Noodles & Company Plans to Close 30 to 35 More Locations in 2026

Noodles & Company plans to shutter between 30 and 35 restaurants this year, continuing a contraction that already eliminated 42 locations in 2025 and has pulled the chain well below its peak of more than 500 locations nationwide. The counterintuitive detail buried in the closures: same-store sales at company-owned restaurants grew 7% in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 4% in the third quarter. The problem isn't traffic. It's math.

According to preliminary fourth-quarter 2025 results, the Denver-founded chain ended last year operating 423 restaurants total, broken down as 340 company-owned and 83 franchised locations. The 2025 closures themselves split 33 company-owned and nine franchised units. If the full 30 to 35 planned 2026 closures proceed, the brand will have shed somewhere between 72 and 77 locations over two years from a base that once cleared 500.

CEO Joe Christina, in the company's third-quarter 2025 earnings results, framed the strategy around what happens after a location goes dark. "We are continuing to close underperforming restaurants and benefiting from the transfer of approximately a third of their sales to nearby profitable locations," Christina said. "All of this is driving margin and Adjusted EBITDA improvement, guest enthusiasm and strengthening our relevance."

The Jan. 12 company statement announcing the 2026 round of closures carried similar language. "Decisions like this are made thoughtfully and with a long-term view of the business," Christina said. "These actions are intended to strengthen the overall health of the brand and our financial position, helping to ensure we are well-positioned for profitable growth and long-term value creation for our shareholders."

The locations being cut are not failing by the usual measures. The company has identified sites that cannot reach profitability regardless of sales volume, citing unfavorable lease terms, elevated operating costs, and markets that structurally limit margins. The chain is reallocating resources freed by those closures toward locations it expects to sustain growth, while also investing in digital ordering infrastructure and loyalty programs.

Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, Noodles & Company built its identity around a menu that stretches well past Italian-American standards. Pulled Pork BBQ Mac & Cheese, Cajun Shrimp Fettuccine, Japanese Pan Noodles, and Wisconsin Mac sit alongside the Green Goddess Chicken Cobb Salad on a board designed to signal range. The chain went public in 2013 and expanded aggressively before pandemic-era cost pressures began compressing margins industry-wide.

In September 2025, the company disclosed it was exploring strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value, a process that sources indicate included considering refinancing, refranchising, and a potential sale of the business. The status of that review has not been formally resolved in public filings reviewed for this report.

Shares of NDLS fell 7.39% in immediate market reaction to the closure news, according to Yahoo Finance data. The stock movement reflects investor uncertainty about whether a shrinking restaurant count and a strategic-alternatives process in progress can converge on a stable outcome, even with comparable sales trending in the right direction.