HICKORY — O’Charley’s Restaurant and Bar closed its Hickory location on Sept. 9, ending 26 years on U.S. Highway 70 Southeast and wiping out the chain’s last restaurant in North Carolina.
The closing was not a one-store decision. Nashville-based O’Charley’s — owned by Cannae Holdings — abruptly shut all of its company-owned restaurants Wednesday. Franchised locations in other states were still hanging on for a while, according to national restaurant trade reporting, but the corporate footprint went dark the same day.
For Hickory diners who treated the Highway 70 building as a regular stop for steaks, salads, and Sunday lunch, the end arrived with the rest of the company map.
How a nearly 250-restaurant chain got to zero corporate stores
At its peak in the 2000s, O’Charley’s operated nearly 250 restaurants. Closures have been steady since 2016. In 2023 the company said it would shutter around 17% of its portfolio to “preserve cashflow” and run a more asset-light model. That turnaround did not stick.
By 2026, same-store sales were down by double digits. Multiple stores closed in July, bringing the portfolio down to about 47 locations before Wednesday’s corporate shutdown. Technomic data cited in industry coverage showed the chain’s portfolio shrunk by 11% in 2025 while sales dropped by 19%.
A letter to shareholders about Cannae’s second-quarter operations said O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar continued to face challenges maintaining traffic, resulting in a 13% decline in same-store sales in the quarter. Between June 2025 and June 2026, the company closed 10 stores.
When trade reporters reached the company Wednesday, a spokesperson said no one was available to comment. Social media accounts for the brand were discontinued. Employees at some markets told local outlets they learned of the corporate decision late — one Ohio worker said staff did not expect to hear until they showed up Thursday.
What Hickory loses on Highway 70
The Hickory restaurant sat at 2360 U.S. Highway 70 SE, in the busy commercial corridor that already carries a revolving cast of national casual-dining and fast-casual brands. O’Charley’s was the kind of mid-market American restaurant that filled family tables and late work nights for a generation of Catawba County customers.
Twenty-six years is a long run for a chain concept in a corridor that constantly reshuffles. The building’s next chapter is unknown. The brand’s North Carolina chapter is over.
National coverage made clear the distinction that matters for other markets: company-owned stores closed Wednesday; some franchisees hoped to keep doors open into late September or early October. Hickory was on the corporate side of that line. When the company-owned lights went out, North Carolina lost its last O’Charley’s with them.
Casual dining’s harder math
O’Charley’s is not the first mid-priced full-service chain to shrink under higher labor costs, thinner traffic, and competition from fast casual and delivery. Cannae Holdings’ other holdings — including Ninety Nine Restaurant and Pub and sports assets in Europe — show a parent company that spreads risk beyond one American steakhouse brand. That did not save the corporate O’Charley’s fleet.
For Catawba County, the story is simpler and more local. A familiar Highway 70 restaurant that opened around the turn of the century is closed. The last North Carolina location of a once-ubiquitous Southeastern chain is gone. And the decision that ended it was made far from Hickory — in a corporate wind-down that hit every company-owned dining room on the same Wednesday night.
