Tampa-based Bloomin’ Brands announced Friday that it is closing 41 underperforming locations across its brands, including Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, and Fleming’s. Bloomin’ Brands owns and operates over 700 restaurants nationwide.
Bloomin’s signature restaurant, Outback Steakhouse, will see the brunt of the closures. The company did not release a list of closed restaurants; however, locations in Pennsylvania and Iowa and every Outback restaurant in Hawaii recently closed. Bonefish Grill locations in New Jersey and Virginia also closed, and at least three New York Carrabba locations closed.
Bloomin’ said it closed the locations because of a “variety of factors,” including sales, shrinking customer traffic, and financial investments that were too costly to improve the locations. Plus, a “majority of these restaurants were older assets with leases from the ’90s and early 2000s,” according to Bloomin’ CEO David Deno.
In the fourth quarter at Outback, sales struggled, sliding 0.3%, and at Bonefish, which fell 3%. Carrabba’s was a bright spot, with same-store sales up 2.5%. The stock price for Bloomin’ rose more than 6% in the past five days, topping $28 at one point.
Despite this and the company’s most recent round of closures, Bloomin’ Brands plans to open as many as 45 new restaurants in the US this year.