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

For the primary time in 20 years, the variety of Subway’s home areas dipped under 20,000, in accordance with 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 a press release to CNN, Subway mentioned it’s evaluating its US footprint “utilizing a strategic, data-driven method to make sure eating places are in the fitting location, picture and format and operated by the fitting franchisees.”

The corporate informed CNN that it’s each opening new eating places and “relocating or closing areas as wanted” to take care of a constant visitor expertise.

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

Subway’s picture took a significant 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 putting franchises inside blocks of one another, which led to inside competitors, in accordance with franchisees who beforehand spoke to BI.

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

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