What are the best businesses to open in Lexington?

The top businesses to open in Lexington include Singaporean Restaurant with a ~84% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~86%, followed by Bangladeshi Restaurant and South American Restaurant.

Is Lexington a good place to start a business?

Lexington is ranked number 80 across neighborhoods in and around Boston to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~74%. The highest-scoring business types in Lexington — at their optimal addresses — outperform the neighborhood average by ~3%.

How much money could a business in Lexington make?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations in Lexington could lead to making ~3% more than selecting an average location, and ~5% more than one of the worst locations.

How can you find the best location to open a business in Lexington?

StreetSpring's prediction model analyzes 100 factors across competition, spending on the specific potential business, projected revenue, projected market share, Revenue Capture Score, and mobility patterns to pinpoint which blocks in Lexington maximize success.

What businesses are most in demand in Lexington?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Lexington are Singaporean Restaurants, Bangladeshi Restaurants, and South American Restaurants.

Business Survivability in Lexington, Boston

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Lexington is a Singaporean Restaurant with a ~84% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•17 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Singaporean Restaurant in Lexington (~84% average survival rate, ~86% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #80 across all neighborhoods in and around Boston

Neighborhood average: ~74% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Last reviewed by Bobby Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring — May 2, 2026

In this article:

Summary
Is Lexington a good place to start a business?
How to find the best location
Best businesses to open
How much money could a business make?
What businesses should open next?
Frequently Asked Questions

Summary

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Lexington is a Singaporean Restaurant with a ~84% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~86% chance; next is a Bangladeshi Restaurant with a ~83% chance, followed by a South American Restaurant with a ~83% chance.

Is Lexington the right neighborhood for a new business?

**How Lexington compares:** Lexington's profile most resembles **San Rafael Hills (Los Angeles)** and **Tara Leeway Heights (Washington DC)** based on the demographic and density signatures we use to model location quality — all three share higher-income, high high-earner share, and more homeowners. Patterns from those neighborhoods are directly relevant for businesses evaluating Lexington.

**Failure pattern in Lexington.** Across the 93 business subtypes we track here, the strongest is **Bangladeshi Restaurant** at 83% average survivability — but the best and worst sites for this subtype within Lexington span **70% to 96%**, a 26-point gap. **The dominant failure mode in Lexington isn't subtype choice — it's site selection within the neighborhood.** Saturation context: Middle Eastern Restaurants are the most-concentrated tracked subtype in the area, with 5 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Among all neighborhoods in and around Boston, Lexington ranks #80 for business survivability, with an average score of ~74%.

The highest-scoring business types in Lexington — at their optimal addresses — outperform the neighborhood average by ~3%.
Even so, the weakest addresses in Lexington for those same business types can underperform considerably. StreetSpring's address-level scoring exists precisely to identify which specific storefronts make the difference.
Commercial vacancy in Lexington sits at 2.3%, a figure that factors into survivability scores for every business type in this neighborhood.

Employment and vacancy figures sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.

Where in Lexington should you open a business?

Using StreetSpring, you can identify the exact address in Lexington that gives your specific business concept the highest survivability score. This is the address StreetSpring's 2026 analysis recommends most strongly for a Singaporean Restaurant in Lexington:

How to use our data when you tour spots

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Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis of 100 location-specific factors, this area offers the highest projected survivability for a Singaporean Restaurant in Lexington. Market conditions, new competitors, and local spending patterns can change rapidly — always verify with StreetSpring's live tool before signing a lease. Factors evaluated include competition at every distance band, consumer spending forecasts, mobility patterns, and market share projections.

Check if this location is still available →

What kinds of businesses thrive in Lexington?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Lexington

Singaporean Restaurant is ranked #1 for top businesses to open in Lexington: ~84% chance on average, best at ~86%, challenging at ~82%.
Bangladeshi Restaurant — ~82%–~86% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Lexington.
Opening a South American Restaurant in Lexington shows ~83% average survivability. Top locations reach ~85%; lower-end sites show ~82%.
Chinese Restaurant (Ranked #4): ~83% average in Lexington. Best-case storefronts: ~85%. Challenging locations: ~82%.
Deli is ranked #5 for top businesses to open in Lexington: ~83% chance on average, best at ~85%, challenging at ~82%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Lexington

Chicken Shop — ~82%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Lexington.
Opening a Brunch Restaurant in Lexington shows ~83% average survivability. Top locations reach ~86%; lower-end sites show ~81%.
Armenian Restaurant (Ranked #8): ~83% average in Lexington. Best-case storefronts: ~85%. Challenging locations: ~81%.
French Restaurant is ranked #9 for top businesses to open in Lexington: ~83% chance on average, best at ~85%, challenging at ~82%.
Filipino Restaurant — ~81%–~84% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Lexington.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

Bangladeshi Restaurant — See how this compares to other cities →

The revenue potential of a Lexington location

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations for your business in Lexington could lead to you making ~3% more than if you selected an average location, and ~5% more than if you selected one of the worst locations.

How StreetSpring calculates location value

Different business models thrive in different micro-locations.
Site selection is the highest-leverage decision most entrepreneurs make — it sets every other variable in motion.
The businesses that outperform their category averages most consistently are those that scored highest on survivability before opening.
Every survivability score StreetSpring produces is specific to the exact address and business type — not averaged across a zip code or neighborhood.

What Lexington needs more of (per our model)

The top businesses to open next in Lexington:

Singaporean Restaurants — ~84% average survival rate, up to ~86% at best locations
Bangladeshi Restaurants — ~83% average survival rate
South American Restaurants — ~83% average survival rate

Market conditions, new competitors, and local spending patterns can change rapidly — always verify with StreetSpring's live tool before signing a lease. The model draws from 100+ location-specific factors to generate each survivability score. Lexington sits at 96.7% employment and 2.3% commercial vacancy — conditions that set the ceiling and floor for Revenue Capture potential across all business types here. Survivability scores are live, not static — StreetSpring updates them weekly. Visit the tool to see what's currently available in Lexington and how each address is scoring right now.

