Five Guys Closures 2026: Where Workers Are Losing Jobs

Five Guys is closing at least 14 locations across seven states in the first half of 2026, and the better-burger chain that built its reputation on fresh patties and free peanuts is suddenly the latest casualty of a fast-food economy buckling under rising labor, rent, and ingredient costs. The newly disclosed shutdowns hit California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, and Nebraska, with four California stores filing official state notices that will lay off 55 workers between May and July. For the front-line crews, shift managers, and assistant managers behind those counters, the message is blunt: their jobs will not transfer to other Five Guys locations. They are on the open market in a year where restaurant hiring has slowed sharply, and America's frozen labor market is making every paycheck harder to replace.

Which Five Guys locations are closing and where?

According to a list compiled by Fast Company, at least 14 Five Guys stores have closed or are scheduled to close in 2026, across seven states. The clearest paper trail sits in California, where the company filed Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices for four stores between May and July. The Whittier location closes May 25 with 13 workers laid off. The City of Industry store follows on May 26, eliminating 15 jobs. Merced shuts on June 26, ending 13 positions. Hanford, in the Central Valley, closes last on July 2, cutting 14 roles. That is 55 California layoffs on the public record.

The remaining closures are spread across Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, and Nebraska. Five Guys has not released a comprehensive store-by-store list for those states, and as a privately held company the chain is not required to disclose individual closures the way public restaurant operators do. The 14-location count is a floor, not a ceiling. It captures only what has been confirmed through state filings and local reporting through May 2026.

What is consistent across every confirmed closure is the staffing picture. None of the displaced workers are being offered transfers. Five Guys is not consolidating crews into nearby stores or shifting managers to higher-volume units. The job ends when the door locks, which is a meaningfully harder outcome than the Kohl's 27-store closure plan, where the retailer at least kept its broader footprint of 1100 locations intact and offered some redeployment paths.

Why is Five Guys shrinking now?

Five Guys cited financial hardship and rising business expenses as the primary reasons behind the closures. That is the same explanation surfacing across the casual-dining and better-burger segment in 2026: labor costs are up, lease renewals are landing at higher rents, beef and produce inputs have not retreated to pre-2022 levels, and the customer base has gotten dramatically more price-sensitive. A bacon cheeseburger combo at Five Guys now routinely runs above $20 in major metros, and that ticket size has pushed budget-conscious diners back toward value menus, frozen meals, and home cooking.

The chain has not collapsed. Five Guys still operates close to 1900 locations globally and remains under the control of the Murrell family, which founded the business in Arlington, Virginia, in 1986. Jerry Murrell is still CEO. The company opened a flagship at The Venetian in Las Vegas in January 2026, complete with a full walk-up bar. This is not a wind-down. It is a contraction in markets where the unit economics no longer work, while investment continues in markets where they do.

That distinction matters for workers. A national brand can be growing in aggregate and still close your specific store. The decision is driven by store-level profitability, lease terms, traffic counts, and the wage floor in your state, not by how the company is doing overall. California, which carries the country's highest fast-food minimum wage at $20 per hour for chains with 60-plus locations nationally, sits at the sharp edge of that math. The state's wage law has already reshaped the math for Bay Area fast-food employers, and the broader California fast-food minimum wage story explains why four of Five Guys' confirmed 2026 closures sit in that one state.

What does this mean for restaurant workers across the US?

For the 55 California workers losing their jobs in the next eight weeks, and for an unknown number of crew members at the other 10-plus locations closing nationwide, the immediate task is finding a new role in an industry that is still hiring but pickier than it was a year ago.

Restaurant employment is technically growing. Eating and drinking places added 187000 jobs in April 2026, according to preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and California led the country with 44600 net new restaurant jobs that month. But the headline number hides a quieter trend: the first quarter of 2026 produced only 18500 net new restaurant jobs, down from quarterly gains above 60000 in the back half of 2025. Hiring is slower, more concentrated in a few high-growth states, and weighted toward operators who can afford to keep growing through the cost squeeze.

Restaurant employment in 49 states and Washington, D.C., is still below the February 2020 pre-pandemic level. The industry has not fully recovered, and the cost pressures that closed these Five Guys stores are not getting easier. Workers laid off from a closing burger chain are competing with workers laid off from full-service restaurants, from regional pizza chains, and from sit-down concepts like Smokey Bones, which is closing locations of its own this year.

The good news is that experienced restaurant workers are still in demand for the right roles. Quick-service operators with strong unit-level economics, ghost kitchens, hotel food and beverage, and corporate dining are all hiring. Pay has improved meaningfully since 2022. Several segments now offer schedules and benefits that did not exist five years ago. There is a real market for restaurant jobs that pay well, particularly for managers, kitchen leads, and workers with two or more years of experience.

Seasonal demand is also working in displaced workers' favor right now. Summer hiring at amusement parks, hotels, resorts, and recreational venues kicks into peak gear in May and June, and that pipeline often pays better than fast food. The waterpark hiring wave coinciding with restaurant closures is a real opportunity for workers who can move quickly.

