Subway to close all locations in the U.K. and Ireland

Subway, the world’s largest franchise with almost 43,000 locations internationally, will be closing all of its U.K. and Ireland stores from Monday 23 March, 2020. This aligns with other brands such as McDonald’s and Nando’s, which have also closed stores in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Colin Hughes, country director U.K. & Ireland, announced the closures in a recent message:

“At Subway, we’ve been doing all we can to support the efforts to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, and I’d like to thank our loyal guests, franchise owners, their sandwich artists, and all employees who have supported the brand through this unprecedented situation.

“Today, we’re taking one more step, a step we believe is the right one. We have taken the decision to authorise our franchise owners to close all their stores in the U.K. and Ireland, from 5pm today, Monday 23 March.

“We took this decision as we want to continue doing everything in our power to keep people safe. We believe closing the stores is the right thing to do. By supporting social distancing, we can help protect not just our loyal guests, dedicated franchise owners and sandwich artists, but the wider communities they serve.

“Locally, over today and tomorrow, franchise owners will be using up their fresh ingredients to donate Subs to local community groups and emergency workers, wherever possible.

We’ll be back with you as soon as we can.”