State of US Store Closures — 2026 Q2

The Big Story

The most important number in this report never made a headline. Of the 1,030 WARN notices filed with state labor departments during the second quarter, 429 of them — more than four in ten — had no matching press-covered closure or layoff event anywhere in our dataset. Companies told their state governments they were closing facilities or cutting workforces, and no news outlet wrote it down. The closure economy that makes national coverage is, by this measure, only part of the story.

The visible half was defined by chains winding down rather than trimming. Rite Aid posted 73 closure records — the quarter's largest total — as its store base continued to shrink. America's Car-Mart logged 41 closed dealerships in a single April announcement, one company exiting dozens of markets at once. Smokey Bones (30) entered the list on its late-April nationwide closure, Saks Fifth Avenue (28) worked through its bankruptcy-driven store list, and casual dining took sustained damage: Bahama Breeze (19), On The Border (15), Popeyes (15), and Starbucks (14).

Volume ran at a persistent baseline rather than spiking on any single corporate event — 864 events in April, 744 in May, 858 in June. The state table reordered this quarter: Texas (177) led, up from fifth, driven largely by state health-licensure closures that had been in the record set but undated or mis-sectored, followed by California (160), Florida (156), and Pennsylvania (150).

Sector Breakdown

• Retail — 1,128 events, nearly half the quarter. Rite Aid's wind-down, Car-Mart's dealership exit, the Saks banners, and Eddie Bauer's store closures (12) on top of a broad independent base.
• Restaurant & Food Service — 593 events. The casual-dining retreat: Smokey Bones, On The Border, Bahama Breeze, Popeyes, and Starbucks, plus a steady drumbeat of independent closures.
• Industrial / Manufacturing — 202 events, including two of the quarter's biggest single job impacts: Cargill's Fort Morgan, CO plant (1,700 jobs) and First Brands' Cleveland operations (1,550 jobs).
• Logistics / Warehouse — 115 events.
• Office & Services — 110 events.
• Grocery & Convenience — 96 events.
• Healthcare — 93 events, led by Florida and Texas facility-license closures and Bayonne Medical Center's 967-job reduction in New Jersey.
• Hospitality & Entertainment — 29 events.

Notable Events

• At Home — Coppell, TX. The home-décor chain's Chapter 11 filing put approximately 7,170 jobs in scope — the quarter's largest single figure.
• On The Border — chain-wide. Bankruptcy and rolling closures across its restaurant base, roughly 2,800 jobs, with WARN filings in multiple states.
• Cargill — Fort Morgan, CO. Plant closure affecting roughly 1,700 jobs.
• First Brands — Cleveland, OH. WARN-filed closure affecting 1,550 jobs amid the auto-parts group's bankruptcy.
• Nike — Beaverton, OR. WARN-filed corporate layoff of 1,400.
• General Motors — Detroit, MI. Workforce reduction of roughly 1,300.
• Walmart (corporate) — Bentonville, AR. Corporate restructuring affecting about 1,000 roles.
• Bayonne Medical Center — Bayonne, NJ. WARN-filed workforce reduction of 967.
• Spirit Airlines — Orlando, FL. Station closure affecting about 800 positions.
• Zinus — McDonough, GA. Facility closure affecting about 800 jobs.

Methodology

Store Closure Watch aggregates public closure signals continuously — news coverage, state WARN notices, court dockets, and company announcements — runs automated extraction with an independent verification pass, and cross-references records against state WARN filings. Figures in this report count events by the date the event occurred or was announced (not the date we collected them); 5,933 records in the full dataset carry no stated event date and are excluded from quarterly buckets rather than guessed. WARN collection for April 21 – July 3, 2026 was interrupted and subsequently backfilled via a 180-day recapture. WARN coverage expanded materially on 25 August 2026 — sixteen state feeds were re-dated and fifteen additional state feeds were brought live — and quarterly editions are re-cut when the underlying record set improves, which is why this edition's totals exceed the 31 July original. Liquidation-detail statistics are not included in this edition pending a methodology revision. Public reports show chain names and city/metro only; street addresses, coordinates, source links, and the weekly predictive Watchlist are available to subscribers. Details: how the data pipeline works.

Editions

Published 31 July 2026; revised 25 August 2026 (records 2,464). A published report is an edition of record — its figures do not change after publication. The underlying dataset is corrected continuously, but revisions to a quarter are published with the following quarter's report, not by changing this page.

• Corrections log — 25 August 2026: JBS Souderton beef plant (1,495 jobs) moved to Q3 by event date (the plant closed 14 August). Also in this edition: expanded WARN coverage (sixteen states re-dated, fifteen feeds added), backfilled court and company-list records, and sector corrections.
• Original edition, 31 July 2026 (for traceability): 2,170 records; 599 WARN notices filed, 309 with no press coverage; top state California (148); Retail 1,040, Restaurant & Food Service 507.

Cite as: Store Closure Watch, "State of US Store Closures — 2026 Q2 (25 August 2026 edition)," storeclosurewatch.com.