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

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 Mission Hill maximize success.

Is Mission Hill a good place to start a business?

Mission Hill is ranked number 46 across neighborhoods in and around Boston to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~76%. Strong business types at their best-match addresses in Mission Hill consistently score ~2% higher than the overall neighborhood survivability average.

How much money could a business in Mission Hill make?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations in Mission Hill could lead to making ~2% more than selecting an average location, and ~5% more than one of the worst locations.

What businesses are most in demand in Mission Hill?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Mission Hill are Pet Grooming Shops, Delis, and Dance Clubs.

Business Survivability in Mission Hill, Boston

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Mission Hill is a Pet Grooming Shop with a ~83% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•17 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Pet Grooming Shop in Mission Hill (~83% average survival rate, ~85% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #46 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 3, 2026 by Bobby Koons, StreetSpring founder

In this article:

Summary
Is Mission Hill 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 Mission Hill is a Pet Grooming Shop 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 Deli with a ~82% chance, followed by a Dance Club with a ~82% chance.

How business-friendly is Mission Hill right now?

**How Mission Hill compares:** Mission Hill's profile most resembles **Lower Queen Anne (Seattle)** and **Mid City West (Los Angeles)** based on the demographic and density signatures we use to model location quality — all three share many nearby parks, white-collar job mix, and many high-wage jobs nearby. Patterns from those neighborhoods are directly relevant for businesses evaluating Mission Hill.

**Failure pattern in Mission Hill.** Across the 93 business subtypes we track here, the strongest is **Dance Club** at 82% average survivability — but the best and worst sites for this subtype within Mission Hill span **77% to 88%**, a 11-point gap. **The dominant failure mode in Mission Hill isn't subtype choice — it's site selection within the neighborhood.** Saturation context: Ukrainian Restaurants are the most-concentrated tracked subtype in the area, with 23 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Out of all neighborhoods analyzed in and around Boston, Mission Hill ranks #46 for business survivability with a ~76% average Survivability Score.

Strong business types at their best-match addresses in Mission Hill consistently score ~2% higher than the overall neighborhood survivability average.
That said, the same business types at the worst-fit addresses in Mission Hill can drop substantially below average. The survivability gap between the best and worst addresses in a single neighborhood can be 20 points or more.
Mission Hill's employment rate of 95.0% and commercial vacancy of 5.7% 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.

Pinpointing the best locations within Mission Hill

With StreetSpring, location selection in Mission Hill moves from guesswork to a precise, address-level survivability score for any business type you're considering. The map below shows the highest-scoring storefront area for a Pet Grooming Shop in Mission Hill per 2026 data:

Reading visibility, frontage, and parking carefully

Loading live map preview...

This map shows the optimal location for a Pet Grooming Shop in Mission Hill based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis. The most reliable survivability data for any specific location is always StreetSpring's most recent live analysis, not aggregate neighborhood rankings. 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 →

What are the best businesses to open in Mission Hill?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Mission Hill

Pet Grooming Shop — ~81%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Mission Hill.
Opening a Deli in Mission Hill shows ~82% average survivability. Top locations reach ~84%; lower-end sites show ~81%.
Dance Club (Ranked #3): ~82% average in Mission Hill. Best-case storefronts: ~84%. Challenging locations: ~80%.
Diner is ranked #4 for top businesses to open in Mission Hill: ~82% chance on average, best at ~84%, challenging at ~80%.
Music Store — ~79%–~84% survivability range, with an average of ~82% across Mission Hill.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Mission Hill

Opening a Japanese / Sushi Restaurant in Mission Hill shows ~82% average survivability. Top locations reach ~83%; lower-end sites show ~80%.
Bar (Ranked #7): ~82% average in Mission Hill. Best-case storefronts: ~84%. Challenging locations: ~79%.
Pet Store is ranked #8 for top businesses to open in Mission Hill: ~81% chance on average, best at ~83%, challenging at ~79%.
Veterinary Clinic — ~79%–~83% survivability range, with an average of ~81% across Mission Hill.
Opening a Scandinavian Restaurant in Mission Hill shows ~81% average survivability. Top locations reach ~82%; lower-end sites show ~79%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

Deli — See how this compares to other cities →
Dance Club — See how this compares to other cities →

What you could earn opening a business in Mission Hill

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, identifying the optimal address for your business type in Mission Hill 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

Different business models thrive in different micro-locations.
The address you choose determines your competitive exposure, customer flow, and spending potential simultaneously.
Across every business type we've analyzed, location quality as measured by Survivability Score is the strongest predictor of financial performance.
StreetSpring can pinpoint which blocks in each neighborhood or city maximize a business's chances of success.

