Is Chinatown a good place to start a business?

Chinatown is ranked number 79 across neighborhoods in and around Chicago to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~77%. Top-performing business types at the best addresses in Chinatown show a ~3% survival rate advantage over the neighborhood average.

How much money could a business in Chinatown make?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations in Chinatown could lead to making ~3% more than selecting an average location, and ~4% more than one of the worst locations.

What are the best businesses to open in Chinatown?

The top businesses to open in Chinatown include Singaporean Restaurant with a ~85% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~88%, followed by Indonesian Restaurant and Italian Restaurant.

What businesses are most in demand in Chinatown?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Chinatown are Singaporean Restaurants, Indonesian Restaurants, and Italian Restaurants.

Business Survivability in Chinatown, Chicago

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Chinatown is a Singaporean Restaurant with a ~85% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•18 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Singaporean Restaurant in Chinatown (~85% average survival rate, ~88% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #79 across all neighborhoods in and around Chicago

Neighborhood average: ~77% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Reviewed and updated: May 5, 2026 — Bobby Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring

In this article:

Summary
Is Chinatown 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 Chinatown is a Singaporean Restaurant with a ~85% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~88% chance; next is an Indonesian Restaurant with a ~85% chance, followed by an Italian Restaurant with a ~85% chance.

What does the data say about opening in Chinatown?

**How Chinatown compares:** Chinatown's profile most resembles **Washington Park (Miami)** and **Egger Highlands (San Diego)** based on the demographic and density signatures we use to model location quality — all three share low high-earner share, lower-income, and less college-educated. Patterns from those neighborhoods are directly relevant for businesses evaluating Chinatown.

**Failure pattern in Chinatown.** Across the 93 business subtypes we track here, the strongest is **Indonesian Restaurant** at 85% average survivability — but the best and worst sites for this subtype within Chinatown span **69% to 97%**, a 28-point gap. **The dominant failure mode in Chinatown isn't subtype choice — it's site selection within the neighborhood.** Saturation context: Gyms are the most-concentrated tracked subtype in the area, with 7 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Chinatown is ranked number 79 across neighborhoods in and around Chicago to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~77%.

Top-performing business types at the best addresses in Chinatown show a ~3% survival rate advantage over the neighborhood average.
Yet the same categories that score highest in Chinatown can underperform significantly at the wrong address. Location precision within the neighborhood matters as much as choosing the neighborhood itself.
Chinatown's 6.8% commercial vacancy rate signals the current availability of storefronts and shapes the competitive environment that survivability scores reflect.

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

How to choose a specific location in Chinatown

Rather than relying on neighborhood averages, StreetSpring's scoring tells you which specific addresses in Chinatown give your concept the best odds of survival. StreetSpring's 2026 analysis identifies this area as the top location for a Singaporean Restaurant in Chinatown:

Why the right block matters more than the right neighborhood

Loading live map preview...

Per StreetSpring's 2026 model, this circle marks the highest-scoring area for a Singaporean Restaurant in Chinatown. Market conditions, new competitors, and local spending patterns can change rapidly — always verify with StreetSpring's live tool before signing a lease. StreetSpring's prediction model analyzes 100 factors across competition, spending on the specific potential business, projected revenue, projected market share, Revenue Capture Score, mobility patterns, and many more.

Check if this location is still available →

Which business types have the highest survivability in Chinatown?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Chinatown

Singaporean Restaurant is ranked #1 for top businesses to open in Chinatown: ~85% chance on average, best at ~88%, challenging at ~84%.
Indonesian Restaurant — ~84%–~87% survivability range, with an average of ~85% across Chinatown.
Opening an Italian Restaurant in Chinatown shows ~85% average survivability. Top locations reach ~87%; lower-end sites show ~84%.
Kosher Restaurant (Ranked #4): ~85% average in Chinatown. Best-case storefronts: ~87%. Challenging locations: ~83%.
Ukrainian Restaurant is ranked #5 for top businesses to open in Chinatown: ~85% chance on average, best at ~87%, challenging at ~83%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Chinatown

Filipino Restaurant — ~83%–~86% survivability range, with an average of ~85% across Chinatown.
Opening a Bangladeshi Restaurant in Chinatown shows ~85% average survivability. Top locations reach ~87%; lower-end sites show ~83%.
Chinese Restaurant (Ranked #8): ~85% average in Chinatown. Best-case storefronts: ~86%. Challenging locations: ~83%.
French Restaurant is ranked #9 for top businesses to open in Chinatown: ~85% chance on average, best at ~86%, challenging at ~83%.
Chicken Shop — ~83%–~87% survivability range, with an average of ~85% across Chinatown.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

What revenue can a Chinatown business expect?

