Burger King closes 6 more locations across US amid push to cut 400 'unviable' locations

Over the past few months, a growing number of Burger King locations in the United States have closed their doors due to poor performance.

The fast food giant's parent company, Restaurant Brands International, announced earlier this year that it planned on shutting down between 300 and 400 shops that it deemed "unviable"

As Business Insider reports, 26 Michigan locations were closed in March, with a further 27 in other states such as Utah and Minnesota following suit in April. 

The most recent set of six store closures will impact Florida, New York, and Nebraska, where some restaurants have been open for over 40 years. In the Empire state, at least one of the locations is expected to be taken over by direct competitor McDonald's.

In 2022, Burger King executives announced a $400 million "Reclaim the Flame" plan in an effort to keep up with other chains that were continuously outperforming them.

The goal was to improve successful locations and close those that were not doing as well, and as CNBC reports, data from the company appears to show that it's having an effect. During the latest earnings call, it was revealed that same-store sales grew 7.2 percent over last year, with 2.8 percent fewer locations. 

"Back in the last few quarters, we had been behind the industry in terms of our same-store traffic," Restaurant Brands CEO Josh Kobza explained, "and that's been progressively getting better every quarter since last year."

He went on to say it was a "big milestone" for Burger King to go from where it was in 2022 to "flat traffic."

"Over the past few quarters, we prioritized the most distressed situations, closing unviable restaurants and cleaning up a number of portfolios," CFO Matthew Dunningan added.

Restaurant Brands has indicated that it will have most of its permanent closures finalized by the end of 2023. 

According to the Motley Fool, Burger King had 7,105 locations in the US as of 2021.