Famous fast-food chain closing nearly two dozen locations

The shutterings reflect a big consumer shift.

May 18, 2025 - 21:32

Famous fast-food chain closing nearly two dozen locations

In the retail and restaurant business, the only thing harder than staying alive is admitting when your time is probably up.

In retail, it can be pretty hard to tell exactly when to call it quits. Some stores may still be getting plenty of foot traffic, or online orders may be keeping the lights on.

Making the final call can feel tough, especially when customers tell you just how much they appreciate your business.

But in the restaurant world, this decision is often as clear as day.

Nobody likes to voice their opinion more than a gaggle of hungry diners. They'll tell you if your food is cold, late, flavorless, too flavorful, overpriced, or lacks inspiration.

They'll also tell you if your ambiance is off, if your restaurant is hard to get to, if your waitstaff is incompetent, or if the wait was too long.

Some of them will even tell you if your bathrooms are poorly maintained or if the table is tippy.

And even if they don't tell you these things to your face, you can certainly read their complaints on the myriad review websites available online.

The exterior of a Noodles & Co.
Image source: Shutterstock

Dining customers are fickle

If pleasing a bunch of hungry customers sounds hard enough, it's even harder to do this when their tastes are constantly changing.

About a decade ago, customization was the name of the game.

Many restaurants encouraged their customers to modify their meals as much as possible to please a large cohort.

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This meant stocking a lot of food for ingredient swaps, and constantly working a menu so it contained as many foods that worked together as possible.

But this is expensive, and it can be really hard to keep all these ingredients fresh.

And no matter how much you try to give your customers options, it can be hard to anticipate the next big dining trend.

Nowadays, for instance, more health-forward options are popular.

More people are paleo or keto. Others avoid gluten, dairy, seed oils, and artificial or highly processed ingredients.

For a fast-food or fast-casual restaurant, keeping up with these preferences is like trying to hit a moving target.

Popular restaurant chain closing locations

Pleasing customers with dietary restrictions is especially hard if you run a noodle shop.

Noodles & Co. (NDLS) , a pasta restaurant that offers dozens of noodle dishes from around the world, is learning that lesson the hard way.

With over 450 locations around the U.S., Noodles & Co. saw a surge in popularity about a decade ago, when customers appreciated choice. There weren't a lot of other places you could go when you wanted spaghetti and meatballs and your friend wanted Pad Thai.

But these dishes require a lot of ingredients, preparation, and training. This gets expensive when you're running hundreds of locations across the U.S., and it gets even trickier when consumer tastes change.

So Noodles & Co. has announced it will close up to 21 locations in 2025.

This number is up from the nine locations it closed just one year ago in 2024.

Noodles & Co. had previously anticipated it would shutter between 12-15 company-owned locations. Now, however, it plans to close between 13-17 company-owned restaurants and four underperforming franchises.

Despite the closures, Noodles & Co. is seeing something of an upward trend as it works to revamp its menu. It recently added Cajun Shrimp Fettuccine and saw comps rise 4.4% in its most recent quarter.

CEO Drew Madsen saw these numbers are promising "despite a challenging macroeconomic environment."