Back in May, the fast food chain Wendy’s announced that it would close 100 restaurants across the United States. Now, the company said it plans to shut down 140 more locations by the end of 2024.
According to Wendy’s President and CEO Kirk Tanner, all restaurants designated for closure have underperformed in recent years.
“They’re just in locations that don’t build our brands,” Tanner said. “You look at a brand that’s 55 years old, and some of those restaurants are quite out of date.”
Tanner stated that the overall number of Wendy’s restaurants isn’t expected to change too much as the company intends to open between 250 and 300 new locations before 2025, including 64 opened during the third quarter. Wendy’s has around 7,100 locations around the world, with more than 6,000 locations in the United States.
“Our focus is on building new restaurants because we know they deliver well over the average of these poor-performing restaurants,” he added. “We, overall, want the best restaurants for the customers and that customer experience we want to deliver.”
Wendy’s recently shared its third-quarter earnings, which saw the company beat the estimates on revenue but failing to top the same-store sales. Wendy’s stock closed at $19.66 per share on Friday after a 2.88% gain and is currently 1.60% up year-to-date.