Why restaurants closed so many locations last year

Why did restaurants close so many locations last year? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Jim Balis, the operations partner with the private equity and debt financing firm CapitalSpring. We had Balis on the podcast to talk about the closures. A lot of companies closed locations in 2024. Many of them ended up in bankruptcy, such as Red Lobster and TGI Fridays. Others have struggled for years. But many of them include brands like Wendy’s and Denny’s that closed locations for strategic reasons.  Closures generate headlines in publications like Restaurant Business. But there are reasons they opt to close locations. We had Balis on the podcast to talk about these reasons. We talk about the reasons companies make these decisions and what issues operators should take into consideration before they opt to close a location. We’re talking closures on A Deeper Dive so please check it out.