Even chain restaurants have to constantly reinvent themselves to stay fresh with customers. That means developing a menu, and developing a concept.
“The life of the restaurant industry is innovation. You need something to talk about,” Panda Restaurant Group Chief Procurement Officer Roland Ornelas told Restaurant Dive, adding, “You have to really focus on that number of guests — but you also have to steal customers from your competitors.”
It’s not just a question of change for change’s sake, but also of making sense for customers.
Outback Steakhouse, a 38-year-old chain, has struggled in recent years with its menu, its execution, and keeping customers coming back. That led Bloomin’ Brands to decide to close some restaurants while restructuring the rest of the chain.
Outback Steakhouse is closing restaurants
“This year, we completed a detailed review of our restaurant portfolio and identified 21 underperforming restaurants, which we closed last week. We also identified 22 restaurants where we will not renew our leases,” said Bloomin’ Brands CFO Eric Christel during the company’s third quarter 2025 earnings call.
The company closed the first 21 locations by 2025, with most of the remaining closings occurring this year.
“Most of those leases expire in the next 4 years. Our goal is to focus our resources on the remaining healthy restaurants,” he added.
Some restaurants
Part of the Outback’s challenge has been losing its perception as a value product.
“It has lost share to steakhouse competitors such as Texas Roadhouse and LongHorn Steakhouse, which have been very successful in casual dining in recent years. And it has had a particularly difficult time attracting customers with household incomes of less than $100,000. Outback’s leadership thinks that price is the main reason for that,” according to Restaurant Business.
The chain’s overhaul includes a renewed focus on the menu, offering more customer value, and improving operations, according to comments during the company’s recent Q1 earnings call.
Outback Steakhouse lost its way
My wife and I used to eat at Outback Steakhouse, but having covered the restaurant industry for over 20 years, we have begun to notice signs of a declining brand.
Service speeds have been inconsistent, and food quality has varied from visit to visit. That’s a myth, but it fits with comments the company has made about what needs to be fixed at the family-friendly steakhouse chain.
Customer satisfaction in the chain and the number of points later show many of the same concerns.
CEO Michael Spanos shared his company’s plans to revamp Outback Steakhouse during the Bloomin’ Brands Q4 call.
“Our strategy is based on 4 strategic platforms, which are: first, to deliver an amazing dining experience; two, to drive brand relevance; three, to dominate the culture of ownership and entertainment; [and] four, invest in our restaurants,” he said.
Those efforts soon bore fruit.
Outback visitor metric scores increased year over year for the third quarter in a row. In Q1 of this year compared to last year’s Q1, Outback brand trust increased by 4 points, guest scores increased across service by 6 points, value by 5 points, atmosphere by 5 points, food by 4 points, and intent to return by 4 points, Spanos said during the Q1 earnings call.
The steakhouse chain fell 0.3% in comparable sales, according to the company’s first-quarter earnings release. That’s an improvement over a 0.6% decline in Q4 and a 0.5% loss in same-store sales for all of 2025.
Outback Steakhouse is changing. Shutterstock
The rural area faces a challenging market
“Conventional restaurant chains like Outback are facing a very difficult situation at the moment, as Americans are facing rising costs elsewhere in their budget and, as a result, they are more discriminating about where and how they eat. A few chains, including Texas Roadhouse, Applebee’s, and Chili’s, have benefited, while others – including Outback and other Bloomlesing’s brands, Benjamin writes Bloomins’s Matthews.
Outback Steakhouse falls into a category that has faced a challenging operating environment.
“Black Box Intelligence data revealed that 9% of full-service restaurants are at risk of closing this year, as chain restaurant closures continue to outpace opportunities,” the company said in a recent report shared with Restaurant Dive.
This segment is down 3% in unit growth from 2022, the report said.
“In a situation where cumulative inflation has increased costs by almost a third since 2019, it is almost impossible for a unit to continue operating after losing 30% or more of its top sales,” Victor Fernandez, Black Box Intelligence’s vice president of insights and information, said in a statement.
S&P Global sees Outback Steakhouse as facing a major challenge to return to growth.
“Bloomin’ expectations reflect lower revenue and a decline in system-wide sales, with a meaningful decline in revenue, due to continued softening of traffic and challenges in international exposure, which the company highlighted in recent earnings,” according to S&P Global.
Related: Two major pizza chains are closing more than 200 restaurants each
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Jun 13, 2026, where it appeared first in the category Restaurants. Add TheStreet as a favorite source by clicking here.
