Jack in the Box is continuing to close stores this year as it reports another quarter of declining same-store sales.
Alongside the release of its third-quarter earnings report this week, the fast food burger chain shared that it has shuttered 40 restaurants so far in 2026, with another 10 to 20 set to close during its final quarter.
Is Jack still on track?
The update on restaurant closures comes over a year after the company announced “Jack on Track,” a financial plan that included closing 150 to 200 “underperforming” restaurants.
However, in a post-earnings call, Jack in the Box CFO Dawn Hooper explained that the company’s stores have closed at a slower rate than predicted. She pointed to the impact of lease obligations.
“Sometimes that burden is more than the loss they incur for operating the restaurant,” Hooper said, noting that the company is working with a third-party firm to help it get out of its leases.
“So we do expect that that closure rate will accelerate,” Hooper continued. “[If] you think back to when we announced Jack on Track, we said we needed to close about 150 to 200 restaurants. Since then, we’ve obviously had four more quarters of same-store sales losses.”
As a result, Hooper said the company is “reevaluating” the closure program, with plans to continue shuttering locations into 2027 and even 2028.
Jack in the Box still beat earnings predictions
Despite declining sales, shares of Jack in the Box Inc. (Nasdaq: JACK) saw a boost of up to 3% during after-hours and into premarket trading on Friday. The stock has been relatively flat this year, with shares up 0.21% as of Thursday’s close.
The company reported earnings per share of 96 cents, beating Wall Street’s predicted EPS of 88 cents, according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC. Same-store sales fell 1.1%, an improvement year-over-year from 7.1% down.
Jack in the Box expects to have about 2,100 stores at the end of fiscal 2026.