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, picking the highest-scoring storefront in the neighborhood in Chinatown could lead to you making ~3% more than if you selected an average location, and ~4% more than if you selected one of the worst locations.

How StreetSpring calculates location value

The right address for one business type may be the wrong one for another — always evaluate fit for your specific concept.
Location is the single strongest predictor of whether a business thrives or fails.
StreetSpring has found that selecting the location with the highest survivability score for a business is the best way to maximize the amount of money you will make.
Two storefronts on the same street can have survivability scores that differ by 20 points or more — StreetSpring calculates each one individually.

What businesses should open next in Chinatown?

The top businesses to open next in Chinatown:

Singaporean Restaurants — ~85% average survival rate, up to ~88% at best locations
Indonesian Restaurants — ~85% average survival rate
Italian Restaurants — ~85% 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. Every prediction draws on a dataset of millions of business openings, closures, and lifecycle events across the U.S. Chinatown sits at 92.0% employment and 6.8% commercial vacancy — conditions that set the ceiling and floor for Revenue Capture potential across all business types here. Survivability scores are recalculated weekly as new competitors open and spending patterns shift — visit StreetSpring to see the current score for any open location in Chinatown right now.

See the Survivability Score for your new business

Related Articles:

See the Chicago Business Survivability Rankings
See the Chicago Neighborhood Survivability Rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

Based on 2026 survivability scores across all business types in Chinatown, the top three tenant categories for landlords are Singaporean Restaurants, Indonesian Restaurants, and Italian Restaurants.

Location is the single strongest predictor of whether a business thrives or fails.
Two storefronts on the same street can have survivability scores that differ by 20 points or more — StreetSpring calculates each one individually. 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 Chinatown storefront to a Singaporean Restaurant?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, a Singaporean Restaurant ranks as the top tenant type for your Chinatown storefront — best-case locations show a ~88% survival rate, while the most challenging addresses drop to ~84%.

Two storefronts on the same street can have survivability scores that differ by 20 points or more — StreetSpring calculates each one individually.

What should I consider when opening a business in Chinatown?

Before committing to any location in Chinatown, the highest-priority metric to check is the Survivability Score — it encodes every relevant location factor into a single, actionable number.

Revenue Capture Score is the single best indicator of whether a business will thrive at a location.
Each forecast is specific to the exact address and business type, generated by StreetSpring's internally developed prediction engine.
StreetSpring offers free access to its survivability scores — see how your shortlisted Chinatown addresses rank right now.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

StreetSpring's models are built from millions of real business outcomes, making predictions grounded in what actually happened. Aggregated survivability rankings for Chicago 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
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.
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.
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.

Full dataset for Chicago: /resources/data/chicago-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 Chicago business mix by survivability score — Treemap of business mix in Chicago — cell size = number of locations, color = average survivability score.

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

Bubble chart of business subtypes in Chicago by survivability score and location density — Every business subtype in Chicago 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.

**Chinatown at a glance.** Chinatown is a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, along S. Wentworth Avenue between Cermak Road and W. 26th St. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown%2C_Chicago))

**Daytime worker density (Chinatown):** LEHD LODES Workplace Area Characteristics show a **0.9:1 daytime-to-resident ratio** for Chinatown — a balanced mixed-use pattern. Median workplace jobs within a 1-mile radius across Chinatown: **14,524**, of which roughly **1,174** are retail-sector. Higher daytime ratios favor weekday-lunch / commuter-traffic businesses; balanced ratios favor residential + weekend demand patterns.

Landmark anchor: Chinatown's museum-anchor is Chinese American Museum of Chicago, the kind of landmark that pulls visitors into the surrounding commercial blocks.

**Local economic context (Chinatown, Chicago):** Chinatown's ACS unemployment rate is **8.0%** (above the 24-metro neighborhood median). County-level data adds two more anchors: BLS QCEW reports Chicago-area average weekly wage of **$1,198** (below our 24-metro median), and the Census Bureau Building Permits Survey logged **5,308** new residential units in Cook County in 2025 — a rough proxy for the local growth environment a new business is opening into.

**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%**.

Related Resources

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