Buffalo Wild Wings 2015 Annual Report Download - page 14

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Wage and hour litigation could negatively impact our performance.
Increased wage and hour litigation, including claims relating to the Fair Labor Standards Act, analogous state laws, or
other state wage and hour laws could result in significant attorney fee and settlement costs. The potential settlement of, or
awards of damages for, such claims also could materially impact our financial performance as could operational adjustments
implemented to mitigate future exposure.
Changes in employment laws or regulation could harm our performance.
Various federal and state labor laws govern our relationship with our employees and affect operating costs. These laws
include minimum wage requirements, overtime pay, paid time off, work scheduling, healthcare reform and the implementation
of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, unemployment tax rates, workers’ compensation rates, citizenship
requirements, union membership, and sales taxes. A number of factors could adversely affect our operating results, including
additional government-imposed increases in minimum wages, overtime pay, paid leaves of absence and mandated health
benefits, mandated training for employees, increased tax reporting and tax payment requirements for employees who receive
tips, a reduction in the number of states that allow tips to be credited toward minimum wage requirements, changing
regulations from the National Labor Relations Board or other agencies.
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in public
accommodations and employment. Although our restaurants are designed to be accessible to the disabled, we could be required
to make modifications to our restaurants or to our guest-facing technologies including our website to provide service to, or
make reasonable accommodations for disabled persons.
Investments in new or emerging brands may not be successful.
We have a minority investment in Pie Squared Holdings, operator and franchisor of PizzaRev, a fast-casual pizza
restaurant, and a majority investment in Rusty Taco Inc., operator and franchishor of R Taco, a fast-casual restaurant
specializing in street-style tacos, and intend to invest in these and additional emerging restaurant brands in the future as
additional vehicles of growth. If an emerging brand does not succeed, we risk losing all or a substantial portion of our
investment in that brand. In addition, our overall long-term growth may be affected by the level of success achieved by any of
these restaurant concepts.
Our restaurants may not achieve market acceptance in the new domestic and international geographic regions we enter.
Our expansion plans depend on opening restaurants in new domestic and international markets where we or our
franchisees have little or no operating experience. We may not be successful in operating our restaurants in new markets on a
profitable basis. The success of these new restaurants will be affected by the different competitive conditions, consumer tastes,
and discretionary spending patterns of the new markets as well as our ability to generate market awareness of our brands. Sales
at restaurants opening in new markets may take longer to reach profitable levels, if at all.
New restaurants added to our existing markets may take sales from existing restaurants.
We and our franchisees intend to open new restaurants in our existing markets, which may reduce sales performance and
guest visits for existing restaurants in those markets. In addition, new restaurants added in existing markets may not achieve
sales and operating performance at the same level as established restaurants in the market.
Failure of our internal control over financial reporting could harm our business and financial results.
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting.
Internal control over financial reporting is a process to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial
reporting for external purposes in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Because of its
inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting is not intended to provide absolute assurance that we would
prevent or detect a misstatement of our financial statements or fraud. Any failure to maintain an effective system of internal
control over financial reporting could limit our ability to report our financial results accurately and timely or to detect and
prevent fraud. A significant financial reporting failure or material weakness in internal control over financial reporting could
cause a loss of investor confidence and decline in the market price of our stock.