Red Robin Closes More Restaurants as Burger Chain Presses Ahead With Its First Choice Turnaround Plan

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers has closed another restaurant as part of its broader push to shutter up to 70 underperforming locations and restructure its business, continuing a restructuring effort now in its second year.

The 57-year-old casual dining chain is closing its restaurant at Crossroads in Cary, North Carolina, in the coming weeks after agreeing to sell the property to Birmingham, Alabama-based commercial developer Capital Growth Buchalter for $3.3 million, according to a report from the Triangle Business Journal. Red Robin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the closure.

The Cary closure is the latest step in Red Robin’s First Choice Plan, a restructuring initiative the company launched in July 2025 aimed at refranchising stores, cutting expenses and reducing debt. Red Robin first signaled its intention to close a significant number of locations in its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings report, released in February 2025, when it said it expected to shutter up to 70 restaurants as part of the effort.

Since then, the chain has made steady progress on multiple fronts. Red Robin closed 23 locations in 2025 as store leases expired, and it repaid $20.3 million in debt by the middle of the year. Those efforts have translated into improved financial performance, with the company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rising 53% to $69.7 million in 2025, according to data reported by Restaurant Business.

The turnaround has proven successful enough that Red Robin has been able to pull some previously targeted restaurants off its closure list. After originally identifying 70 locations for potential closure, the company’s restructuring efforts allowed it to remove 20 of those restaurants from consideration, according to Restaurant Business. However, the chain said it now expects to close an additional 20 locations in 2026 as more store leases expire, effectively bringing the total number of closures back up to 70 once those new closures are factored in. Red Robin has also indicated it plans to close as many as 27 more locations over the next several years, though the company has not released a specific list of which restaurants will be affected.

Red Robin Chief Executive Dave Pace addressed the shifting closure list during the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call, framing the removals as a sign of operational improvement rather than a change in overall strategy. “Going back a ways, we found we’ve made improvements on about 20 restaurants that we had previously identified as potential problems for us or potential closures,” Pace said. “We’ve moved them off the closure list to where we think we can operate them and are hopeful that we can get them back to a performance level that equals the rest of the system.”

Beyond outright closures, Red Robin has also been actively selling restaurant locations to franchise partners as part of its broader refranchising strategy. In a June 15 statement, the company announced it had sold 69 units across eight states to OP Burgers LLC for $62.5 million, along with 17 units in Oregon and Washington to Kuber Oregon LLC and Kuber Washington LLC for a combined $10 million. Separately, Red Robin sold 30 restaurants located in Washington and Western Idaho to multi-unit restaurant operator and franchisee Evergreen Dining LLC for $23.5 million, according to a May 28 company statement. All of the restaurants sold in these transactions will continue operating under the Red Robin brand rather than closing outright.

Evergreen Dining, which has operated more than 100 restaurants across several national brands over nearly three decades, was described by Pace as a strong fit for the chain’s broader turnaround goals. “Since launching our First Choice Plan last year, we have been focused on finding franchise partners who share our values and commitment to delighting guests,” Pace said in the May statement. “We are confident Evergreen Dining is the right partner to accelerate growth at these locations while also helping us strengthen our balance sheet, improve our capital structure, and enhance our financial flexibility as we evaluate potential refinancing partners.”

Founded in 1969, Red Robin currently operates roughly 475 restaurant locations across the United States and Canada, with about 81% of those restaurants company-owned and the remaining 19% operated by franchisees, according to the company’s website. The combination of store closures, property sales and franchise transitions reflects a broader effort by the chain to shrink its company-owned footprint while shoring up its balance sheet and reducing overall debt levels.

Red Robin’s restructuring stands in contrast to more severe outcomes faced by other casual dining chains this year. FAT Brands Inc., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 26, 2026, closed 15 underperforming Smokey Bones locations and converted 19 additional units into Twin Peaks restaurants, with all remaining Smokey Bones locations shut down by the end of April, according to a report from WSYX-TV. Separately, OTB Hospitality, the operating company behind On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina, filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on June 19 after closing all of its company-owned locations earlier that same month, the company said in a June 19 press release. Franchise locations in South Dakota, Florida, Nevada, California and South Korea were not included in that liquidation filing and continue operating independently.

Red Robin’s approach, by comparison, has emphasized preserving its brand presence through franchise ownership even as it trims its company-operated footprint, a strategy the company has credited with improving its underlying financial performance over the past year even as store count reductions continue. With additional lease expirations expected to bring further closures in 2026 and potentially beyond, the chain’s restructuring effort appears set to continue reshaping its footprint across the U.S. and Canada in the coming years.