Bahama Breeze’s Kennesaw, Georgia, restaurant closes for good this weekend, becoming the first domino to fall in a shutdown that will erase the Caribbean-themed chain entirely by 2027. Parent company Darden Restaurants confirmed the closure plan earlier this year, and the Kennesaw location, roughly 27 miles outside Atlanta, is set to reopen in September as a Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen.
How many Bahama Breeze locations are left, and when do they close?
Eleven restaurants remain open across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and every single one has an expiration date now. After Kennesaw shuts down, Fayetteville, North Carolina, follows in early September and will become a Chuy’s. Two Orlando locations and a Charleston spot close later in the fall, converting into Olive Garden, Chuy’s and Yard House respectively. The final stretch runs into 2027, with a Tampa location and a Fort Myers restaurant among the last to go, both slated to become Yard House by summer.
Why is Darden shutting down a chain that’s been around for 30 years?
Darden CEO Ricardo Cardenas told investors on an earnings call that the Bahama Breeze brand was no longer a strategic priority for the company. Darden, which also owns Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and several other chains, had already closed 14 Bahama Breeze locations earlier this year and converted others, leaving this final batch of 11 as the last ones standing before the brand disappears completely.
Are people actually upset about this?
Yes, and not quietly. When a Broward County community account posted about a nearby Bahama Breeze closing earlier this year, the post pulled in thousands of likes within a day, with commenters describing first dates, pandemic-era outings and decades of birthday dinners spent at the chain’s tiki-lit tables. On TikTok, former employees and regulars have been posting their own goodbyes, several calling out specific locations by name and tagging friends they used to go with. The reaction tracks with a chain that opened its first Orlando restaurant in 1996 and built a following on jerk chicken, conch fritters and rum drinks served with paper umbrellas, even as it never grew much past 40-some locations at its peak in 2019.
Is Bahama Breeze the only casual chain struggling right now?
No. The closures land in the same year Salad and Go filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shuttered every one of its locations in early August, just a few years after expanding to more than 60 stores and hiring a former Wingstop executive to lead its growth. Between that collapse and Bahama Breeze’s slow wind-down, 2026 has been a rough year for chains that expanded fast in the 2020s and are now retreating just as quickly.
For customers hoping to get in one last visit, the clock is already running. Once the Kennesaw doors close this weekend, nine more locations follow over the next several months, and by the time the last Fort Myers restaurant converts to a Yard House in 2027, the brand that spent three decades selling a taste of the Caribbean will be gone entirely.
