How much money could a business in Mid-Cambridge make?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations in Mid-Cambridge could lead to making ~2% 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 Mid-Cambridge?

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 Mid-Cambridge maximize success.

Is Mid-Cambridge a good place to start a business?

Mid-Cambridge is ranked number 45 across neighborhoods in and around Boston to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~76%. StreetSpring data shows the best-fit business types at prime Mid-Cambridge addresses outperform the neighborhood average by as much as ~2%.

What businesses are most in demand in Mid-Cambridge?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Mid-Cambridge are Nail Salons, Watch & Repair Shops, and French Restaurants.

What are the best businesses to open in Mid-Cambridge?

The top businesses to open in Mid-Cambridge include Nail Salon with a ~83% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~85%, followed by Watch Store or Repair Shop and French Restaurant.

Business Survivability in Mid-Cambridge, Boston

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Mid-Cambridge is a Nail Salon with a ~83% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•18 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Nail Salon in Mid-Cambridge (~83% average survival rate, ~85% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #45 across all neighborhoods in and around Boston

Neighborhood average: ~76% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Reviewed: May 8, 2026 by Bobby Koons, StreetSpring founder

In this article:

Summary
Is Mid-Cambridge 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 Mid-Cambridge is a Nail Salon with a ~83% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~85% chance; next is a Watch Store or Repair Shop with a ~83% chance, followed by a French Restaurant with a ~83% chance.

What does the data say about opening in Mid-Cambridge?

**Pattern match:** Mid-Cambridge's neighborhood signature — captured across demographic, employment, and amenity features — most closely matches **Russian Hill (San Francisco)** and **Century City (Los Angeles)**. The three share many nearby parks, more college-educated, and more walkable commutes, which helps explain why business types that succeed in those areas tend to translate to Mid-Cambridge.

**The pattern in Mid-Cambridge.** Of 93 tracked subtypes, French Restaurant leads at **83% average survivability** — yet within the neighborhood, sites for this subtype range **76-86%** (10-point spread). That spread is the real failure surface: pick the wrong block in Mid-Cambridge and a top-subtype play still scores in the bottom quartile. Meanwhile Middle Eastern Restaurants are already saturated here — 30 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Among all neighborhoods in and around Boston, Mid-Cambridge ranks #45 for business survivability, with an average score of ~76%.

StreetSpring data shows the best-fit business types at prime Mid-Cambridge addresses outperform the neighborhood average by as much as ~2%.
Yet the same categories that score highest in Mid-Cambridge can underperform significantly at the wrong address. Location precision within the neighborhood matters as much as choosing the neighborhood itself.
StreetSpring's model incorporates Mid-Cambridge's 10.9% vacancy rate as a direct input: higher vacancy concentrations suppress foot traffic and reduce survivability for nearby businesses.

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

Which blocks in Mid-Cambridge offer the strongest survivability?

StreetSpring's address-level analysis reveals which specific storefronts in Mid-Cambridge offer the strongest survivability odds for your business type. StreetSpring's 2026 model ranks this area #1 in Mid-Cambridge for a Nail Salon:

Why the right block matters more than the right neighborhood

Loading live map preview...

This map shows the optimal location for a Nail Salon in Mid-Cambridge based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis. Neighborhood-level averages are a starting point — the exact address will determine your actual survivability score. The prediction model incorporates 100 location-specific factors, including competitive density, forecasted consumer spending, mobility patterns, and Revenue Capture Score.

Check if this location is still available →

Which business types have the highest survivability in Mid-Cambridge?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Mid-Cambridge

Opening a Nail Salon in Mid-Cambridge shows ~83% average survivability. Top locations reach ~85%; lower-end sites show ~80%.
Watch Store or Repair Shop (Ranked #2): ~83% average in Mid-Cambridge. Best-case storefronts: ~85%. Challenging locations: ~80%.
French Restaurant is ranked #3 for top businesses to open in Mid-Cambridge: ~83% chance on average, best at ~84%, challenging at ~81%.
Mixed Martial Arts Studio — ~80%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~82% across Mid-Cambridge.
Opening a Deli in Mid-Cambridge shows ~82% average survivability. Top locations reach ~84%; lower-end sites show ~81%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Mid-Cambridge

Vietnamese Restaurant (Ranked #6): ~82% average in Mid-Cambridge. Best-case storefronts: ~83%. Challenging locations: ~80%.
Mexican Restaurant is ranked #7 for top businesses to open in Mid-Cambridge: ~82% chance on average, best at ~84%, challenging at ~80%.
Armenian Restaurant — ~79%–~83% survivability range, with an average of ~82% across Mid-Cambridge.
Opening a Salad Shop in Mid-Cambridge shows ~81% average survivability. Top locations reach ~83%; lower-end sites show ~79%.
Taiwanese Restaurant (Ranked #10): ~81% average in Mid-Cambridge. Best-case storefronts: ~83%. Challenging locations: ~80%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

The revenue potential of a Mid-Cambridge location

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, identifying the optimal address for your business type in Mid-Cambridge could lead to you making ~2% 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.
A great product in the wrong location will underperform; an average product in the right location can thrive.
Maximizing your Survivability Score is the most reliable path to profitability.
StreetSpring gives you a precise survivability probability for any specific address and business type combination, not a generalized estimate.

What businesses should open next in Mid-Cambridge?