See the Survivability Score for your new business

Related Articles:

See the Boston Business Survivability Rankings
See the Boston Neighborhood Survivability Rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the most common questions about opening a business in Lexington.

What type of business should you rent your Lexington storefront to?

For landlords in Lexington, StreetSpring's 2026 analysis identifies Singaporean Restaurants, Bangladeshi Restaurants, and South American Restaurants as the business types most likely to produce stable, long-term tenancy.

Site selection is the highest-leverage decision most entrepreneurs make — it sets every other variable in motion.
Every survivability score StreetSpring produces is specific to the exact address and business type — not averaged across a zip code or neighborhood. StreetSpring allows property owners to evaluate any address against 700+ tenant types — so you can prioritize the categories that score highest at your specific location.

Should you rent your Lexington storefront to a Singaporean Restaurant?

StreetSpring's data confirms a Singaporean Restaurant as the highest-survivability tenant type for Lexington. The best addresses show a ~86% chance of lasting more than 2 years; less optimal addresses score around ~82%.

Every survivability score StreetSpring produces is specific to the exact address and business type — not averaged across a zip code or neighborhood.

What should I consider when opening a business in Lexington?

Among all the criteria to weigh when opening a business in Lexington, Survivability Score carries the most predictive weight — choose the address with the highest score your budget allows.

Revenue Capture Score matters more than any other single metric when predicting business outcomes.
StreetSpring's forecasting tools are purpose-built for commercial location decisions and are not available through any publicly accessible data source.
The most current survivability data for Lexington is free to access on StreetSpring — no account required to check your specific address.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

StreetSpring uses AI to predict business survivability across U.S. neighborhoods — trusted by real estate professionals and entrepreneurs nationwide. Aggregated survivability rankings for Boston are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

Lease structure questions to ask first

Consideration	Common pitfall	What to verify before signing
Workforce availability	Hiring radius is smaller than you think — many neighborhoods can't staff a full team at standard wages.	Pull BLS wage data for your industry in this metro. Walk through your staffing plan with a local restaurant/retail operator before signing.
Outdoor seating / sidewalk use	Signing assuming you can add patio seating, then learning the city requires a separate sidewalk-cafe permit with long lead times.	Check the city's sidewalk-cafe permit process up front. Confirm landlord allows outdoor build-out in the lease language.
Permits & licensing	Assuming a 30-day permit timeline, hitting 90+ days, paying rent on a non-operating storefront.	Call the local zoning office before signing. Confirm your use is already permitted; if not, factor a 2-3 month variance timeline.

Full dataset for Boston: /resources/data/boston-survivability-scores-2026.csv — includes all business subtypes, all neighborhoods, survivability scores, and tier assignments. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Visual Data

Dumbbell chart comparing best vs worst locations for businesses in Boston — Best vs worst neighborhood per business type in Boston — the gap shows how much location choice matters for each subtype.

Treemap of Boston business mix by survivability score — Treemap of business mix in Boston — cell size = number of locations, color = average survivability score.

How we measure this: Most retail competition operates within a 500-meter radius — outside that, behavioral economics show customers don't routinely switch.

**BLS sector context:** Across the 11 industries StreetSpring tracks, 5-year survival rates from BLS Business Employment Dynamics, March 2025 release range from **47.8%** (Active Life — gyms, studios) to **61.8%** (Health & Medical). Restaurants — the largest single category in our corpus — average **50.0%** nationally, and retail averages **47.9%**.

**Lexington at a glance.** Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, located 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexington%2C_Massachusetts))

**Daytime worker density (Lexington):** LEHD LODES Workplace Area Characteristics show a **0.1:1 daytime-to-resident ratio** for Lexington — a primarily-residential neighborhood with minimal daytime worker traffic. Median workplace jobs within a 1-mile radius of grid points in Lexington: **3,742**, of which roughly **187** are retail-sector. Higher daytime ratios favor weekday-lunch / commuter-traffic businesses; balanced ratios favor residential + weekend demand patterns.

Landmark anchor: Hancock-Clarke House is Lexington's history-museum landmark and a meaningful pull factor for visitor foot-traffic.

**Economic indicators for Lexington:** Three local signals — neighborhood unemployment **3.3%** (ACS; below the median we track), Boston-area average weekly wage **$1,631** (BLS QCEW; above our metro median), and **2,338** new residential units permitted in Suffolk County in 2025 (Census BPS). Use these to ground demand and labor-cost assumptions for your specific business plan.

Related Resources

Related:

Beyond the Numbers: Local Context

Local-context questions, answered with neighborhood-specific numbers.

How does income in Lexington compare to the rest of Boston?

ACS data shows median household income in Lexington at roughly $184K, compared to $135K across the Boston metro. Higher median income supports premium retail, upscale dining, and discretionary services.

What survival rates does the federal government track for small businesses?

BLS publishes 5-year cohort survival rates by industry. For sectors StreetSpring covers, the range is 47.8-61.8% — Active Life low, Health & Medical high, Restaurants and Retail in the middle around 47.9-50%. Location-specific factors drive most of the variance around these baselines.

Is Lexington mostly renters or owners?

83% of Lexington households own their home, against 56% across the Boston metro. High ownership usually signals longer resident tenure and steadier local spending — favorable for sticky service-oriented businesses.

What's the local customer base size in Lexington?

Lexington has approximately 28.8K residents, putting it in the upper-middle range among Boston neighborhoods we track. The resident base is healthy — most retail and service business types have viable demand.