Wendy’s Closing Hundreds of Restaurants – Status of Louisiana Locations

(KMDL-FM) A brief check online suggests that there are some 124 Wendy's restaurants operating in Louisiana. Based on basic math and common sense, it would appear that some of those Louisiana locations could be shuttered as Wendy's restructures itself financially to negotiate these challenging economic times better.

How Many Stores Is Wendy's Closing in 2025 and 2026?

If you look at what Wendy's recently announced about closing 250 to 300 stores, you can see that, in the grand scheme of things, this action would affect only a small percentage of the over 6,000 Wendy's locations worldwide. A change of 250 to 300 stores would equate to a mid-single-digit percentage of the brand's overall footprint.

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Wendy's just released its financial statement for the third quarter of 2025, and overall sales for the fast food chain were down 3.6%. Most of those losses have come in the United States market, as international sales actually grew by 8.6%. The financial brain trust behind the Wendy's brand says inflation is the biggest issue that Wendy's and other fast food and convenience food franchises are facing.

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What is Project Fresh at Wendy's?

In order to create new interest in the brand, Wendy's has introduced Project Fresh. The details on Project Fresh seem to suggest a general freshening of the brand through marketing and promotion. The individual franchisee locations will also be involved in different aspects of the project. The Project Fresh platform reportedly includes a review of resource allocations and more in-depth training on the managerial and staffing levels. 

Wendy's has not publicly released which locations are in line to be closed. But they did suggest during a recent earnings call that consistently underperforming stores would be first on the list for closure. There have been several locations already closed by Wendy's this year. You can expect the remainder of the closures to continue throughout 2026.