Business Closures Week of October 17–23, 2026: 349 Records, a Wendy's Franchisee's Fourth Weekend of Closures and 41 KFC Locator Removals Lead

Store Closure Watch recorded 349 closure and distress records across 46 states and the District of Columbia in the week ending October 24, 2026, down 3 percent from the 360 published for the week before. Restaurants supplied almost half of the records: a bankrupt Wendy's franchisee closed another 13 stores, and our weekly check of chains' own store locators recorded 41 KFC restaurants removed from the chain's map in 17 states. Away from restaurants, the week's largest events were plant closings with dates well into next year, from a Detroit auto supplier shutting in two stages to Nestlé winding down its Solon, Ohio factory by the end of 2027.

A Wendy's franchisee's fourth weekend of closures and 41 KFC removals from the chain's own store map lead 349 closure and distress records, as plant closings at Dakkota, Pella and Nestlé reach into 2027

Store Closure Watch recorded 349 closure and distress records across 46 states and the District of Columbia in the week ending October 24, 2026, down 3 percent from the 360 published for the week before. Restaurants supplied almost half of the records: a bankrupt Wendy's franchisee closed another 13 stores, and our weekly check of chains' own store locators recorded 41 KFC restaurants removed from the chain's map in 17 states. Away from restaurants, the week's largest events were plant closings with dates well into next year, from a Detroit auto supplier shutting in two stages to Nestlé winding down its Solon, Ohio factory by the end of 2027.

The big story: Meritage closes 13 more Wendy's

Meritage Hospitality Group, the Michigan-based franchisee that operated 314 Wendy's restaurants when it filed for Chapter 11, told the bankruptcy court that 13 more stores would be closed as of Friday, October 16, the fourth weekend in a row it has shut loss-making locations, Fast Company reported; the earlier closures came to 20 since September 25. The 13 are in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Michigan, Massachusetts and Texas. This week's records include 15 Wendy's records in five states, among them the Lawrenceville, Lilburn and Sandy Springs, Georgia stores, Clemmons, Durham and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, Manistee, Michigan, and Oklahoma City and Shawnee, Oklahoma.

The second story: KFC on the locator check

Forty-one KFC restaurants in 17 states dropped off the chain's own store locator and stayed off for two consecutive weekly checks, and their store pages no longer load. The removals cluster in the Mid-South, with four in Memphis, Tennessee and others in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Kentucky, alongside stores in California, Florida, Texas and Virginia. KFC has not stated a closure program, and these records carry the date each store disappeared from the map rather than a closing date. A forty-second KFC record is a Rochester, Minnesota restaurant whose closure was announced on banners outside the store, the Post Bulletin reported.

Plant and facility closings

• Dakkota Integrated Systems, Detroit, Michigan. The auto supplier will close its Detroit plant, which makes instrument panels for the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango, in two stages after losing Stellantis contracts: the first line shuts December 31, 2026, eliminating 205 jobs, and the second March 31, 2027, cutting another 192, per its state notice; 397 jobs in all.
• Pella, Reidsville, North Carolina. The window and door maker will permanently close its Reidsville plant on January 31, 2027, eliminating 133 jobs, with some job losses beginning December 3, according to its state notice.
• Nestlé, Solon, Ohio. Nestlé plans to "gradually" end manufacturing in Solon and fully shutter the factory by the end of 2027, Crain's Cleveland Business reported.
• General Motors, Brownstown, Michigan. GM said it will shut down its Brownstown Battery Assembly Plant, which builds battery packs for its electric vehicles, by next summer; affected employees can transfer to other GM sites in the area.
• Pepsi, Knoxville, Tennessee. The bottling plant closes effective January 1, 2027, affecting 112 employees, per the notice filed with the state.
• PepsiCo, Cheverly, Maryland. PepsiCo shut down most manufacturing and warehouse operations at its Cheverly plant on September 14; the company said the 143 laid-off employees would receive pay and benefits through November, The Washington Post reported.
• Safeway, Richmond, California. The grocer's Richmond bread plant will permanently close on December 30, affecting 92 employees, according to a state notice reviewed by SFGATE; the chain is also closing a San Jose store on November 13.
• 3M, Fairmont, Minnesota. 3M is closing its Fairmont plant and laying off 62 people between December 18 and 31, per its state notice; the company announced the plan in January.
• Cycling Sports Group, Wilton, Connecticut. The parent of Cannondale and Schwinn is closing its Wilton office and laying off 143 workers in phases beginning December 21 and continuing through the end of December 2027, according to notices filed with the state.
• Behlen Building Systems, Sarasota, Florida. The company will close its Sarasota plant by December 18 and move production to Columbus, Nebraska; 55 jobs.

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 99 such records: 41 KFC restaurants in 17 states, 9 Papa John's restaurants in six states, 8 GNC stores in six states, 7 Pizza Hut restaurants in five states, 5 7-Eleven stores in five states, and four each for Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic Drive-In, Wendy's and Crumbl. These records carry the store's address and the date it disappeared, but no closing date, because the chains have not stated one.

