Somewhere in your territory, a chain just opened three new locations. A competitor you thought was slowing down just rebranded and expanded. A restaurant group you have been watching quietly added 40 doors. Did you know? Or did you find out weeks later?
That gap between what is happening and when you find out is where deals get lost.
The retail and restaurant map is moving fast. Wendy’s closed 240 U.S. locations in 2024 and is closing up to 300 more in the first half of 2026. Pizza Hut shuttered 375 U.S. restaurants in fiscal 2025 and another 250 are coming down by mid-year. Bahama Breeze closed all 28 of its remaining locations, with several already converting to other Darden brands. Forever 21 shuttered all 354 of its U.S. stores by May 2025. Jack in the Box is closing up to 200 locations across 2025 and 2026 under its turnaround plan.
Those conversions matter strategically. A former Bahama Breeze site becoming an Olive Garden is not a closed account. It is a new buyer, new procurement priorities, and a new relationship to build before someone else gets there first.
5,500+
New U.S. retail and restaurant locations expected to open in 2026, on top of thousands of closures and conversions happening at the same time.
Meanwhile, Aldi is opening more than 180 new stores across 31 states this year. Dollar General is adding 450 locations. Raising Cane’s, Dutch Bros, and Chick-fil-A are all expanding. Every new opening is a procurement decision in motion, a new buyer forming vendor relationships right now.
It is not just B2B suppliers who need to know where the market is moving. Real estate developers and brokers tracking chain expansion need to know which brands are actively adding doors and which are quietly pulling back. Analysts covering retail and foodservice need current location counts, not last quarter’s numbers. Restaurant groups and retailers scouting new markets need to know where their competitors have already planted a flag and where the white space actually is.
The organizations that use location data well build strategy around it. They identify expansion corridors before they become obvious. They track which chains are vacating markets and move on that real estate before someone else does. They map location density against demographic data to forecast where the next wave of openings is likely to land. That is not research for its own sake. That is a competitive advantage.
You cannot outmarket, out-negotiate, or out-develop a territory you do not actually know.
CSG’s Location IQ covers more than 708,000 geo-coded locations across retail, foodservice, and grocery. The data refreshes every 30, 60, 90 days by our research team, not a scraper. Closures come off. Openings go on. Relocated stores move to the right address. Every record is human-verified, pulled directly from primary sources. For suppliers managing large account universes, the difference between current location data and last year’s spreadsheet is not an accuracy issue. It is a revenue issue.
The chains contracting are not disappearing. They are restructuring, converting, reopening under different flags in the same real estate. The chains expanding are moving fast into markets where space just opened up. New opportunities are forming on both sides.
The question is not whether you are in the market. It is whether your data reflects the market that actually exists today.
Old data doesn’t just waste time. It costs revenue.
Sources
ABC News / The Hill, “Wendy’s to close hundreds of locations in first half of 2026,” February 2026
Restaurant Dive / PMQ Pizza, “Pizza Hut to close 250 stores; closed 375 in fiscal 2025,” February 2026
Newsweek / CNN Business, “Bahama Breeze closing all locations,” February 2026
NJ Biz / Axios, “Forever 21 closes all 354 U.S. stores,” May 2025
CBS News / Fox Business, “Jack in the Box closing up to 200 locations across 2025-2026,” April 2025
Consumer Affairs / CNBC, “Store openings and closures 2026,” February-March 2026
Coresight Research, U.S. Store Openings and Closures Tracker, 2026
Chain Store Guide, Location IQ, chainstoreguide.com/category/store-locations, 2026
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