Subway Drops Beneath 20,000 US Shops for the First Time in 20 Years

For the primary time in 20 years, the variety of Subway’s home places dipped beneath 20,000, based on newly launched franchise disclosure paperwork. In 2024 alone, the corporate shuttered 631 eating places throughout the US, leaving it with 19,502 shops nationwide.

Subway nonetheless holds the title of the most important restaurant chain within the nation by unit depend.

Subway didn’t reply to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider, however in an announcement to CNN, Subway mentioned it’s evaluating its US footprint “utilizing a strategic, data-driven method to make sure eating places are in the proper location, picture and format and operated by the proper franchisees.”

The corporate instructed CNN that it’s each opening new eating places and “relocating or closing places as wanted” to keep up a constant visitor expertise.

The most recent wave of Subway closures follows a decline from its peak at 27,000 places in 2015 and a collection of authorized troubles.

Subway’s picture took a serious blow in 2015 when Jared Fogle, the model’s longtime spokesperson, pleaded responsible to intercourse crimes involving minors and was sentenced to just about 16 years in jail.

Subway’s speedy growth additionally began to backfire in 2016 when the corporate prioritized amount, flooding markets with shops and infrequently inserting franchises inside blocks of one another, which led to inner competitors, based on franchisees who beforehand spoke to BI.

In 2021, a class-action lawsuit alleged that Subway’s tuna was not fabricated from precise tuna. In 2023, the case was dismissed.

Regardless of its decline within the US, Subway’s variety of worldwide places has now seen web progress for the second consecutive yr.