What are the best businesses to open in Old Town?

The top businesses to open in Old Town include Ukrainian Restaurant with a ~88% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~90%, followed by Kosher Restaurant and Vietnamese Restaurant.

What businesses are most in demand in Old Town?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Old Town are Ukrainian Restaurants, Kosher Restaurants, and Vietnamese Restaurants.

How much money could a business in Old Town make?

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

Is Old Town a good place to start a business?

Old Town is ranked number 53 across neighborhoods in and around Chicago to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~81%. Best-case locations for the top business types in Old Town produce survivability scores ~2% above the neighborhood-wide average.

Business Survivability in Old Town, Chicago

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Old Town is an Ukrainian Restaurant with a ~88% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•17 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: an Ukrainian Restaurant in Old Town (~88% average survival rate, ~90% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #53 across all neighborhoods in and around Chicago

Neighborhood average: ~81% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Last reviewed: April 30, 2026 by Bobby Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring

In this article:

Summary
Is Old Town 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 Old Town is an Ukrainian Restaurant with a ~88% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~90% chance; next is a Kosher Restaurant with a ~88% chance, followed by a Vietnamese Restaurant with a ~88% chance.

Is Old Town the right neighborhood for a new business?

**Pattern match:** Old Town's neighborhood signature — captured across demographic, employment, and amenity features — most closely matches **Danvers (Boston)** and **Northwood Estates Homeowners Association (Tampa Bay)**. The three share few nearby parks, high high-earner share, and low vacancy, which helps explain why business types that succeed in those areas tend to translate to Old Town.

**The pattern in Old Town.** Of 93 tracked subtypes, Ukrainian Restaurant leads at **88% average survivability** — yet within the neighborhood, sites for this subtype range **74-96%** (22-point spread). That spread is the real failure surface: pick the wrong block in Old Town and a top-subtype play still scores in the bottom quartile. Meanwhile Kosher Restaurants are already saturated here — 2 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Old Town is the #53 most survivable neighborhood for new businesses in and around Chicago, with an average score of ~81% across all analyzed categories.

Best-case locations for the top business types in Old Town produce survivability scores ~2% above the neighborhood-wide average.
However, those same business types at the weakest addresses in Old Town can score considerably below average. Even the most in-demand concept in Old Town will struggle if it opens at the wrong address.
Old Town's employment rate of 95.7% and commercial vacancy of 5.6% 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.

How to choose a specific location in Old Town

With StreetSpring, location selection in Old Town moves from guesswork to a precise, address-level survivability score for any business type you're considering. Of all available storefronts analyzed in Old Town, StreetSpring ranks this area highest for an Ukrainian Restaurant in 2026:

Walking the neighborhood: what to look for

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StreetSpring's 2026 data identifies this circle as the strongest area for an Ukrainian Restaurant in Old Town. Static rankings can't capture every recent change in competition or foot traffic; StreetSpring's live platform provides the current score for your exact address. 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 Old Town?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Old Town

Opening an Ukrainian Restaurant in Old Town shows ~88% average survivability. Top locations reach ~90%; lower-end sites show ~86%.
Kosher Restaurant (Ranked #2): ~88% average in Old Town. Best-case storefronts: ~90%. Challenging locations: ~86%.
Vietnamese Restaurant is ranked #3 for top businesses to open in Old Town: ~88% chance on average, best at ~89%, challenging at ~86%.
Bangladeshi Restaurant — ~86%–~90% survivability range, with an average of ~88% across Old Town.
Opening a South American Restaurant in Old Town shows ~88% average survivability. Top locations reach ~90%; lower-end sites show ~86%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Old Town

Brunch Restaurant (Ranked #6): ~88% average in Old Town. Best-case storefronts: ~90%. Challenging locations: ~86%.
Chinese Restaurant is ranked #7 for top businesses to open in Old Town: ~88% chance on average, best at ~89%, challenging at ~86%.
French Restaurant — ~87%–~90% survivability range, with an average of ~88% across Old Town.
Opening an Indonesian Restaurant in Old Town shows ~88% average survivability. Top locations reach ~90%; lower-end sites show ~86%.
Chicken Shop (Ranked #10): ~88% average in Old Town. Best-case storefronts: ~90%. Challenging locations: ~86%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

How location selection in Old Town affects revenue

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, choosing a high-performing site for your concept in Old Town 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

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

What businesses should open next in Old Town?

The top businesses to open next in Old Town:

Ukrainian Restaurants — ~88% average survival rate, up to ~90% at best locations
Kosher Restaurants — ~88% average survival rate
Vietnamese Restaurants — ~88% average survival rate

Static rankings can't capture every recent change in competition or foot traffic; StreetSpring's live platform provides the current score for your exact address. Every prediction draws on a dataset of millions of business openings, closures, and lifecycle events across the U.S. A 5.6% vacancy rate in Old Town reflects the current commercial environment; StreetSpring weights this directly in every survivability score for addresses in this neighborhood. These rankings are a snapshot; StreetSpring recalculates survivability for every location in Old Town 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 Chicago Business Survivability Rankings
See the Chicago Neighborhood Survivability Rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

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

What type of business should you rent your Old Town storefront to?

For landlords in Old Town, StreetSpring's 2026 analysis identifies Ukrainian Restaurants, Kosher Restaurants, and Vietnamese Restaurants as the business types most likely to produce stable, long-term tenancy.

Location is the single strongest predictor of whether a business thrives or fails.
Our address-level scoring shows the exact survivability odds for over 700 business types at any given storefront. 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 Old Town storefront to an Ukrainian Restaurant?

Yes, StreetSpring's analysis finds that an Ukrainian Restaurant would be the best type of business to rent your storefront to, with a potential ~90% chance of lasting more than 2 years; however depending on your location, the chances could drop to a ~86% chance.

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 Old Town?

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

High Revenue Capture Score is the clearest signal that a location can sustain a business over the long term.
StreetSpring's proprietary algorithms power these predictions.
StreetSpring is free to use — see the current survivability score for any address in Old Town right now.

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 Chicago are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

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

Area to check	What can go wrong	How to de-risk it
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.
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.
CAM + hidden costs	Stated rent looks great, then CAM fees, signage charges, and after-hours utilities add 15-30%.	Get the full operating expense breakdown for the past 2 years. Ask which costs are landlord-capped vs. uncapped.

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

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.

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

How we measure this: Our gradient-boosted survivability model has 100+ input features. The waterfall shows the top 6-8 contributors to a final score.

**Daytime population context (Old Town):** Per US Census LEHD LODES, the median 1-mile workplace-jobs population within Old Town is **70,776** — about **3.7× the resident population**, which qualifies as a worker-heavy mixed-use signal. Retail-sector jobs in that radius: **8,104**. This shapes which business models have a natural demand floor here.

Landmark anchor: Old Town's civic anchor is Near North Library Friends Association, a library that drives consistent weekday and weekend visits.

**Local economic context (Old Town, Chicago):** Old Town's ACS unemployment rate is **4.3%** (below 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.

**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.

Related Resources

Related:

Local Data Questions

More questions answered with neighborhood-specific data from our 2026 corpus.

Is Old Town mostly renters or owners?

ACS housing data shows 47% home ownership in Old Town, compared to 45% metro-wide. The ownership profile is typical for the metro.

What's the typical household size in Old Town, and what does it tell us?

Old Town's average household has 1.9 people — below the Chicago metro average (2.3). Household composition is close to the metro average.

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%. Chicago-specific factors layer on top of these national baselines.