Crumbl's closures continued to draw coverage. Restaurant Business counted 65 Crumbl locations closed since April 30 against a store list from that date, with 15 opened, and reported that a six-store New England franchisee filed for bankruptcy last month and is selling its locations. This week's records include 14 Crumbl records in four states, four of them from the locator check (Diamond Bar, California, and Delray Beach, Palm Harbor and Vero Beach, Florida), plus a layoff record at the company's Lindon, Utah headquarters.

Sector breakdown

Restaurant & Food Service led with 166 of the week's 349 records, with Retail at 102, Industrial / Manufacturing at 24, Healthcare at 16 and Office & Services at 12. On the early-warning series, which counts newly reported events by week, restaurants logged 94 against a trailing eight-week average of 140 and Retail 72 against 98, while Industrial / Manufacturing ran above its average at 23 against 20. The locator records sit outside that series.

By the numbers

• 349 records in 46 states and the District of Columbia, down from 360
• 299 closures, 32 bankruptcies, 15 layoff notices, 3 restructurings
• 28 records carry a WARN filing
• Top states: California 27, Florida 24, Texas 23, New York 22, North Carolina 14, Tennessee 14
• 223 distinct businesses; 198 records confirmed, 90 announced, 61 effective

Notable individual events

• Getty Images, Seattle, Washington. The photo agency filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 in the District of Delaware on October 21 as part of a plan to go private, with a $533 million investment that would reduce its debt.
• Grand Forks Clinic and affiliates, Grand Forks, North Dakota. Seven affiliated health care and business entities, including Aurora Dialysis and the Kidney Institute of North Dakota, filed separate Chapter 11 petitions on October 16 in the District of North Dakota; the owner said the clinic and all affiliated entities will remain open and operate as usual, Valley News Live reported.
• Boynton Beach Mall, Boynton Beach, Florida. The 40-year-old mall will close on January 15, 2027; owner Washington Prime Group has the property under a pending sale with plans for a mixed-use redevelopment, and lease termination notices have gone to tenants, a spokesperson said.
• General Jackson Showboat, Nashville, Tennessee. The riverboat will permanently close in December, with 114 employees affected, according to a notice filed with the state.
• Foster USA, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The fresh produce distributor, which moved to Winston-Salem in March 2025, is going out of business after losing its top customer, which accounted for 70 percent of its sales, the Winston-Salem Journal reported; 169 jobs.
• First Transit, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The transit contractor with longstanding ties to the University of Alabama filed notice that it will close its Tuscaloosa operation on December 18, affecting 88 employees.
• Electronic Arts, California. EA is laying off about 3 percent of its global workforce, about 400 jobs, and shutting its Canada-based BioWare studio, according to an employee memo reported this week.
• eBay, San Jose, California. eBay plans to lay off about 9 percent of its workforce, about 1,000 jobs, its chief executive told staff in a memo reviewed by Reuters.
• Mars, New Jersey. A state notice covering 307 Mars Wrigley employees took effect October 16, and a separate notice says Mars Information Services will lay off 55 workers in Newark on January 31, 2027 as the company leaves its Newark location in December 2027.
• Chronicle Heritage, Buffalo, New York. The cultural resources management company shut down abruptly on October 1, laying off more than 600 employees across more than 20 offices without a public announcement, the New York Almanack reported citing Science; its Buffalo office is in this week's records.
• Kirkland's Home, Cordova, Tennessee and Southaven, Mississippi. Both Memphis-area stores close on December 27, store management confirmed to the Commercial Appeal.
• Red Lobster, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Hermitage, Pennsylvania. Both restaurants close permanently on November 1, the company confirmed.
• Starbucks, St. Paul, Minnesota. The downtown store near Rice Park closes for good on December 4, per a notice posted in the store, as the chain works through the roughly 250 North American closures it announced in late September.
• SoNo Baking Company & Café, Norwalk, Connecticut. The South Norwalk bakery closes on November 1 after two decades on Water Street, the owner announced.
• Mallow Run Winery, Bargersville, Indiana. The winery closes its wine business at the end of 2026; its event center stays open.
• Kemmerer coal mine, Kemmerer, Wyoming. The mine is set to close at the end of 2029, officials said, with no layoffs planned for now, WyoFile reported.

Data update

Two corrections promised for this edition have not yet been made and are now scheduled for the October 31 edition: a Crumbl Kentucky record that repeats the Louisville franchisee's October 1 filing, and a duplicate of the Newark, Delaware Picklr record. Neither is in this week's 349. One item from this week's file will also be corrected on October 31: the Staples store at Killingly Commons in Killingly, Connecticut, which closes December 11, appears twice in this week's records, once under the town and once under its Dayville section. This week's count stands as the edition of 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 24; 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, and a date a source gives only to the month is printed as the month. Relocations are left out of the file; conversions, sales and temporary closures are kept in the records but excluded from the counts, as is one Florida license-board closure candidate that the file lists as a candidate rather than a closure.

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.