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

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

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

Burger King announced in August that it would start selling the plant-based Impossible Whopper nationwide after a successful test run in seven markets. It first started selling the 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 the U.S., one of its best quarters in almost two decades. The chain offered a limited-time chicken sandwich over the summer and announced Monday the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich will be back on Sunday.

The 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 the 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 the expectations of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

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

Shares rose slightly before the 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