How does Five Guys' move fit the wider fast-food labor squeeze?

The Five Guys story is not a one-off. It is a data point in a broader contraction across the casual-dining and better-burger category, and it lines up with a hiring slowdown that is now visible in the official data.

Consumer behavior has shifted. A 2025 wave of price hikes pushed the average fast-food check above $15 in most US metros, and the post-pandemic willingness to absorb those increases has eroded. Diners are eating out less, trading down to value menus when they do, and concentrating their spending on chains with strong loyalty programs and digital ordering. Operators without that infrastructure, or with lease costs from 2022 that no longer match current revenue, are the ones closing stores.

Labor costs are also up structurally, not just cyclically. California's $20 fast-food minimum has rewritten the cost base for any chain with 60 or more nationwide locations. Other states are watching, and some city-level minimums are catching up. Combined with higher health insurance, workers' comp, and rising employer-side payroll taxes, the cost per labor hour for a fast-food operator has climbed roughly 25 to 30 percent in three years.

The pressure is global. UK operators are dealing with a hospitality jobs crisis across pubs and restaurants in 2026 driven by similar wage-floor increases and rent inflation. Iconic specialty retailers are also closing en masse, with Claire's shutting all 154 UK stores and eliminating 1300 retail jobs. Even cafe giants are trimming corporate ranks; Starbucks just cut 900 non-retail jobs even as it continues to invest in regional hiring like the $100 million Nashville Southeast hub. The pattern is consistent: cut where the math has broken, invest where it still works.

Five Guys' 14-store cut is small relative to a 1900-store global footprint. But the directional signal is clear. Even chains with strong brand equity and family ownership are pruning underperforming units rather than waiting for traffic to recover. Workers should expect more announcements like this across the second half of 2026, particularly from chains with heavy California, Illinois, and New York exposure where wage floors are highest.

Where should affected workers look for their next role?

The first 30 days after a layoff matter most. File for unemployment immediately. California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, and Nebraska all process restaurant-worker claims relatively quickly, and the WARN notices already on file in California speed up benefits processing for the four documented closures there.

Then update your work history with specifics. Hiring managers across restaurants and adjacent industries want concrete numbers: average tickets per hour, register accuracy rates, opening or closing shift responsibilities, food-cost discipline, training hours logged. Workers coming out of Five Guys have been operating in a brand known for fresh prep and tight quality control, and that experience translates well to better-burger competitors, fast-casual concepts, hotel kitchens, and even retail roles where customer-volume comfort matters.

Look beyond direct fast-food peers. Three categories are hiring most aggressively right now: summer hospitality, healthcare food service, and grocery prepared-foods. Hospital cafeterias and assisted-living food programs offer steadier schedules and benefits packages that fast food rarely matches. Grocery chains are building out their hot-bar and prepared-foods operations and need experienced line workers. Hotels are staffing up for summer occupancy and pay shift differentials for breakfast crews.

For workers thinking longer term, the industries hiring fastest in 2026 are not the ones shrinking. Retail is being reshaped by automation, with agentic AI changing how creative and operational roles work in retail, but operations roles like store management, logistics, and customer experience are still in heavy demand. Restaurant managers and assistant managers transition cleanly into retail operations roles, often at higher pay.

If you were on the schedule at the Whittier, City of Industry, Merced, or Hanford Five Guys, your last shift is on the calendar already. Use the weeks before that date to file early, update your work history, and apply broadly. The labor market is slower than it was a year ago, but restaurant operators with strong unit economics are still hiring, and adjacent industries are paying premiums for experienced quick-service workers.

A few practical moves separate workers who land fast from workers who churn. Apply to at least three categories of employer in your first two weeks: a quick-service brand with positive same-store sales, a hospitality or healthcare food-service operator with structured benefits, and a non-restaurant retailer in your area that values your customer-service reps. Use the WARN notice itself as a credential when you apply; it documents the closure was not performance-related and unlocks Rapid Response services in California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, and Nebraska. Ask about retention bonuses and signing pay, which have become standard for experienced restaurant hires in tight local markets.

People also asked

Q: How many Five Guys locations are closing in 2026?

A: At least 14 Five Guys locations are closing across seven states in the first half of 2026, including California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, and Nebraska. Four California stores in Whittier, City of Industry, Merced, and Hanford have filed official WARN notices and will close between May 25 and July 2.

Q: How many workers will lose their jobs from the Five Guys closures?

A: At least 55 California workers will be laid off across the four confirmed California closures, with no transfers to other Five Guys locations. Additional layoffs are expected at the roughly 10 other documented closures in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Georgia, and Nebraska, though Five Guys has not released a national total.

Q: Is Five Guys going out of business?

A: No. Five Guys operates close to 1900 locations globally and is still controlled by the founding Murrell family. The 14 closures represent a contraction in markets where unit economics no longer work, not a company-wide wind-down. The chain opened a new flagship at The Venetian in Las Vegas in January 2026.

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