The top businesses to open next in Mid-Cambridge:

Nail Salons — ~83% average survival rate, up to ~85% at best locations
Watch & Repair Shops — ~83% average survival rate
French Restaurants — ~83% average survival rate

Neighborhood-level averages are a starting point — the exact address will determine your actual survivability score. We have been studying the businesses serving more than 180 million+ Americans. The 97.9% employment rate in Mid-Cambridge is a key signal of consumer health; when combined with the 10.9% vacancy rate, it produces a competitive landscape that favors the business types ranked above. New competitors open and close every week, changing the survivability landscape for every address in Mid-Cambridge. StreetSpring's weekly updates mean you can always see the current score for any available storefront.

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 Mid-Cambridge.

What type of business should you rent your Mid-Cambridge storefront to?

The analysis is clear: in Mid-Cambridge, Nail Salons, Watch & Repair Shops, and French Restaurants consistently score highest on survivability, giving landlords the best chance of retaining tenants for 2+ years.

A great product in the wrong location will underperform; an average product in the right location can thrive.
StreetSpring gives you a precise survivability probability for any specific address and business type combination, not a generalized estimate. With StreetSpring, you can rank every potential tenant type by survivability score at your property address before committing to a lease.

Should you rent your Mid-Cambridge storefront to a Nail Salon?

StreetSpring's data confirms a Nail Salon as the highest-survivability tenant type for Mid-Cambridge. The best addresses show a ~85% chance of lasting more than 2 years; less optimal addresses score around ~80%.

StreetSpring gives you a precise survivability probability for any specific address and business type combination, not a generalized estimate.

What should I consider when opening a business in Mid-Cambridge?

Survivability Score is the North Star metric for any location decision in Mid-Cambridge: it aggregates 100+ factors so you don't have to evaluate each one individually.

Revenue Capture Score is what separates locations that look similar on the surface but produce dramatically different business outcomes.
These predictions are generated by StreetSpring's proprietary machine learning system, validated against hundreds of thousands of real business outcomes.
StreetSpring is free to use — see the current survivability score for any address in Mid-Cambridge right now.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

StreetSpring's AI platform has analyzed thousands of business openings to identify success patterns. Aggregated survivability rankings for Boston are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

Build-out budget rules-of-thumb for this neighborhood

Factor	Where new owners get tripped up	Questions to ask before you sign
Competitor density	Counting only direct competitors and missing adjacent-category overlap (e.g. coffee shop near a bakery).	Map all businesses serving overlapping customer needs within a 5-min walk. Use StreetSpring's competitor view as a starting point.
Lease term	Locking into 7-10 years without break clauses, then needing to relocate after year 2.	Negotiate a relocation or termination clause. Confirm assignment + sublease rights are in writing.
Anchor co-tenancy	Signing next to a high-traffic anchor that closes 6 months later, leaving you orphaned.	Ask for a co-tenancy clause — rent abatement or termination right if the anchor leaves. Standard for strong markets.

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

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

Radar chart of business-subtype survivability in Mid Cambridge, Boston — Top business types scored in Mid Cambridge, Boston — each axis is a subtype, taller = stronger survival rate.

Bubble chart of business subtypes in Boston by survivability score and location density — Every business subtype in Boston plotted by score vs location count — bubble size shows market depth.

How we measure this: Foot traffic measured at the city-block level using a combination of pedestrian-network analysis and Walk Score.

**National benchmark:** Per BLS Business Employment Dynamics (March 2025), 5-year survival rates for StreetSpring's tracked industries span **47.8-61.8%**. Restaurants — the most-studied of these — survive at **50.0%** nationally, not the often-cited "80% fail" myth. The real risk premium is at the location level, which is what StreetSpring's model isolates.

**Daytime population context (Mid-Cambridge):** Per US Census LEHD LODES, the median 1-mile workplace-jobs population within Mid-Cambridge is **76,091** — about **6.7× the resident population**, which qualifies as a strong commercial-corridor / CBD signal. Retail-sector jobs in that radius: **2,551**. This shapes which business models have a natural demand floor here.

Landmark anchor: Mid-Cambridge's cultural-anchor is Harvard Art Museums, an art-museum that pulls weekend and tourist foot-traffic into the surrounding blocks.

**Economic context that bounds the demand environment in Mid-Cambridge:** Per ACS, neighborhood unemployment is **2.1%** (below the 24-metro neighborhood median). BLS QCEW shows the Boston metro's average weekly wage at **$1,631** (above our 24-metro median). And Suffolk County permitted **2,338** new residential units in 2025 per Census BPS — a population-and-demand growth signal.

Related Resources

Related:

Neighborhood-Specific Questions

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

What's the typical commute pattern in Mid-Cambridge?

Median commute time in Mid-Cambridge is about 29 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.

What's the vacancy picture in Mid-Cambridge?

Mid-Cambridge's housing vacancy rate is roughly 11%, compared to 5% across the Boston metro. Elevated vacancy can mean softening demand or short-term opportunity to negotiate rent — verify against commercial-corridor activity before committing.

How does Boston's survivability compare to national sector averages?

Per BLS Business Employment Dynamics (March 2025), 5-year survival rates by sector range from 47.8% (Active Life — gyms, studios) to 61.8% (Health & Medical), with Restaurants at 50% and Retail at 47.9%. Boston-specific factors layer on top of these national baselines.

Does ownership stability in Mid-Cambridge support steady local spending?

Home ownership in Mid-Cambridge is approximately 35%, versus the Boston metro median of 56%. A higher renter share often means more population turnover; quick-service food, fitness, and convenience tend to do well in such environments.

How does the median age in Mid-Cambridge compare to the Boston metro?

ACS data puts Mid-Cambridge's median age at 34, compared to the Boston metro median of 41. That's younger by 7 years — A younger profile tends to drive demand for nightlife, fitness, and casual dining over family-oriented services.