Subway Restaurants, the world’s most ubiquitous dining chain, will continue closing U.S. stores as it expands internationally, Bloomberg News reported. After peppering the nation with thousands of locations, closely held Subway is retrenching. This year, the sandwich purveyor is planning to shut about 500 more of its U.S. shops. Last year, more than 800 stores went dark, with the total U.S. count dropping to 25,908. It also closed restaurants in 2016. The sandwich shop, founded more than 50 years ago, is struggling to boost sales in the U.S. as newer, more modern chains emerge. Greco said Subway had been hurt by fierce competition in the U.S., including from a resurgent McDonald’s Corp., whose domestic system sales rose 3.4 percent last year, according to data from researcher Technomic. Subway’s fell 4.4 percent.
