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FWRG, First Watch Restaurant Group Inc.

Restaurants consumer brand Capital build-outCyclical

Watch Restaurant Group, Inc. is a Delaware holding company.

Our rotating seasonal menu is commonly cited by our customers as a core element of the First Watch experience and has included favorites such as the Parmesan and Prosciutto Toast, Chimichurri Steak and Eggs Hash, and the Brooklyn Breakfast Sandwich.

As a company, we put our employees first and empower them to do whatever it takes to put our customers first.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

FWRG · First Watch Restaurant Group Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$1.2B

+20.3% YoY · 29% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.3B 5-yr avg $892M

Operating margin 2.2% 5-yr avg 3.3%

ROIC 3% 5-yr avg 3%

Owner-earnings margin 5% 5-yr avg 5%

Free cash flow margin −1% 5-yr avg 0%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is In-restaurant dining sales (80%), Third-party delivery sales (12%) and Take-out sales (7%).
Situation: Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 13% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 2.3% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −14% to 4.6% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Capital spending runs about 9.3% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on same-store sales and unit economics. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 2%, above 15% in 0 of 6 years). By owner earnings: roughly 4% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

In-restaurant dining sales is 80% of revenue, with Third-party delivery sales the other meaningful line at 12%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

In-restaurant dining sales80%$982M
Third-party delivery sales12%$142M
Take-out sales7%$88M
Franchise1%$10M
Royalty and system fund contributions1%$10M
Business combinations - revenues recognized0%$398K
Initial fees0%$225K

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
								Income statement
$436M	$342M	$601M	$730M	$892M	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.3B	RevenueRevenue
13%	14%	12%	12%	12%	11%	11%	11%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($38M)	($47M)	$22M	$17M	$41M	$39M	$28M	$27M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−8.6%	−13.8%	3.7%	2.3%	4.6%	3.8%	2.3%	2.2%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($45M)	($50M)	($2M)	$7M	$25M	$19M	$19M	$18M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	45%	30%	32%	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
								Cash flow & returns
$21M	($18M)	$63M	$63M	$95M	$116M	$126M	$140M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$28M	$31M	$32M	$34M	$41M	$58M	$75M	$80M	DepreciationDeprec.
$39M	($158K)	$24M	$11M	$21M	$31M	$21M	$31M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$59M	$27M	$35M	$62M	$83M	$128M	$157M	$150M	CapexCapex
13.6%	7.8%	5.9%	8.5%	9.3%	12.6%	12.8%	11.8%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($7M)	($45M)	$28M	$29M	$54M	$58M	$51M	$60M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−1.5%	−13.2%	4.6%	3.9%	6.1%	5.7%	4.2%	4.7%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($38M)	($45M)	$28M	$718K	$12M	($12M)	($31M)	($9M)	Free cash flowFCF
−8.6%	−13.2%	4.6%	0.1%	1.3%	−1.2%	−2.5%	−0.7%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$23M	$0	$0	$0	$40M	$79M	$56M	$56M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
-9%	-7%	—	2%	5%	3%	3%	3%	ROICROIC
-14%	-15%	-0%	1%	5%	3%	3%	3%	Return on equityROE
−14%	−15%	−0%	1%	5%	3%	3%	3%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
								Balance sheet
$11M	$39M	$52M	$50M	$50M	$33M	$21M	$24M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$4M	$4M	$6M	$6M	$7M	$7M	$6M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$3M	$4M	$5M	$5M	$6M	$7M	$7M	InventoryInvent.
—	$4M	$11M	$8M	$6M	$7M	$9M	$10M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$3M	($3M)	$4M	$5M	$6M	$5M	$3M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$49M	$68M	$67M	$71M	$56M	$49M	$52M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$77M	$97M	$100M	$115M	$138M	$167M	$177M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	0.6×	0.7×	0.7×	0.6×	0.4×	0.3×	0.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$345M	$345M	$345M	$360M	$399M	$420M	$420M	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.8B	Total assetsAssets
—	$290M	$103M	$101M	$125M	$198M	$282M	$282M	Total debtDebt
—	$251M	$51M	$51M	$76M	$165M	$261M	$259M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-1.9×	-2.1×	1.1×	3.2×	5.1×	3.1×	1.6×	1.5×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$330M	$321M	$504M	$523M	$561M	$595M	$626M	$628M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
—	0.2%	1.4%	1.4%	0.9%	0.8%	0.9%	0.9%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
								Per share
45.0M	45.0M	48.2M	60.1M	61.2M	62.4M	62.8M	61.2M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$9.69	$7.61	$12.47	$12.14	$14.57	$16.29	$19.45	$20.76	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.01	$-1.10	$-0.04	$0.11	$0.41	$0.30	$0.31	$0.29	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.15	$-1.00	$0.57	$0.48	$0.88	$0.93	$0.81	$0.99	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.84	$-1.00	$0.57	$0.01	$0.20	$-0.20	$-0.49	$-0.15	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.31	$0.59	$0.73	$1.03	$1.36	$2.05	$2.50	$2.44	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$7.33	$7.13	$10.46	$8.70	$9.17	$9.55	$9.97	$10.25	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	6-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+12.3%/yr	+20.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	+11.3%/yr	+33.3%/yr
Book value / share	+5.3%/yr	+6.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

63Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

3%low FY2019

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

5.1×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$51Mowner earningsvs.$19Mnet incomelow FY2020

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2019FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $51M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $75M it takes just to hold its position. It put $82M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($31M).

