{"id":467133,"date":"2026-02-13T23:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/467133\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:27:08","slug":"wendys-closes-us-restaurants-and-focuses-on-value-to-turn-around-falling-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/467133\/","title":{"rendered":"Wendy’s closes US restaurants and focuses on value to turn around falling sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wendy\u2019s is closing several hundred U.S. restaurants and increasing its focus on value after a weaker-than-expected fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

The Dublin, Ohio-based company said Friday that its global same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, fell 10% in the October-December period. That was worse than the 8.5% drop expected by analysts polled by FactSet.<\/p>\n

U.S. same-store sales fell even further in the fourth quarter. Wendy\u2019s said late last year<\/a> that it planned to close underperforming U.S. restaurants, but it gave more details about those closures Friday.<\/p>\n

Wendy\u2019s said it already closed 28 restaurants in the fourth quarter and ended 2025 with 5,969 U.S. locations. It expects to close between 5% and 6% of its U.S. restaurants \u2013 or 298 to 358 locations \u2013 in the first half of this year.<\/p>\n

Those actions come on top of the closure of 240 U.S. Wendy\u2019s locations<\/a> in 2024. At the time, the 57-year-old chain said many of its locations are simply out of date.<\/p>\n

Like McDonald\u2019s<\/a>, Taco Bell and other rivals, Wendy\u2019s also plans to emphasize value as it tries to win back inflation-weary customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne learning from 2025 around value, we swung the pendulum too far towards limited-time price promotions instead of everyday value,\u201d said Ken Cook, Wendy\u2019s interim CEO and chief financial officer, in a conference call with investors.<\/p>\n

In January, Wendy\u2019s introduced a permanent \u201cBiggie Deals\u201d value menu with three price tiers: $4 Biggie Bites, $6 Biggie Bags and an $8 Biggie Bundle. Cook said Wendy\u2019s also has new products coming this year, including a new chicken sandwich.<\/p>\n

Wendy\u2019s said its revenue fell 5.5% in the fourth quarter to $543 million. That was higher than the $537 million analysts had forecast.<\/p>\n

Wendy\u2019s expressed confidence that its U.S. turnaround plans and international growth will help arrest its sales slide this year. The company said it expects global systemwide sales \u2014 which includes sales at both company-owned and franchised restaurants \u2014 will be flat this year. Systemwide sales fell 3.5% last year.<\/p>\n

Wendy\u2019s shares rose nearly 5% in mid-day trading Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wendy\u2019s is closing several hundred U.S. restaurants and increasing its focus on value after a weaker-than-expected fourth quarter.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,43417,6498,7905,35988,793,16877,2402,217258,5843,200479,795],"class_list":{"0":"post-467133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-domestic","10":"tag-finance-business","11":"tag-financial-markets","12":"tag-financial-performance","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-hospitality-and-leisure-industry","15":"tag-inflation","16":"tag-ken-cook","17":"tag-mcdonalds-corp","18":"tag-send-to-apple-news","19":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}