SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – More McDonald’s restaurants inside Walmart stores are shutting down.
The closures, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes as McDonald’s signaled to investors last year that locations inside lower-volume Walmart stores were closing.
The Walmart and McDonald’s relationship goes all the way back to 1994.
But nowadays, shopping behavior has changed and fewer people are buying their necessities in stores, thus contributing to a decline in customer traffic at McDonald’s restaurants in Walmart stores.
Rather, more people are opting for online shopping to cut down on time spent in stores.
McDonald’s, which had 13,682 U.S. restaurants at the end of 2020, said in its most recent annual report that it would close 325 restaurants this year, the majority of which were “lower sales volume McDonald’s in Walmart locations,” while opening hundreds of new locations elsewhere.
According to Walmart, the restaurant space won’t be vacant forever.
Domino’s Pizza and Taco Bell have expressed interest in using the space, Walmart officials told USA Today.