ORLANDO, FLa. — Some good news came Darden Restaurant Inc.’s way in the first quarter ended Aug. 27. Same-restaurant sales rose 5%, and executives increased expected synergies from the acquired Ruth’s Chris Steak House brand.

Still, Orlando-based Darden stuck to its fiscal-year outlook of adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations of $8.55 to $8.85 per share. Rajesh Vennam, chief financial officer, said he has seen “mixed data” on consumer patterns.

“The primary biggest risk is obviously on the consumer: What happens with the consumer?” he said in a Sept. 21 earnings call to discuss first-quarter results. “Second is on the commodities. We’re trying to understand what's going to happen, especially with beef — 22% of our basket is beef. So there's some risk there. Now the pricing in beef has remained pretty high because of the supply being down in the mid-single digits. We’re starting to see some additional imports that might help on the beef front, but it’s too early.

“So I guess all things considered at this point, we felt like it was prudent to stay with the guidance we provided.”

In the quarter Darden had net earnings of $195 million, or $1.61 per share on the common stock, which was up 0.7% from $193 million, or $1.58 per share, in the previous year’s first quarter. The Ruth’s Chris transaction and integration-related costs had a negative impact of 18¢ per share.

Total sales jumped 12% to $2.73 billion from $2.45 billion, driven by the same-restaurant sales increase and sales from adding 77 company-owned Ruth’s Chris Steak House restaurants and 46 other net new restaurants.

The results failed to boost Darden’s stock price, which closed at $145.49 per share on the New York Stock Exchange Sept. 21, down 2.7% from a close of $149.46 on Sept. 20.

While same-restaurant sales in the quarter increased 6% for Olive Garden and 8% for LongHorn Steakhouse, they decreased 2.8% in fine-dining restaurants.

“We are seeing a little softness versus last year with household incomes above $125,000, and that primarily affects our fine-dining brands, but it does affect all of our brands,” said Ricardo Cardenas, president and chief executive officer of Darden Restaurants.

Permitting delays also are hindering plans to open new restaurants.

“We also are being a little selective, especially where inflation and costs have made the economics of the deals a little less attractive, and we generally like to have good margin of error with our projects,” Mr. Cardenas said. “And so we’ve turned down a few projects just because costs are a little higher than we wanted them to be.”

Darden Restaurants completed its acquisition of Ruth’s Hospitality Group, Inc. on June 14.