P.F. Chang's Same-Store Sales Up 7.7% Behind Japan-Seasoned LTO Play

P.F. Chang's posted a 7.7% same-store sales gain in the second quarter, with traffic up 6.8% — numbers the chain's marketing team attributes, in part, to a year of culturally themed limited-time offers built around Japanese seasons.

The architect of that campaign calendar is Alexa Bunting, director of brand marketing, who joined the company two years ago as a senior marketing manager and now oversees both brand and creative. Her runway widened when chief marketing officer Holly Smith arrived in January, under CEO Jim Mazany, as part of the brand's broader resurgence.

Bunting's path to the role runs through retail, not restaurants. She started in sales at fine jewelry retailers, where questions about why customers buy pushed her toward a master's degree in integrated marketing. Her first food-and-beverage job came at Black Rifle Coffee Co., leading marketing for its retail coffee shops — a fast rotation of new beverages, seasonal items and menus.

The lasting lesson was community.

"I learned the importance of building a community around your brand," Bunting said. "Black Rifle has a strong customer base, and I learned pretty quickly that although sales and discounts drive consumers in, it's the brand that keeps them coming back."

How does a seasonal LTO become a brand story?

Working with brand manager Olivia Liu, Bunting structured 2026 as a sequence of seasonal campaigns rooted in Japanese culture — each pairing a new menu with a narrative, a cocktail program and in-room theater.

• February — Flavor In Bloom: anchored to Japan's cherry blossom season, pairing best-sellers like Chang's Lettuce Wraps with spring cocktails led by a Cherry Blossom Martini.
• Summer — Summer in Tokyo: a new seasonal menu plus the debut of the Sushi Boat, a shareable platter that arrives tableside in a cloud of dry ice.
• Fall — Autumn in Kyoto: duck added to the menu for a deeper, cozier experience, with maple threaded through dishes, the bourbon-based Kyoto Cabin cocktail and the campaign's design.

"At the heart of every campaign we're doing, we give the consumers an educational element or a story that will pull it all together for them," Bunting said. "We've really started to color a little outside of the lines with our LTOs and integrate them with things that are P.F. Chang's at its core."

The maple concept came from research, not a flavor brainstorm. "In the spring, we centered around the Japanese cherry blossom, and what we realized after our research is that the maple tree is the twin flame to this during the fall in Japanese culture, so we really channeled that for this campaign," she said.

That's menu engineering dressed as storytelling: core best-sellers stay on the plate, while the seasonal layer gives guests a reason to return each quarter.

What does this change for the marketing org?

Smith's arrival unlocked bigger bets. "She's allowed us to explore things that maybe we weren't able to before," Bunting said. "She let us think outside the box about bigger ideas and challenge ourselves to push it a little further."

The team itself has been reshaped. Patrick Benson joined roughly a year and a half ago in a social media role and grew the channel into a community of its own; the brand then created a dedicated communications department, which he now leads with a broader, integrated scope.

"It's really pertinent to us that we start everything from an integrated lens," Bunting said, "to make sure all of our channels are speaking the same language and we're having the same message across the board."

She credits creative director energy to Liu, new creative lead Jared Keller and the in-house graphic designers. Weekly standups open campaign discussions to the broader marketing team — and beyond it.

"If someone in finance has an idea, I want to hear it," Bunting said. "If someone in culinary shares an idea, I'd love to hear that too. You can always build off something, and you never know when one idea can spark another."

For operators watching from the outside, the takeaway is a sequencing discipline: strong menu first, then story, then operational execution and interactive dining-room touches, all starting from a single brief.

"We know it's a longtime love brand, and we have that brand equity," Bunting said. "But how do we continue to evolve it for the future?"

The question driving the next year of conversations with Smith is how to keep building the storytelling — and an experience that keeps guests coming back beyond the discount cycle.