Is Medford a good place to start a business?

Medford is ranked number 81 across neighborhoods in and around Boston to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~74%. Strong business types at their best-match addresses in Medford consistently score ~3% higher than the overall neighborhood survivability average.

What businesses are most in demand in Medford?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Medford are Pet Boarding Facilities, Pet Grooming Shops, and Ukrainian Restaurants.

What are the best businesses to open in Medford?

The top businesses to open in Medford include Pet Boarding Facility with a ~80% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~82%, followed by Pet Grooming Shop and Ukrainian Restaurant.

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

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 Medford maximize success.

Business Survivability in Medford, Boston

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Medford is a Pet Boarding Facility with a ~80% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•17 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Pet Boarding Facility in Medford (~80% average survival rate, ~82% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #81 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: April 26, 2026 by Bobby Koons, StreetSpring founder — updated weekly

In this article:

Summary
Is Medford 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 Medford is a Pet Boarding Facility with a ~80% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~82% chance; next is a Pet Grooming Shop with a ~79% chance, followed by an Ukrainian Restaurant with a ~79% chance.

Is Medford the right neighborhood for a new business?

**Comparable neighborhoods:** Among the ~2,500 neighborhoods StreetSpring scores, Medford's profile most resembles **La Habra (Los Angeles)** and **Brightwood Park (Washington DC)**. All three exhibit high high-earner share, low vacancy, and older housing stock — operators with experience in any of those neighborhoods will see familiar patterns in Medford.

**Failure-mode analysis for Medford.** The single strongest subtype in our data is **Bar** at 80% average survivability. But the within-neighborhood spread for Bars runs **72% to 89%** — meaning a poorly-sited Bar in Medford can score 17 points below a well-sited one. Saturation reality check: Ukrainian Restaurants are the most-competed tracked subtype here, with 10 existing competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Among all neighborhoods in and around Boston, Medford ranks #81 for business survivability, with an average score of ~74%.

Strong business types at their best-match addresses in Medford consistently score ~3% higher than the overall neighborhood survivability average.
However, those same business types at the weakest addresses in Medford can score considerably below average. Even the most in-demand concept in Medford will struggle if it opens at the wrong address.
Medford's employment rate of 94.8% and commercial vacancy of 4.4% are two of the inputs StreetSpring's model uses to differentiate survivability within this neighborhood.

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

Where in Medford should you open a business?

The right address in Medford can mean a 20-point survivability difference from an average one — StreetSpring identifies exactly which addresses are worth pursuing. According to StreetSpring's 2026 data, this is the optimal address for a Pet Boarding Facility in Medford:

The locations that show up in our top-10 lists

Loading live map preview...

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis of 100 location-specific factors, this area offers the highest projected survivability for a Pet Boarding Facility in Medford. For the most current predictions, visit StreetSpring to analyze your specific location in real-time. 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 Medford?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Medford

Pet Boarding Facility — ~78%–~82% survivability range, with an average of ~80% across Medford.
Opening a Pet Grooming Shop in Medford shows ~79% average survivability. Top locations reach ~81%; lower-end sites show ~77%.
Ukrainian Restaurant (Ranked #3): ~79% average in Medford. Best-case storefronts: ~82%. Challenging locations: ~77%.
Dance Club is ranked #4 for top businesses to open in Medford: ~79% chance on average, best at ~81%, challenging at ~77%.
American Restaurant — ~77%–~81% survivability range, with an average of ~79% across Medford.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Medford

Opening a Kosher Restaurant in Medford shows ~79% average survivability. Top locations reach ~81%; lower-end sites show ~77%.
Diner (Ranked #7): ~79% average in Medford. Best-case storefronts: ~81%. Challenging locations: ~78%.
Deli is ranked #8 for top businesses to open in Medford: ~79% chance on average, best at ~80%, challenging at ~77%.
Filipino Restaurant — ~77%–~80% survivability range, with an average of ~79% across Medford.
Opening a French Restaurant in Medford shows ~79% average survivability. Top locations reach ~81%; lower-end sites show ~77%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

How much money could a business in Medford make?

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations for your business in Medford 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

Location fit is business-type-specific: a spot that's ideal for a coffee shop may underperform for a nail salon at the same address.
Location is the biggest factor in a business's future success.
Choosing locations with superior Survivability Scores directly correlates with higher revenue potential.
Our address-level scoring shows the exact survivability odds for over 700 business types at any given storefront.

Which business types are most underserved in Medford?

