Ten Outback Steakhouse restaurants in four states have closed for good, and the list is now public in bankruptcy court documents. The closures are real, but the story behind them is narrower than the headlines suggest: Outback Steakhouse itself is not going bankrupt. One of its largest franchisees is.
What happened
Out West Restaurant Group, legally Cerca Trova Restaurant Group Holdings, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, November 2, in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, according to Fast Company, which reviewed the court documents. The San Diego based company operates 61 Outback restaurants across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico and employs about 3,669 people. In the two weeks before the filing, between October 11 and October 25, it quietly closed 10 of its restaurants and asked the court to let it walk away from their leases. The court documents say the closed restaurants were operating at a loss, or at margins too thin to cover what they cost to occupy. The franchisee had already closed three other underperforming locations earlier this year.
The full list of closed Outback locations
These are the 10 restaurants that closed in October, as listed in the court documents reported by Fast Company:
Arizona
- 4871 E. Grant Road, Tucson
- 1860 E. McKellips Road, Mesa
California
- 7575 Beach Blvd., Buena Park
- 25261 N. The Old Road, Valencia
- 26652 Portola Parkway, Foothill Ranch
Colorado
- 7065 Commerce Center Drive, Colorado Springs
- 15 W. Springer Drive, Highlands Ranch
- 2066 S. Abilene St., Aurora
- 8601 W. Cross Drive, Littleton
Nevada
- 3645 S. Virginia St., Reno
If your local Outback is not on this list, this bankruptcy has not closed it. No further closures have been announced.
Is Outback Steakhouse closing for good?
No. This is the part the search headlines keep blurring. The bankruptcy belongs to a single franchisee, not to Outback Steakhouse or its parent company, Bloomin’ Brands. The chain had more than 660 restaurants in the United States at the end of last year, and most of them are owned by Bloomin’ Brands itself, not by franchisees. Bloomin’ Brands told investors in an SEC filing that the case would have no immediate impact on guests, employees or day-to-day operations at Out West’s restaurants or at company-owned ones. The other 61 Out West restaurants remain open while the case runs.
What happens to the other 61 restaurants
Bloomin’ Brands has already stepped in. On November 1, the parent company agreed to buy substantially all of Out West’s assets for $26.3 million, a deal that still needs bankruptcy court approval and could be topped by a competing bid. The 10 closed restaurants are not part of that sale, so they are not expected to reopen under it. For diners in the five western states Out West covers, the practical answer is simple: unless your restaurant is one of the 10 addresses above, it is open, and the parent company is positioning to run it directly. It is a steadier ending than most franchise bankruptcies get, in a week when markets were celebrating a record rally while parts of the restaurant business kept quietly shrinking.
Sources: Fast Company, reporting from bankruptcy court documents, November 4, 2026; Bloomin’ Brands SEC filing as reported November 2026; corroborating coverage from Coinpaper and Nacionale.