Popular Burger Chain Closing Multiple CA Locations

LOS ANGELES, CA — Citing financial woes at some of its locations, Five Guys, the popular burger chain, announced it would close several restaurants across California.

The closures will include Whittier and City of Industry in Los Angeles County, and Merced and Hanford in central California.

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The store closures will result in a total of 55 jobs being cut, which do not have "bumping rights" that would allow them to transfer to another Five Guys location, according to The Street.

The Five Guys closure dates for each location are:

Whittier - May 25, 2026
City of Industry - May 26, 2026
Merced - June 26, 2026
Hanford - July 2, 2026

The closures come despite the fact that the chain was ranked as the nation's top burger joint, beating out In 'N Out and Burger King, according to pollsters at YouGov.

Analysts pointed to customers' possibly not being interested in the prices at Five Guys as a reason for sluggish performance, according to TheStreet.

On Monday afternoon, a basic burger at the chain's Lakewood location in Los Angeles County cost nearly $12.

Customers have been pulling back from high fast food across the board.

This month, McDonald's Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski said the company has been working to bring lower-income customers back into its stores with value meals. But fast food visits by customers with household incomes of $45,000 or less are still declining overall, and the spike in gas prices won't help, he said.

“Clearly, when you have elevated gas prices... that is going to disproportionately impact low-income consumers. And so we expect the pressures there are going to continue,” Kempczinski said Thursday during a conference call with investors.

Despite the closures, Five Guys still operates more than 1,900 locations in 28 countries, including more than 100 restaurants in California.

Five Guys has over 30,000 employees worldwide.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.