Wendy's Announces Closure of 140 Additional Locations This Year

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo of Wendy’s sign in April 2023.Photo:Getty

Getty

Wendy’swill be closing 140 additional restaurants this year — on top of the 100 closures that the company previously announced in the spring.

But, according to the company, these closures should just about equal the number of new restaurants Wendy’s expects to have opened in 2024.

The latest closure announcement came during a conference call with investors on Thursday, Oct. 31, according to theAssociated Press, when CEO Kirk Tanner revealed that the locations were “outdated and located in underperforming” areas and were performing “well below the system average" financially.

“They’re just in locations that don’t build our brands,” Tanner said, per the AP. “You look at a brand that’s 55 years old and some of those restaurants are quite out of date.”

While the company did not provide a list of the locations expected to shut their doors, the CEO clarified that the restaurants were not in “one particular area.”

A remodeled Wendy’s location in Northern Idaho.Don & Melinda Crawford/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty

Don & Melinda Crawford/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty

PerCNN, Wendy’s conducted “a robust review of individual restaurants to ensure they meet our expectations for sales, have the profitability to fuel growth and deliver the Wendy’s brand experience for customers,” before it found that “Wendy’s system is incredibly healthy.”

A spokesperson for Wendy’s confirmed to PEOPLE on Saturday, Nov. 2, that the company is on track to meet its goal of 250-300 new restaurant openings for the year. This means Wendy’s is expected to see a “similar number of closures as openings” overall in 2024, they wrote, after Wendy’s previously announced100 restaurant closuresin May.

“As a 55-year-old brand with more than 7,100 restaurants across the globe, closures are a normal activity to maintain a healthy system,” the spokesperson wrote.

During the earnings call, perUSA Today, Tanner said the company launched around 500 locations in the last two years. According to the outlet, as of Sept. 29, Wendy’s 7,166 locations included 6,010 in the U.S. and 1,156 elsewhere.

“Our focus is on building new restaurants because we know they deliver well over the average of these poor-performing restaurants,” Tanner said, per the AP. “We, overall, want the best restaurants for the customers and that customer experience we want to deliver.”

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source: people.com