The top businesses to open next in Medford:

Pet Boarding Facilities — ~80% average survival rate, up to ~82% at best locations
Pet Grooming Shops — ~79% average survival rate
Ukrainian Restaurants — ~79% average survival rate

For the most current predictions, visit StreetSpring to analyze your specific location in real-time. StreetSpring's accuracy is built on studying businesses that serve more than 180 million+ Americans across 24 cities. The 94.8% employment rate in Medford is a key signal of consumer health; when combined with the 4.4% vacancy rate, it produces a competitive landscape that favors the business types ranked above. StreetSpring updates survivability scores for available locations weekly — check the live tool now to see which storefronts in Medford are currently available and how they score.

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 Medford.

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

StreetSpring's 2026 model places Pet Boarding Facilities, Pet Grooming Shops, and Ukrainian Restaurants at the top of the survivability rankings for Medford — making them the safest long-term tenant bets for landlords here.

Location is the biggest factor in a business's future success.
Our address-level scoring shows the exact survivability odds for over 700 business types at any given storefront. StreetSpring can show you which specific address in your portfolio scores highest for each tenant type.

Should you rent your Medford storefront to a Pet Boarding Facility?

Yes — our 2026 model places a Pet Boarding Facility at the top of the survivability rankings for Medford storefronts, with a best-case score of ~82% and a floor of ~78% at the most challenging addresses.

Our address-level scoring shows the exact survivability odds for over 700 business types at any given storefront.

What should I consider when opening a business in Medford?

StreetSpring's Survivability Score for your Medford address is the clearest forward-looking indicator of whether your business will be operating two years from now — make it the first number you check.

The Revenue Capture Score at a specific address explains more about likely business success than any other available metric.
StreetSpring's custom-built forecasting infrastructure powers every survivability score, combining data science with commercial real estate intelligence.
You can access the most up-to-date forecasts with StreetSpring for free.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

Using predictive analytics, StreetSpring helps entrepreneurs and landlords make smarter location decisions. Aggregated survivability rankings for Boston are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

The hidden costs of operating in this neighborhood

Area to check	What can go wrong	How to de-risk it
Foot traffic seasonality	Looking at a peak-summer Tuesday and assuming year-round volume.	Walk the block at 3 different times across 2 different weeks. Ask neighboring tenants for their slow-season % drop.
Parking & visibility	Storefront looks great from the sidewalk but is invisible from the road.	Drive past at 30 mph from both directions. Count street parking + nearest paid lot capacity at peak hours.
Permitted hours	Late-night or early-morning ops blocked by zoning, neighborhood association, or shared-wall restrictions.	Confirm the permitted hours-of-operation are in your lease AND in the local code. Pull recent variances or complaints from the zoning portal.

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: Annual rent / estimated annual revenue = rent burden ratio. Industry rule of thumb: above 12% is uncomfortable, above 18% is fatal.

**Sector-level context:** BLS data (BLS Business Employment Dynamics, March 2025 release) shows 5-year survival rates of **47.8%** (Active Life), **47.9%** (Retail Trade), **50.0%** (Restaurants), **50.5%** (Beauty & Personal Care), and **61.8%** (Health & Medical) — the five industry buckets covering most StreetSpring subtypes. Location-specific factors explain the rest of the variance.

**Daytime population context (Medford):** Per US Census LEHD LODES, the median 1-mile workplace-jobs population around Medford grid points is **5,749** — about **0.2× the resident population**, which qualifies as a primarily-residential neighborhood with minimal daytime worker traffic. Retail-sector jobs in that radius: **513**. This shapes which business models have a natural demand floor here.

Landmark anchor: Royall House and Slave Quarters is Medford's history-museum landmark and a meaningful pull factor for visitor foot-traffic.

**Three local anchors for Medford:** **5.2%** neighborhood unemployment (in line with the 24-metro median, ACS), **$1,631/week** average wage in the Boston area (above our metro median, BLS QCEW), and **2,338** new residential units permitted in Suffolk County in 2025 (Census BPS). These three together describe the demand-and-labor environment any new Medford business operates within.

Related Resources

Related:

Local Context FAQ

Further questions, with answers anchored on this neighborhood's actual data.

What is the median age in Medford, and what does that mean for businesses?

ACS data puts Medford's median age at 41, compared to the Boston metro median of 41. That's older by 1 year — The demographic profile is close to the metro average, so business-type fit is driven by other factors like income and competition.

What's the typical commute pattern in Medford?

Median commute time in Medford is about 32 minutes, versus 32 minutes across the Boston metro. Commute patterns are typical for the metro, so foot traffic timing should not be a primary differentiator.

How big is the Medford market in terms of resident population?

Approximately 36.2K people live in Medford, which puts it in the top quintile by population among Boston neighborhoods. A larger resident base supports a broader range of business types and can absorb more direct competitors.