Diners who enjoy a Wendy’s Frosty should start checking to make sure the store near them will still be serving it.
Officials at Wendy’s announced the fast-food chain will be closing up to 6% of its stores in the first half of 2026 as part of its downsizing plan.
USA Today is reporting that Interim CEO Ken Cook first told investors in a Nov. 7 quarterly earnings call that the company would be closing a “mid single-digit percentage” of its nearly 6,000 locations nationwide.
On a Feb. 13 earnings call, the outlet reported, Cook said the company had already closed 28 restaurants in the last quarter of 2025 as part of a planned 5% to 6% reduction.
With around 5,969 locations operating nationwide at the end of the year, this would amount to roughly 300 to 360 store closures total. A list of exact locations slated for closure has not been announced.
Wendy’s first announced closures in November, with Cook saying at the time that some restaurants “are a drag from a franchisee financial performance perspective. The goal is to address and fix those restaurants,” he said.
In some cases, that would mean making improvements to technology or equipment or transferring struggling locations to new operators. In others, he said, it would mean closing the restaurants altogether.
Cook shared a similar message in the recent earnings call, according to USA Today.
“By closing consistently underperforming restaurants, we are enabling our franchisee partners to increase focus on locations with the greatest potential for profitable growth,” Cook said. “Since we announced this program in November, we have been working with our franchisees to evaluate restaurants on a store-by-store basis.”
