Why Has Illinois Lost an Alarming Number of Subway Restaurants?

I've seen the numbers, but I'm still having a hard time convincing myself it's true. New data just shared shows that Illinois has lost a whopping 91 Subway restaurants in the short span of just the past three years. How is this possible?

This is not a commercial, but I've always appreciated Subway restaurants even though I rarely eat there simply because they offered an alternative to the typical fast food menus. I'm also a fan of their sweet onion teriyaki sauce, but that's a story for a different day. This new article just shared by Cheapism includes some reports shared by Subway with their franchisees. It says that Subway has closed 1,645 restaurants since 2022.

How many of those closed Subway restaurants were in Illinois?

Answer - 91 Illinois has the 5th highest rate of Subway closings in America.

How insane is that? When you factor in that Illinois only has around 1,280 cities and towns, that means almost 1 in 12 Illinois places lost a Subway in the past 3 years. Crazy.

These closings aren't necessarily the fault or even the decision of Subway. Some of these franchisees that closed restaurants had problems of their own. The overall restaurant industry has faced staffing and supply problems, too. A multitude of factors have contributed to the closing of Subways and other restaurants. There's no singular reason. I suppose we could blame Jared?