Restaurant closings neared 7,600 in 2026’s first half, study finds

CHICAGO, July 28, 2026 — Nearly 7,600 restaurants in the U.S. shut for good during the first six months of 2026, estimates the openings and closings tracking website RestaurantData.com, but the overall impact on the balance between supply and demand remains fuzzy. 

The researcher did not reveal the number of newcomers that fired up their kitchens between Jan. 1 and June 30, rendering a straight calculation of the openings-to-closings ratio difficult to calculate. Instead, the website provides spot-checks of how many places filed the paperwork to open during the prior three weeks. For instance, filings for 1,188 new restaurants were counted for the three weeks ending June 25. 

This year has been characterized by many in the food-away-from-home industry as an extremely difficult one because of high menu prices, a result of steep increases in food and labor costs during recent years. A number of established restaurant chains like Wendy’s, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s announced they would close hundreds of stores. Several entire chains, including On The Border and Smokey Bones, shut their doors for good. 

But RestaurantData.com cautioned that it counted any closure, without differentiating the cause. The qualification indicates that factors like lost leases and conversion of an outlet to a new concept figure into the tally along with bankruptcies or low sales. 

The website added Canada’s 579 restaurant closing to the 7,593 tallied in the U.S. in analyzing the data. It concluded that chain-affiliated restaurants and independents closed at nearly the same rate, and that must of the shuttered outlets were quick-service operations. Sandwich shops were the most common types of quick-service places, with 2,120 operations terminated. 

Texas, the nation’s second-largest restaurant market behind California, was host to the most closings, at 1,039.