion in period, also meeting Wall Street’s view.

Shares rose slightly before market open.

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Portions of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on QSR at https://www.zacks.com/ap/QSR