Reported net income$19M

Owner earnings$51M · 4% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$19M	$19M	$25M	$7M	($2M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$75M	+$58M	+$41M	+$34M	+$32M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$11M	+$9M	+$8M	+$10M	+$9M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$21M	+$31M	+$21M	+$11M	+$24M
Cash from operations	$126M	$116M	$95M	$63M	$63M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$75M	−$58M	−$41M	−$34M	−$35M
Owner earnings	$51M	$58M	$54M	$29M	$28M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$82M	−$70M	−$42M	−$28M	—
Free cash flow	($31M)	($12M)	$12M	$718K	$28M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	4%	6%	6%	4%	5%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $75M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $82M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $11M), owner earnings is nearer $40M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Material weakness in financial controls

“As previously disclosed, we identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting as of the end of our fiscal year ended December 29, 2024.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1.6×

Thin

Operating income $28M ÷ interest expense $17M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $261M · 9.5× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $21M − debt $282M

What this means
Netting $21M of cash and short-term investments against $282M of debt leaves $261M owed, about 9.5× a year's operating profit (10.3× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 2%

Below average through the cycle

6-yr median, range -9%–5%; 3% latest = NOPAT $28M ÷ invested capital $887M

Industry peers: median 9%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 6 years (it ran 3% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 4%

Thin, recently turned positive

latest $51M = operating cash $126M − maintenance capex $75M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (7-yr median 4%)

Industry peers: median 7%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 4% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 7 years. It chose to put $82M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($31M) — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $11M of SBC) leaves $40M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 6.48×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $126M ÷ net income $19M

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 2.09×

Expanding

Capex $157M ÷ depreciation $75M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.2B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.29×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $282M vs ($118M) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (7-yr record) · 3 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.34/share (latest year $0.32), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $10.16/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2019–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 4 of 7

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 6 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −6% → 4% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −6% early to 4% lately, median 2% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 24%

What this means
Every extra dollar the business reinvested came back at a high incremental return — the lens GBM read for a moat that reinvests rather than merely harvests. The record and the 10-K are where you check whether the rate holds.
Worst year 2020 · −13.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +5.7%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 29, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$52M

Cash & short-term investments$24M
Receivables$6M
Inventory$7M
Other current assets$15M

Current liabilities$177M

Accounts payable$10M
Other current liabilities$168M

Current ratio0.29×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.25×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.13×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($126M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+17.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$35Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($1.1B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$749M$749M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $1.0B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$4Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$78M

'27$88M

'28$90M

'29$90M

'30$90M

later$737M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$78Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$1.2Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$726Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$282M

Lease obligations (present value)$726M

Total fixed claims on the business$1.0B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $1.0B, of which the leases are 72%, more than the debt itself. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 28, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2019–2025

Over the record, the business generated $466M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$552M · 118%

Source of funding−$86M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $86M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Net change in share count36.1%
The diluted count rose from 45M to 61M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 7-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$595M34% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity67%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$197Mover 7 years buying other businesses, against $552M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 7-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2023	Mr. Tomasso	$4.9M	$7.3M	$54M
2024	Mr. Tomasso	$4.9M	$4.1M	$58M
2025	Mr. Tomasso	$11.5M	$10.5M	$51M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership6.1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$11M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 39% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Peers, Restaurants

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
PLAYDave & Buster's Entertainment Inc.	$2.1B	83%	13.0%	15%	13%
JACKJack in the Box	$1.5B	56%	19.1%	19%	8%
BJRIBJ's Restaurants Inc.	$1.4B	74%	2.2%	6%	3%
FWRGFirst Watch Restaurant Group Inc.	$1.2B	—	2.3%	2%	4%
CAVACAVA Group	$1.2B	—	0.6%	10%	7%
DINDine Brands Global Inc.	$879M	63%	17.1%	9%	12%
PTLOPortillo's Inc.	$732M	—	8.2%	7%	6%
SGSweetgreen Inc.	$679M	—	-30.2%	-43%	-16%
Group median	—	—	5.2%	8%	6%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what First Watch Restaurant Group Inc. has delivered.

First Watch Restaurant Group Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, First Watch Restaurant Group Inc. earns about $51M on its 4.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 4.2% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($51M) Net of stock comp (−$12M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($65M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+18%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · since FY2021+16%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow ($9M) on 62M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $259M. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($150M) runs well above depreciation ($80M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $65M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh FWRG against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "First Watch Restaurant Group Inc. (FWRG), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/FWRG, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← FWRD its page in the Manual G →

Industry order: ← EAT the Restaurants chapter HDL →