All right, Brian, congratulations on the recent quarter. Obviously, investors had been looking for some sort of sense that there would be a return to growth under your leadership in the 13 months that you've been on the job, 1% on a same store sales basis. Do you have confidence that the performance that you saw in your fiscal fourth quarter is not only going to be repeatable, but more importantly, something that you can build on for the current quarter and beyond?
Yeah, really great to be here. And absolutely, we believe this was a critical moment in our turnaround plan of the Back to Starbucks strategy. You know, it was great to see once we got the Green Apron service standard into the business, we saw a lot of really good things happen. You know, more specifically, our partners were set up with bigger rosters, more hours, and they were able to give customers better connection, great craft products, which then translated into transaction increases, as you saw in September. We had positive comps driven by those transaction gains that continued into October. And we believe we can build from here because we've got a strong operational footing and really excited about what we've got coming for holiday. So we think it was a critical moment in the fourth quarter for the turnaround of the U.S. business. And when you think about North America, the thing that's great is Canada had a great quarter as well. They were, you know, low mid single digit comp growth driven by transactions as well. And they've done a really great job there. And then when you look around the world, we had terrific successes in many markets and most notably, China had its second consecutive quarter of comp growth. So it was a critical moment for us and we're optimistic about where we go from here.
You've put a lot of emphasis on service, obviously, with the Green Apron project. What does that look like in terms of staffing, though? I mean, you obviously have to hire more people, but more importantly, you have to retrain a lot of your existing staff as well. How, I guess, receptive have they been to that? And have you faced any challenges?
You know, I got to give our partners a lot of credit. They really have embraced both the Back to Starbucks strategy and the Green Apron service standard. And when I'm in stores, you know, what I hear from folks is like, thank you. We're getting back to being a great coffeehouse again. Our baristas and partners, they love doing the craft. They love having the moments of connection with our customers. And our customers love it as well. And so the fact that we've staffed the stores up and we've added more people, we've added more hours, it actually has set them up to be able to do their job, I think with excellence. And, you know, it's always terrific to be able to hire more people. And when you've got great leaders in the store, they're able to train the new people, I think, really quickly. And we've tried to keep this very focused on what we're looking for. Right. We want a great greeting when people walk in. We want a great experience at the handoff. We're working on doing these uplifts within. Our customers have great seats if they decide to stay. And we've put some technology behind the scenes to help put order to all those orders coming in, whether it's through the drive-thru, mobile order, or in the cafe. So, you know, we're seeing great responses from our partners, and I couldn't be prouder of the progress they've made in really short order. You know, we've only been doing this since the middle of August.
And with regards to the actual physical Starbucks locations, I mean, there are a lot of layers to what you're doing here. One, obviously trying to make the interior a little bit more accommodating and comfortable, but at the same time, also efficient. You're also looking to sort of create more, I guess, lower cost models for building and operating some of these locations. Are those two in conflict with each other, those strategies?
No, actually, they can work really well together. You can have great design, you can have a great seat, you can have a great atmosphere, and then also be very cost conscious. And that's what we're doing here is we want to make sure all our base costs go into giving the partner the back of house they need to be successful. And then the customer, the front of house experience where they love being in our coffeehouses. And so that's what we're doing. And these coffeehouse uplifts, we're able to turn these around in a night or two. We don't have to close the store and the transformation is meaningful. You know, the feedback we're getting from customers is really, really positive, both on the design as well as just the whole atmosphere, the vibe that they're getting. And I think the combination of the Green Apron service with this coffeehouse uplift just really gets people to a different place. And they believe now they're getting that Starbucks experience that frankly, you don't get anywhere else.
How much will the pace of those uplifts pick up? I mean, you've only done a few dozen stores, at least in the most recent quarter a year. I mean, you've got more than 10,000 company operated locations right here in North America. So when do we start to see the other thousands of locations get that uplift?
Yeah. So we've done about 70 so far, and we are focused on this fiscal year getting over a thousand done. And the good news is once we get that scale operation going, we build know-how, we will be able to then hopefully accelerate the build schedule accordingly into the out years, because we would love to touch all the stores that need it. And then the good news is too, as we build new stores going forward, we're building the new stores with the right design package, the right experience. So we have some work to do with our existing coffeehouses. But I'm optimistic we will demonstrate that we're able to do this at scale, and then we'll build on our ability to do thousands of stores going forward.
There is still cost involved in this. We had a restructuring charge in the most recent quarter. The sales growth is coming back. There are still some concerns about whether margins could be under pressure as you go through this transition. What do you tell investors who ask that question?
Yeah. Look, I think the margins will follow the top line success, and I see no reason why we can't get back to earning what we used to earn even pre-COVID. So I'm very optimistic for where we can get to on the bottom line. You know, kind of the way we've talked about it is our future is we're going to have more transactions, a bigger business, and every transaction is going to be more profitable than it currently is today. I love the fact that our culture has really adopted this mantra: if we're going to be better tomorrow than we were today. And the same thing is true on the bottom line. So that's where we're headed. And I'm confident as we continue to put transactions into the business, customers continue to experience the Starbucks experience, they see the tremendous value, it will flow to the bottom line and it'll reward everybody accordingly.
