The largest fast food restaurant chain in the United States has closed over 600 stores in the past year alone.
Subway “lost a net of 631 U.S. restaurants in 2024,” QSR reported.
And that puts the restaurant chain at its lowest number of domestic stores in the last 20 years. In 2015, the chain had 27,000 stores, and it’s never been below 20,000 since that time, until now, according to QSR. The chain ended 2024 with 19,502 stores in the U.S., the site reported.
Some of those stores shuttered in Oregon, according to KPTV, which reported in 2024 that over “200 employees across 23 different Subway locations in Oregon were unexpectedly left without jobs when they learned their restaurants were being shut down.”
One store’s manager Joanne Kennedy, told KPTV: “No warning, no heads up, no transparency, completely and totally blindsided, every one of us.”
According to QSR, since 2016, when stores started closing, Subway has lost about 7,600 stores in all. That didn’t knock Subway out of the top spot in the U.S. among restaurant chains, QSR reported, adding that the chain has been expanding international store numbers in the same time frame.