What businesses should open next in Mission Hill?

The top businesses to open next in Mission Hill:

Pet Grooming Shops — ~83% average survival rate, up to ~85% at best locations
Delis — ~82% average survival rate
Dance Clubs — ~82% average survival rate

The most reliable survivability data for any specific location is always StreetSpring's most recent live analysis, not aggregate neighborhood rankings. StreetSpring's training dataset includes millions of transactions and business lifecycle events. StreetSpring's model accounts for Mission Hill's 95.0% employment rate when projecting survivability — businesses reliant on discretionary spend benefit disproportionately in well-employed neighborhoods. These rankings are a snapshot; StreetSpring recalculates survivability for every location in Mission Hill weekly, incorporating the latest competitive openings, closures, and spending data — check current locations 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 Mission Hill.

What type of business should you rent your Mission Hill storefront to?

Our 2026 survivability data for Mission Hill shows that Pet Grooming Shops, Delis, and Dance Clubs rank as the top tenant categories for minimizing vacancy risk.

The address you choose determines your competitive exposure, customer flow, and spending potential simultaneously.
StreetSpring can pinpoint which blocks in each neighborhood or city maximize a business's chances of success. Landlords can use StreetSpring to match their exact address to the tenant types most likely to stay open and paying rent for 2+ years.

Should you rent your Mission Hill storefront to a Pet Grooming Shop?

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis strongly supports renting to a Pet Grooming Shop in Mission Hill: best-in-class addresses achieve ~85% survivability, and even the lower-end sites come in at ~81% — above average for most business types.

StreetSpring can pinpoint which blocks in each neighborhood or city maximize a business's chances of success.

What should I consider when opening a business in Mission Hill?

Don't commit to a storefront in Mission Hill without first checking its Survivability Score — the difference between a 70% and a 90% score at two addresses on the same block can determine your long-term outcome.

High Revenue Capture Score is the clearest signal that a location can sustain a business over the long term.
Every survivability score is produced by StreetSpring's private prediction engine — not available through any other platform.
Access StreetSpring's current survivability data for any address in Mission Hill for free at any time.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

StreetSpring analyzes millions of data points with AI to forecast business survivability. Aggregated survivability rankings for Boston are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

How seasonality plays out here

Consideration	Common pitfall	What to verify before signing
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.
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.

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%**.

**A bit of history.** Mission Hill is a 3⁄4 square mile, primarily residential neighborhood of Boston, bordered by Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Fenway-Kenmore and the town of Brookline. The neighborhood has two main streets, namely Tremont Street and Huntington Avenue. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Hill%2C_Boston))

**Worker-to-resident ratio (Mission Hill):** LEHD daytime population data gives Mission Hill a **2.5-to-1 worker/resident ratio** (a worker-heavy mixed-use signal). Median 1-mile workplace jobs: **106,388**; retail share within that: **2,672**. Worker-heavy neighborhoods skew demand toward weekday-business-hours; resident-heavy neighborhoods skew toward evenings and weekends.

Landmark anchor: Warren Anatomical Museum anchors Mission Hill as a science-museum destination, with the weekend family-traffic that comes with it.

**Economic context that bounds the demand environment in Mission Hill:** Per ACS, neighborhood unemployment is **5.0%** (in line with 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:

Local Context FAQ

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

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

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 Mission Hill support steady local spending?

27% of Mission Hill households own their home, against 56% across the Boston metro. A higher renter share often means more population turnover; quick-service food, fitness, and convenience tend to do well in such environments.

What does the employment picture in Mission Hill look like for new businesses?

Roughly 95% of Mission Hill's working-age population is employed, against a Boston metro median of 96%. Employment is close to the metro median, suggesting stable underlying demand.