Business Closures Week of October 10–16, 2026: 360 Records, Hasbro's Pawtucket Closure and a Pickleball Franchisor's Bankruptcy Lead

Store Closure Watch recorded 360 closure and distress records across 44 states in the week ending October 17, 2026, up 16 percent from the 310 published for the week before. The week had no single store-closing program of the kind that drove September's totals. Instead the largest events were a toy maker's plant, a newspaper's printing plant and a fertilizer mine, and more than a third of the records came from our weekly check of chains' own store locators, which flagged stores that Dollar General, 7-Eleven, Sonic, GNC and Papa John's have taken off their maps. Retail led the sectors.

Hasbro's Pawtucket closure and a pickleball franchisor's bankruptcy lead 360 closure and distress records, as store-locator checks catch Dollar General and 7-Eleven removals

Store Closure Watch recorded 360 closure and distress records across 44 states in the week ending October 17, 2026, up 16 percent from the 310 published for the week before. The week had no single store-closing program of the kind that drove September's totals. Instead the largest events were a toy maker's plant, a newspaper's printing plant and a fertilizer mine, and more than a third of the records came from our weekly check of chains' own store locators, which flagged stores that Dollar General, 7-Eleven, Sonic, GNC and Papa John's have taken off their maps. Retail led the sectors.

The big story: Hasbro leaves Pawtucket

Hasbro filed a state notice this week confirming it will close its Pawtucket, Rhode Island facility, with 587 employees affected and an effective date of December 24. The notice is the latest step since the company announced in March that it would move to Boston. It is the largest state notice in this week's records.

The second story: The Picklr

The Picklr, the indoor pickleball franchisor, filed for Chapter 11 protection in the Northern District of Texas on October 9. The filing is at the parent company; the companies behind the Newark, Delaware and Exton, Pennsylvania clubs had each filed their own Chapter 11 petitions on September 24, and clubs in Round Rock, Texas and Bluffdale, Utah folded their operations into nearby locations while the West Jordan, Utah club closed. Two more clubs, in Bloomington, Illinois and Goleta, California, reopened under new names and are recorded as conversions rather than closures. This week's records include 7 Picklr records in five states.

Plants, presses and a mine

• The Washington Post, Springfield, Virginia. The Post notified the state on October 7 that it will permanently close its 46-year-old printing plant on December 31, laying off 118 employees.
• Dal-Tile, Florence, Alabama. The Mohawk Industries tile plant has ceased operations and will permanently close on February 26, 2027, according to the TimesDaily; 144 jobs.
• Mosaic, South Fort Meade, Florida and St. James Parish, Louisiana. The fertilizer producer will lay off 199 workers at its South Fort Meade phosphate facility beginning December 8, telling the state it is suspending operations because of difficulty obtaining sulfur. A separate notice covered 206 layoffs at its Uncle Sam and Faustina facilities in Louisiana by October 10.
• American Woodmark, Gas City, Indiana. The cabinet maker will lay off 207 employees as it removes assembly operations from its Gas City plant, effective December 5 per its state notice.
• Rainforest Routes, Medford, Oregon. The Amazon delivery contractor will permanently close its Medford-area delivery station on December 7; 170 workers.
• Republic National Distributing, Louisville, Kentucky. The beverage distributor, in Chapter 11 and selling its remaining assets, filed a notice covering 206 Louisville workers; a Colorado notice covers 320.

Chains on the locator check

Each week we compare chains' own store locators against the week before and record stores that have been removed for two consecutive weeks and whose pages no longer load. This week's records include 18 Dollar General stores in 14 states, 17 7-Eleven stores in 11 states, 9 Sonic Drive-In restaurants in Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio, 8 GNC stores in Texas, Ohio and Illinois, and 7 Papa John's restaurants in five states. These records carry the store's address and the date it disappeared, but no closing date, because the chains have not stated one.

Crumbl appears on both lists this week: coverage from Alabama said the cookie chain, facing declining sales, has begun closing stores including one in Montgomery, a Louisville, Kentucky franchisee filed for Chapter 7 on October 1, WDRB reported, and the locator check recorded removals in Paso Robles and Pismo Beach, California, Boynton Beach, Florida, and Savannah and Bethlehem, Georgia. This week's records include 9 Crumbl records, six of them from the locator check.

