6 Restaurant Chains Shutting Texas Locations in 2026
Texas restaurants racked up more closures than any other state in the first half of 2026, according to the restaurant-tracking firm RestaurantData.
These are the restaurant chains that shut their Texas doors for good in 2026.
1. On the Border’s Closure
On The Border opened its first restaurant in Irving back in 1982, and by June 12, 2026, every company-owned location it still ran had shut its doors.
The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2025, and its footprint had already shrunk from 120 restaurants in 2023 down to 80.
Houston-based Pappas Restaurants bought the Tex-Mex chain out of bankruptcy that year.
About a year later, the new owner pulled the plug on every company-run store anyway.
Of the 33 restaurants still listed on On The Border’s website that spring, 17 sat in Texas, more than half the chain’s remaining footprint.
The stores are gone.
Independently run franchises in Florida, Nevada, California, South Dakota, and South Korea kept their doors open, but On The Border’s home state took the biggest hit of all.
2. Salad and Go’s Exit
Salad and Go’s Texas restaurants disappeared on January 11, 2026, when the drive-thru salad chain walked away from the state completely.
It had already pulled out of the Houston market months earlier.
That January close-out finished the job, shutting the remaining 32 restaurants across Texas and Oklahoma, many of them around Dallas.
That’s all of it, for Texas anyway.
Chief executive Mike Tattersfield said the company needed to refocus on Arizona and Nevada, where it started.
Salad and Go even moved its headquarters back to Phoenix, leaving Coppell behind.
The refocus didn’t last.
Salad and Go filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 5, 2026, then closed every remaining Arizona and Nevada restaurant that week.
Texas lost its last Salad and Go in January. Seven months later, the whole chain was gone.
3. Hooters’ Houston-Area Closures
Hooters closed a string of Texas restaurants in early 2026, and the Houston area felt it first.
The Katy location closed in March.
Corpus Christi followed in April.
Then the restaurant near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Webster closed too, around April 17.
That’s three closures in two months.
The cuts came after a group of franchisees bought Hooters out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2025, months before the Texas closures started.
Company leaders described it as culling weak locations while Hooters shifts toward a pure franchise model and a more family-friendly image.
About 33 Hooters restaurants remain active across Texas, with roughly six left in the Houston area.
That’s still a lot of wings, just fewer places left to eat them.
How to Tell a Trim-Down From a Full Exit
Hooters and Salad and Go both closed Texas restaurants this year, and the fastest way to tell the two kinds of closure apart is a chain’s own store locator.
A trim-down closure still turns up results when a Texas zip code is searched, just fewer of them than before.
A full-exit closure turns up nothing at all. The chain has stopped operating anywhere in the country.
4. Red Lobster’s El Paso Mall Exit
Red Lobster’s restaurant next to Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso closed for good in late March 2026.
The lease was up, and the company didn’t renew it.
It’s part of a longer pattern for Red Lobster.
This wasn’t the first cut.
The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024.
New ownership has kept closing underperforming restaurants ever since.
Two other Red Lobster restaurants remain open in El Paso, one on Joe Battle Boulevard and another on Sunland Park Drive.
Cheddar Bay biscuits still exist in El Paso, just not at the mall anymore.
5. Chuck E. Cheese’s Abilene Closure
Chuck E. Cheese shut down its Mall of Abilene restaurant this spring, after running that Texas location for almost 20 years.
The company’s own closure notice canceled every active Fun Pass and membership there, effective April 5, 2026.
The notice gave no reason for the closure.
That’s the whole notice.
It did leave the door open a crack.
Chuck E. Cheese said it has come back to Abilene before and might again.
For now, though, the arcade tokens and the animatronic band are gone from the Mall of Abilene.
Psst! Wonder what a table of six would owe for one last Texas meal? Split the bill and the tip with our calculator below.
6. Wendy’s Katy Store Closure
Wendy’s shut down its restaurant at 2201 South Mason Road in Katy.
By the time the news site Covering Katy found the store in mid-April 2026, its doors and drive-thru window carried “permanently closed” signs.
No sign explained why.
The closure landed during a much bigger pullback.
Same-store sales fell 11.3% across the chain in the last quarter of 2025.
Wendy’s responded by targeting its weakest locations.
The company closed hundreds of restaurants around the country through the first half of 2026, and the Katy store became part of that count.
Wendy’s insists the cuts will leave its stronger restaurants better off.
The Non-Chain Majority
Texas piled up more restaurant closures than any other state during the first half of 2026.
The research firm RestaurantData counted 1,039 Texas closures between January and June alone, the highest raw total of any state.
Most of those closures weren’t chains like Hooters or On The Border.
RestaurantData found that 57.6% of the Texas closures were independent restaurants, well above the 52.1% national average for chain-linked closures.
Mom-and-pop took the bigger hit.
Dallas-Fort Worth led the state with 240 of those closures, and Houston followed close behind with 239.
San Antonio counted 87 and Austin counted 79, the two next-largest totals in the report.
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