All The Restaurants That Are Closing Locations This Year
In a 2019 conference call, Pizza Hut executives announced that hundreds of its stores would be closing in the near future, including this year. The company reported that it had 7,449 location across America and that the total “could dip down close to 7,000” in the coming years, meaning the closure of about 750 restaurants. Like some other chains on this list, Pizza Hut has been leaning into the fast-casual business with a focus on locations that only offer to-go dining under the Pizza Hut Express name.
The popular chain known for family dining and delicious desserts closed a reported 23 locations in 2019, giving it one of the highest totals of any restaurant brand for the year. In the early weeks of 2020, another Friendly’s location has already been shuttered. That now-defunct restaurant was in New Hampshire, and it was the last one in the state’s seacoast region. A look at the company’s location map shows dozens of restaurants running on the East Coast, with most of them situated in the northeast.
Another chain that has already closed one restaurant in the early part of the new decade is McCormick & Schmick’s. This high-end seafood chain operates more than 30 locations from coast to coast, but it knocked one off the list in the first few hours of 2020. The company suddenly closed its San Diego restaurant on Jan. 1, just hours after it hosted a New Year’s Eve bash. When employees showed up for work, they were surprised to discover it was no longer open.
Over the course of two days in 2019, 45 Boston Market locations closed their doors forever. That number represented about 10% of the chain’s more than 450 total locations. The move was part of what the company called a “multi-faceted transformation plan,” meaning more changes will likely be incoming. The sudden closures followed a period of aggressive expansion in 2016 and 2017.
This comfort food chain, which originated in Florida in 1992, has seen its fan base grow and its empire bloom to more than 50 locations in the past few years. However, the company has already had to nix a few struggling restaurants in the new decade. On the first weekend of January 2020, it was announced that Metro Diner had suddenly closed both of its locations in Las Vegas. There’s been no word yet on whether more closures are expected.
The Mexican fast-casual chain Taco Cabana already closed a good number of locations in the early part of the new year. The company is based in Texas, and that’s the state where it suddenly shuttered 19 restaurants on Jan. 13. The closures hit Taco Cabanas in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, taking the company’s total down to 145 locations. The decision was reportedly made following losses of several million dollars.
When you’ve got a chain as massive as Subway, some closures are expected every year. But, in 2019, the company closed more than 1,000 locations, marking a decent decline from its mammoth number of locations of about 24,000 in America. As of the early days of 2020, the chain had already shuttered several locations in Pennsylvania and more are expected as it tries to grow profits.
You can always count on some Starbucks locations to close in any given year, which is simply a fact of life when you operate nearly 30,000 cafes worldwide. In 2019, the chain closed a reported 150 locations based on underperforming sales and we know of at least two stores (on in Washington, the other in California) that have closed in 2020. Of course, you can expect plenty of new Starbucks cafes to open this year as well, including some of the 100 “community stores” the coffee giant wants to open in partnership with United Way in low-income neighborhoods by 2025.
This casual-dining powerhouse has been reducing its numbers in the past few years, and there’s no reason to think that trend won’t continue in 2020. Over the past two years, Applebee’s has eliminated 110 restaurants from its empire, which still leaves it with more than 1,800 locations. In 2019, the company estimated that it should close about 20 stores per year starting this year, though that will be balanced out by new stores that will open.
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