Sector breakdown

Retail led with 168 of the week's 360 records, with Restaurant & Food Service at 103, Office & Services at 23 and Grocery & Convenience at 22. On the early-warning series, which counts newly reported events by week, Retail logged 69 against a trailing eight-week average of 102 and restaurants 74 against 146. The locator records sit outside that series, which is why the week's total rose while the news-reported counts fell.

By the numbers

• 360 records in 44 states, up from 310
• 319 closures, 20 bankruptcies, 19 layoff notices, 2 restructurings
• 23 records carry a WARN filing
• Top states: California 35, Texas 34, Florida 25, Pennsylvania 24, New York 17, Illinois 14
• 239 distinct businesses; 215 records confirmed, 85 announced, 60 effective

Notable individual events

• Belk, Westminster, Maryland. The department store will close on January 15, 2027 after 29 years at the TownMall of Westminster, "after a careful review of our business," a spokesperson said; associates may transfer to other stores.
• John Barrett Salon, New York, New York. The salon will shut down and lay off all 71 workers on December 7, per its state notice; coverage said plans for a national chain foundered after a falling out with a partner.
• Samsung, New Jersey. Samsung is eliminating 179 jobs as it moves its New Jersey headquarters to Texas later this year; Reuters put the number of roles affected in some way at 739.
• Kroger, Cincinnati, Ohio. The grocer plans to cut about 3,000 corporate jobs over the next three years, according to multiple reports; it has about 8,200 corporate workers.
• Builders FirstSource, Jacksonville, Florida. The building-products supplier told city and state officials on October 13 it will close a Jacksonville store on or about December 12, affecting 82 jobs.
• Wheatsville Co-op, Austin, Texas. The co-op grocery will close its store off The Drag on October 25; its general manager cited higher costs and declining sales.
• Slumberland Furniture, St. Paul, Minnesota. The chain's only St. Paul store closes October 31 after what the company called a "lost our lease sale."
• Safeway, Arvada, Colorado. The store closes November 14; a spokesperson said the decision followed a review of store performance.
• Stewart's Shops, Troy, New York. The convenience chain closes a Troy shop on October 29, citing the small footprint and the inability to expand services there.
• Goodwill, Greenville, Pennsylvania. Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries will close the store on November 20, citing a review of its long-term viability ahead of a lease expiration.
• PetSmart, Sacramento, California. The store closes November 22, months after the chain shut its last San Francisco location in July.
• Hoppin', Charlotte, North Carolina. The self-pour taproom's owners announced the South End location will close; no last day was stated. The chain closed its Rock Hill, South Carolina taphouse in May.

Data update

Two corrections to earlier editions, made in the data rather than on those pages. First, 141 bank branch records we had typed as closures were branch openings: the FDIC's change code for an opening had been read as a closing. They are relabeled, the nine roundup pages they touched carry a dated note, and the counts published on those pages stand as the editions of record. Second, the correct FDIC records, 843 of them (840 branch closures and 3 conversions), have been added to the data with their own dates; they are not in this week's 360 or in the week-over-week comparison. Two items from this week's file will be corrected in the October 24 edition: a Crumbl Kentucky record that repeats the Louisville franchisee's October 1 filing, and a duplicate of the Newark, Delaware Picklr record.

Methodology

Store Closure Watch compiles closure, bankruptcy, layoff and restructuring events from news coverage, state WARN notices, federal court dockets, SEC filings and retailers' own store lists, checks records against their sources, and reads every record it names. Counts are records of closure and distress events, not unique stores: a chain program spans many records, and a company-level announcement and the sites named under it can each be a record. A store-locator record means the chain removed the store from its own map for two consecutive weekly checks and the store's page no longer loads; it carries no closing date unless the chain states one. The count above is the edition of record for the week of October 17; corrections to individual records are made in later editions rather than to this page. A closure date is printed only when a source states it. Relocations, conversions, sales and temporary closures are kept in the records but excluded from the counts, as are six Florida license-board closure candidates that the file lists as candidates rather than closures.

Get the data

The full file for this week, with addresses, dates, WARN cross-references and court links, is available to subscribers every Monday. Samples for a state or metro are free on request.