Wendy’s announces closure of approximately 300 stores nationwide
Fast food chain Wendy’s plans to close hundreds more just a year after closing 140 stores.
Fast food chain Wendy’s will close 5% to 6% of its stores nationwide in the first half of 2026 as part of its ongoing downsizing plan.
Interim CEO Ken Cook first told investors during a quarterly earnings call on Nov. 7 that the company would close “a mid-single-digit percentage” of its roughly 6,000 U.S. locations.
Cook said on a Feb. 13 earnings call that the company has already closed 28 restaurants in the final quarter of 2025 as part of a 5% to 6% reduction plan.
As of the end of the year, approximately 5,969 stores were open nationwide, so in total, approximately 300 to 360 stores will be closed. The exact list of locations scheduled to close has not been announced.
USA TODAY did not immediately receive a response from Wendy’s.
Why is Wendy’s closing?
Wendy’s first announced the closures in November, and Cook said at the time that some restaurants were “holding back our franchisees from a financial performance standpoint.”
“The goal is to address these restaurants and resolve their issues,” he said.
In some cases, this means improving technology or equipment or transferring difficult locations to new operators. In other areas, it would mean restaurant closures altogether, he said.
Mr. Cook shared a similar message during a recent earnings call.
“By closing restaurants that are consistently underperforming, franchisees can increase their focus on locations with the greatest potential for profitable growth,” Cook said. “Since announcing this program in November, we have worked with our franchisees to evaluate restaurants on a location-by-location basis.”
Wendy’s struggled with sales relative to some of its competitors in 2025, reporting an 11.3% drop in fourth-quarter same-store sales (revenue generated from stores open for at least a year) and an 8.3% drop in global systemwide sales. Global sales in 2025 were down 3.5% overall, with same-store sales down 5.6%.
