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Noodles & Company receives delisting warningNoodles & Company receives delisting warning

The fast-casual chain said it could consider a reverse stock split to bring its share price back into compliance

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

January 2, 2025

2 Min Read
Noodles & Company exterior
A Noodles & Company restaurantNoodles & Company

The Nasdaq Stock Market has warned Noodles & Company that its share price is too low to meet the exchange’s rules, the fast-casual noodle chain said in a filing on Tuesday.

Nasdaq informed Noodles on Dec. 24 that it was in noncompliance with the exchange’s minimum bid price requirement of $1 per share, and had been for more than 30 consecutive business days.

Noodles’ share price has been below $1 since Nov. 11.

It said in the filing that the Nasdaq notice has no immediate effect on the listing or trading of the company’s common stock on The Nasdaq Global Select market as it has 180 calendar days, or until June 23, to regain compliance. To do so, the stock’s closing price must be at least $1 per share for 10 consecutive days.

Nasdaq has the discretion to extend that period. Alternatively, Noodles & Company could be eligible for another 180-day grace period if it applies to transfer the listing to The Nasdaq Capital Market. Otherwise, its stock would be subject to delisting.

“The Company intends to monitor closely the closing bid price of its common stock and to consider all of the options for regaining compliance with Nasdaq’s Listing Rule 5450(a)(1), including by proposing a reverse stock split for stockholder approval, if necessary,” Noodles & Company said in the filing.

Related:Noodles & Company impacted by ‘significant’ drop in third-party delivery sales

In a reverse stock split, a company combines multiple shares into one, reducing the number of total shares while increasing each share’s price. It’s often used to regain compliance with stock exchange requirements, as in this case.

The chain of 460 restaurants headquartered in Broomfield, Colo., has been struggling since early 2023, when traffic began to decline after Noodles raised its prices. Since then it has been working on operational efficiencies under chief executive officer Drew Madsen, who replaced Dave Boennighausen in late 2023, and a menu revamp that it plans to roll out later this year.

Noodles & Company’s highest stock price was $48.89 on Oct. 18, 2013. In recent years it peaked at $13.04 on Oct. 8, 2021.

It opened on Jan. 2, 2025, at 60 cents.

For the most recent quarter, ended Oct. 1, 2024, Noodles reported a net loss of $6.8 million, or 15 cents per share. Same-store sales were down by 3.3%, revenue was down by 4%, and traffic was down by 5.8%.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

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About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
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