More than 40 Wendy's restaurants closed in Florida, here's where

Wendy's has closed at least 42 Florida locations in 26 cities in the last year as part of an effort to drop underperforming stores, according to a comparison of store listings.

The fast-food giant famous for its "fresh, never frozen" square burgers, chili, Frostys and more, announced in Februaryongoing downsizing plans to shutter 5% to 6% of its stores nationwideduring the first half of 2026.

In August 2025, Wendy's listed 515 Florida locations. As of May 5, it's down to 475. AnotherWendy's in Tallahasseewas closed Sunday, one of three to get shuttered since last year.

On a Feb. 13 earnings call, interim CEO Ken Cook said the company had already closed 28 restaurants in the last quarter of 2025 as part of the "Project Fresh" turnaround plan designed to streamline the company amid decreasing revenue. With just under 6,000 locations operating nationwide at the start of the year, this would mean about 300 to 360 store closures total in 2026. The chain previouslyclosed 140 locations in 2024.

Jacksonville, which had 31 locations last summer, haslost eight of them, including one that'sbeen open since 1974. Pensacola, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, and Tallahassee are missing three each. Several Florida cities, including Casselberry, Clearwater, Mary Esther, Oviedo, Ponte Vedra, South Pasadena, and Winter Springs, were left without any Wendy's at all.

The company has not released a list of stores to be closed so more could shut down in the coming months.

However, Wendy's has continuedopening new locations, including new Florida restaurants in Apollo Beach, Palmetto, Safety Harbor, Spring Hill, and Wesley Chapel, with another planned forManatee County. In March, the company announced plans to build more than60 new locations in Mexico.

Which Wendy's have closed in Florida?

Since August 2025, these locations have closed, according to a comparison ofWendy's current store listingsand anarchived copy.

Advertisement

• Cape Coral: 1601 Del Prado Blvd. S

• Casselberry: 386 Hwy 436 E.

• Clearwater: 2290 Gulf To Bay

• Clermont: 850 E. Hwy 50

• Fort Myers: 12034 S. Cleveland Ave.

• Fort Walton Beach: 145 Eglin Pkwy NE

• Gainesville: 655 Reitz Union Drive

• Gulf Breeze: 20 Daniel Street

• Jacksonville:

  • 12524 San Jose Blvd.

  • 14447 Beach Blvd.

  • 1616 University Blvd. South

  • 2754 Race Track Road

  • 3910 University Blvd. West

  • 400 S. 3rd Street

  • 6238 103rd Street

  • 7211 Normandy Blvd.

• Lutz:

  • 2300 Grand Cypress Drive

  • 25600 Sierra Center Blvd.

• Marianna: 4256 Lafayette Street

• Mary Esther: 441 Mary Esther Blvd.

• Miami: 3301 Biscayne Blvd.

• Orlando: 7091 S. Orange Blossom Trail

• Oviedo: 90 W. Mitchell Hammock Road

• Pembroke Pines: 2050 Nw 146th Street

• Pensacola:

  • 250 Saufley Street

  • 450 E. Nine Mile Road

  • 7012 N Davis Hwy

• Ponte Vedra: 153 Capital Green

• St Augustine:

  • 1830 Us Highway 1 S

  • 2040 A1A S

  • 3531 N. Ponce De Leon Blvd.

• St. Petersburg:

  • 336 15th Ave. S

  • 4047 4th Street N

  • 4300 34th Street South

• South Pasadena: 1452 South Pasadena Ave.

• Tallahassee:

  • 1950 West Pensacola

  • 2122 Capital Circle NE

  • 3451 Bannerman Road

• Tampa: 1101 W. Sligh Ave.

• Venice: 2983 Executive Drive

• Wildwood: 921 E State Rd 44

• Winter Springs: 1218 E. State Road 434

Which Wendy's have opened in Florida?

These locations have opened their doors since August 2025:

• Apollo Beach: 5585 N US Hwy 41

• Safety Harbor: 1847 Enterprise Road E

• Spring Hill: 10249 County Line Road

• Wesley Chapel: 7803 Dynamic Blvd

Why is Wendy's closing restaurants?

Wendy'sfirst announced closures in November, with Cook saying at the time that some restaurants "are a drag from a franchisee financial performance perspective."

"The goal is to address and fix those restaurants," he said.

In some cases, that would mean making improvements to technology or equipment or transferring struggling locations to new operators. In others, he said, it would mean closing the restaurants altogether.

Cook shared a similar message in the recent earnings call.

"By closing consistently underperforming restaurants, we are enabling our franchisee partners to increase focus on locations with the greatest potential for profitable growth," Cook said. "Since we announced this program in November, we have been working with our franchisees to evaluate restaurants on a store-by-store basis."

Wendy's struggled with sales compared to some of its competitors in 2025,reporting an11.3% decrease in same-store sales – revenue generated by stores open for at least a year – and an 8.3% loss in global systemwide sales in Q4. Global systemwide sales were down 3.5% overall in 2025 and same-store sales were down 5.6%.

C. A. Bridges is a journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida's service journalism Connect team. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter,Florida TODAY.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat:Wendy's closing underperforming restaurants including 42 in Florida