Wendy's is closing 140 locations

Wendy's has announced that it will close 140 of its restaurants.

“We want to continue to improve our restaurant footprint and overall system health,” said Kirk Tanner, president and CEO of Wendy's, when he announced the news on Oct. 31 during its third-quarter earnings call.

“Following this review, I made the strategic decision to close additional restaurants this year that are aging and located in underperforming commercial areas. These restaurants have an AUV (average unit volume) of approximately $1.1 million and operating margins well below the system average.”

However, Tanner believes that the closures can be neutralized by opening more stores in different locations.

“We designed this initiative to ensure that many of these units are replaced over time by new restaurants in better locations with significantly improved sales and profitability,” he said.

“We expect total closures in 2024, including additional closures in the fourth quarter, to be offset by new restaurant openings this year, leaving our net unit growth roughly flat year-over-year.”

Wendy's, which has further enriched its menu with a new Salted Caramel Frosty and a Krabby Patty Kollab Meal (in honor of the 25th anniversary of “SpongeBob SquarePants”), has also welcomed new locations.

“In addition, we opened 64 new Wendy's restaurants worldwide in the third quarter and remain on track to achieve our goal of 250 to 300 full-year openings,” Tanner said.

“On our third quarter earnings call yesterday, we shared that Wendy's system is incredibly healthy and we remain on track to achieve our goal of 250 to 300 new restaurant openings for the year,” a spokesperson said from Wendy's told TODAY.com via email.

“Following our strategic review, we now expect a similar number of closures to new openings, so we expect net unit growth to remain roughly the same in 2024. As a 55-year-old brand with more than 7,100 restaurants around the world, closures are a normal activity to maintain a healthy system. By the end of this year, we will have opened more than 500 new restaurants over the past two years and are confident that we will achieve increased growth in 2025 and the years to come.”

Wendy's did not provide a list of locations that will be closing.

The closures follow a wave of location closures by other national restaurant chains. Late last month, Denny's announced the closure of 150 of its stores, while 7-Eleven also announced plans to close hundreds of stores in the United States and Canada. Red Lobster also closed 23 restaurants in August after closing 83 locations earlier this year as part of its bankruptcy proceedings.

In June, Hooters closed an unspecified number of restaurants. In May, Dine Brands Global, which owns Applebee's, announced it would close up to 35 of its restaurants.

In March, Bloomin' Brands announced the closure of 41 restaurants in its portfolio, including Outback, Carrabba's and Bonefish Grill locations. In January, TGI Fridays announced it would also close three dozen “poor-performing” stores.