Wendy’s will 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on Thursday, Oct. 31, according to the Associated Press, when CEO Kirk Tanner revealed that the locations were “outdated and located in underperforming” areas and were performing “well below the system average” financially.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 “You look at a brand that’s 55 years old and some of those restaurants are quite out of date.”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.”
Per CNN, 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.”
The restaurants that are set to close, however, made below the system average with a volume unit of approximately $1.1 million, according to USA Today. They will be replaced by more profitable locations with average unit volumes of $2 million and more, the outlet added.
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 announced 100 restaurant closures in 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, per USA 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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The news from Wendy’s comes as the company channeled SpongeBob SquarePants last month in honor of the cartoon’s 25th anniversary to launch the Wendy’s Krabby Patty Kollab — featuring both a Pineapple Under the Sea Frosty and, of course, Krabby Patty Kollab Burger.
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