The resignation of DineEquity Inc.’s chief executive amid declining sales Friday caused the restaurant company’s stock to fall 9.6 percent in a single day, closing at $60.14.

The Glendale company that owns Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill and IHop announced that Chief Executive Julia Stewart was resigning effective March 1, the same day it is scheduled to release its annual financial report. Richard Dahl, director of DineEquity’s board, will serve as interim chief executive.

The shakeup comes as Applebee’s sales have declined over the past year, in spite of a rebranding effort in May, the company said in an unaudited earnings statement released Friday. Domestic same-restaurant sales declined 7.2 percent for the fourth quarter of 2016, the report says.

The company reported adjusted net income available to common stockholders in 2016 was $108.8 million, down from $116 million in 2015.

Stewart orchestrated the merger of IHop and Applebee’s in 2007 while serving as chief executive of IHop, where she pioneered the idea of having restaurant chains decrease the number of corporate-owned stores and increase the number of franchises, said Jonathan Maze, senior financial writer at Nation’s Restaurant News.

“For a long time, the rule for operators was to have skin in the game to give credibility for the franchisees,” said Maze. “Over the past 15 to 20 years, restaurant chains have shifted dramatically away (from that model).”

Traffic to casual dining restaurants has declined over the last decade, while the number of restaurants has increased, said Maze.

“People are just not dining inside restaurants,” said Maze. “There’s just too many restaurants for the amount of demand there is.”

As a result, chief executives have resigned from a number of publicly traded restaurant companies recently, including Kevin Reddy, who stepped down as chief executive from Noodles & Company in July, and Ken Calwell, who left Papa Murphy’s last month.