Ruby Tuesday Restaurants Among First To Deploy Ultra-secure System To Protect Credit-card Users' Data

By: Ruby Tuesday | 0 Shares 79 Reads

(Monday, March 05, 2007) - Ruby Tuesday, Inc. (NYSE: RI), one of the nation's leading casual dining restaurant chains, is among the first and very few in the industry to deploy ultra-secure point-of-sale (POS) equipment and software to safeguard the credit card information of its guests and protect against identity theft.

The software, developed in conjunction with MICROS Systems, Inc., has multiple layers of AES-level encryption and takes security of guest credit-card holder information to a significantly enhanced level. Credit-card company VISA International has acknowledged that Ruby Tuesday's POS system will be fully compliant with the stringent new data security standards set by the Payment Card Industry, a trade group of major payment card companies.

The upgrade began in January and will be complete by the end of March. It includes new hardware and software for point-of-sale servers at all of the more than 900 Ruby Tuesday restaurants in the U.S. "We take very seriously our responsibility to secure the credit-card information of our guests," said Nick Ibrahim, Ruby Tuesday's Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. "We have devoted significant resources to getting this solution into place as quickly as possible. Because the rate of cyber crime keeps growing, we felt it was crucial to be proactive and an industry leader on this issue," he added.

For more information, please contact Jamey Hill, Ruby Tuesday Information Technology, at (865) 379-7425.

About Ruby Tuesday
The Ruby Tuesday concept was born more than 30 years ago, when current Chairman and CEO Sandy Beall opened the first restaurant near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Since then, the company has grown to over 900 company-owned and franchised restaurants in 43 states and 15 countries around the world. Ruby Tuesday is aggressively franchising territories in the western United States and in international locations. Ruby Tuesday, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RI). More information about the company can be found at www.rubytuesday.com.

Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains various "forward-looking statements," which represent the Company's expectations or beliefs concerning future events, including one or more of the following: future financial performance and restaurant growth (both Company-owned and franchised), future capital expenditures, future borrowings and repayment of debt, payment of dividends, stock repurchase, and restaurant and franchise acquisitions. The Company cautions the reader that a number of important factors and uncertainties could, individually or in the aggregate, cause actual results to differ materially from those included in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, the following: changes in promotional, couponing and advertising strategies; guests' acceptance of changes in menu items; changes in our guests' disposable income; consumer spending trends and habits; mall-traffic trends; increased competition in the restaurant market; weather conditions in the regions in which Company-owned and franchised restaurants are operated; guests' acceptance of the Company's development prototypes; laws and regulations affecting labor and employee benefit costs, including potential increases in federally mandated minimum wage; costs and availability of food and beverage inventory; the Company's ability to attract qualified managers, franchisees and team members; changes in the availability and cost of capital; impact of adoption of new accounting standards; impact of food-borne illnesses resulting from an outbreak at either Ruby Tuesday or other restaurant concepts; effects of actual or threatened future terrorist attacks in the United States; significant fluctuations in energy prices; and general economic conditions.

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