The company behind Outback Steakhouse closed nine locations and opened just five during the latest quarter, continuing a pattern of contraction even as management touts rising revenue and a turnaround plan.
Bloomin' Brands, the Tampa-founded parent of Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, and Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, ended its second fiscal quarter of 2026 with a net loss of four restaurants. The company now operates 1,448 locations across 46 states, Guam, and 12 countries, down from the 21 U.S. closures and 22 non-renewed leases it already executed during 2025.
CEO Mike Spanos framed the results as progress. But the numbers underneath his talking points tell a more complicated story, one where customers are spending more per visit largely because prices are higher, not because more people are walking through the door.
Outback Steakhouse, the chain at the center of Bloomin' Brands' turnaround strategy, lost 2.8% of its U.S. traffic during the quarter. Comparable restaurant sales still rose 1.4%, but that gain came almost entirely from a 4.2% jump in the average check per person. Fewer diners, bigger tabs. That math works until it doesn't.
Fleming's Prime Steakhouse showed the same pattern, traffic down 2.8%, comparable sales up 1.6%, and average checks up 4.4%. One Fleming's U.S. location closed during the quarter, leaving 64 nationwide.
Bonefish Grill was the lone bright spot. Comparable sales jumped 8.1%, and traffic actually grew 4.5%. Carrabba's posted a modest 1.7% sales gain but saw traffic slide 2.5%.
Across the entire company, revenue rose 1.3% year over year to $1.02 billion, and restaurant-level operating margins ticked up to 12.4% from 12% a year earlier. TheStreet reported that the margin improvement came from higher average checks, productivity savings, and lower pre-opening costs, partially offset by rising commodity, labor, and operating expenses.
Of the nine restaurants shuttered during the quarter ending June 28, four were company-owned Outback Steakhouse locations in the U.S. and four were international Outback franchise locations. The ninth was the Fleming's closure. Five new restaurants opened, one company-owned Outback in the U.S. and four franchised Outback locations in Brazil.
The closures extend a contraction that began in earnest when Bloomin' Brands announced its multi-year turnaround strategy in November 2025. That plan led to 21 U.S. restaurant closures and decisions not to renew leases on 22 more locations, with the majority of those leases set to expire over the following four years. The company has not disclosed which specific cities or states lost locations.
Outback Steakhouse now counts 659 U.S. locations and 354 international ones. The overall system has shrunk to 1,448, a number that will keep moving if the lease non-renewals play out on schedule.
Spanos pointed to the company's restaurant refresh program as evidence the strategy is working. Through the end of July, roughly 31 Outback locations had been refreshed, with approximately 85 on track for completion by the end of 2026. The company's goal is to refresh 100% of Outback Steakhouse restaurants by the end of 2028.
Each refresh costs between $350,000 and $400,000. The total 2026 turnaround investment is now estimated at approximately $36 million, down from a previously expected $50 million. Bloomin' Brands said it is on track to hit roughly $30 million in productivity savings this year.
Spanos offered this assessment in the company's earnings report:
"I am pleased with our financial results in the second quarter and our continued progress on the Outback Turnaround. We remain focused on consistency of execution across food, service, experience, and affordability to deliver a great guest experience."
The company also narrowed its full-year 2026 U.S. comparable-sales outlook to a range of 1% to 2%, tightening the previous forecast of 0.5% to 2.5%. That narrower band suggests management has more confidence in modest growth, but it also caps expectations.
Strip away the corporate language, and the picture is straightforward. Bloomin' Brands is closing underperforming locations, raising prices on the customers who remain, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per restaurant on cosmetic upgrades it hopes will reverse a traffic slide. Revenue is up slightly. Margins are up slightly. But fewer Americans are choosing to eat at these restaurants than a year ago.
The company operates in a casual-dining segment that has been under pressure for years, squeezed between fast-casual competitors offering lower prices and consumers tightening their budgets. Bloomin' Brands is betting that a smaller, refreshed footprint will perform better than a sprawling one. That is a reasonable corporate strategy. It is also an admission that the old model stopped working.
For the workers and communities that lose a neighborhood Outback or Fleming's, the turnaround strategy is not an earnings-call talking point. It is a closed restaurant and a dark parking lot. Management can dress up contraction as optimization, but the customers who aren't showing up have already voted with their feet.