What are the best businesses to open in Portage Park?

The top businesses to open in Portage Park include Italian Restaurant with a ~90% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~91%, followed by Ukrainian Restaurant and Filipino Restaurant.

What businesses are most in demand in Portage Park?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Portage Park are Italian Restaurants, Ukrainian Restaurants, and Filipino Restaurants.

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

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 Portage Park maximize success.

Business Survivability in Portage Park, Chicago

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Portage Park is an Italian Restaurant with a ~90% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•18 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: an Italian Restaurant in Portage Park (~90% average survival rate, ~91% at best locations)

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

Neighborhood average: ~82% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Last reviewed: May 8, 2026 by Bobby Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring

In this article:

Summary
Is Portage Park 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 Portage Park is an Italian Restaurant with a ~90% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~91% chance; next is an Ukrainian Restaurant with a ~89% chance, followed by a Filipino Restaurant with a ~89% chance.

Is Portage Park a good place to start a business?

**How Portage Park compares:** Portage Park's profile most resembles **Ravenswood Manor (Chicago)** and **Academy Gardens (Philadelphia)** based on the demographic and density signatures we use to model location quality — all three share longer commutes, blue-collar job mix, and low destination density. Patterns from those neighborhoods are directly relevant for businesses evaluating Portage Park.

**Failure pattern in Portage Park.** Across the 93 business subtypes we track here, the strongest is **Filipino Restaurant** at 89% average survivability — but the best and worst sites for this subtype within Portage Park span **71% to 97%**, a 26-point gap. **The dominant failure mode in Portage Park isn't subtype choice — it's site selection within the neighborhood.** Saturation context: American Restaurants are the most-concentrated tracked subtype in the area, with 1 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Portage Park holds the #45 position in and around Chicago for new business survivability, averaging ~82% across all analyzed business types.

The most promising business types in the best locations score a ~2% higher chance of surviving 2 years than the average.
Yet the same categories that score highest in Portage Park can underperform significantly at the wrong address. Location precision within the neighborhood matters as much as choosing the neighborhood itself.
StreetSpring's model incorporates Portage Park's 5.7% 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.

Where in Portage Park should you open a business?

StreetSpring narrows the decision down to the exact address — showing which blocks in Portage Park produce the highest survivability scores for your concept. The location below represents the address in Portage Park with the highest projected survivability for an Italian Restaurant:

Why the right block matters more than the right neighborhood

Loading live map preview...

StreetSpring's 2026 model identifies this area as the highest-survivability location for an Italian Restaurant in Portage Park. For the most current predictions, visit StreetSpring to analyze your specific location in real-time. The model evaluates 100 factors — from primary and secondary competition to forecasted spend, mobility flows, and local market share potential.

Check if this location is still available →

Which business types have the highest survivability in Portage Park?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Portage Park

Opening an Italian Restaurant in Portage Park shows ~90% average survivability. Top locations reach ~91%; lower-end sites show ~88%.
Ukrainian Restaurant (Ranked #2): ~89% average in Portage Park. Best-case storefronts: ~92%. Challenging locations: ~87%.
Filipino Restaurant is ranked #3 for top businesses to open in Portage Park: ~89% chance on average, best at ~91%, challenging at ~87%.
Indonesian Restaurant — ~88%–~91% survivability range, with an average of ~89% across Portage Park.
Opening a Bangladeshi Restaurant in Portage Park shows ~89% average survivability. Top locations reach ~91%; lower-end sites show ~88%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Portage Park

South American Restaurant (Ranked #6): ~89% average in Portage Park. Best-case storefronts: ~91%. Challenging locations: ~87%.
Chinese Restaurant is ranked #7 for top businesses to open in Portage Park: ~89% chance on average, best at ~91%, challenging at ~88%.
Deli — ~88%–~91% survivability range, with an average of ~89% across Portage Park.
Opening a French Restaurant in Portage Park shows ~89% average survivability. Top locations reach ~91%; lower-end sites show ~88%.
Chicken Shop (Ranked #10): ~89% average in Portage Park. Best-case storefronts: ~91%. Challenging locations: ~88%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

Filipino Restaurant — See how this compares to other cities →

How much money could a business in Portage Park make?

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, picking the highest-scoring storefront in the neighborhood in Portage Park could lead to you making ~2% more than if you selected an average location, and ~3% more than if you selected one of the worst locations.

How StreetSpring calculates location value

Different business models thrive in different micro-locations.
Location is the biggest factor in a business's future success.
Survivability Score is not just a survival metric — it's a revenue predictor, and the higher the score, the stronger the long-term financial outlook.
No other tool calculates survivability at the storefront level across 700+ business types the way StreetSpring does.

The biggest opportunity gaps in Portage Park

The top businesses to open next in Portage Park:

Italian Restaurants — ~90% average survival rate, up to ~91% at best locations
Ukrainian Restaurants — ~89% average survival rate
Filipino Restaurants — ~89% average survival rate

For the most current predictions, visit StreetSpring to analyze your specific location in real-time. Our analysis covers every major metro in the country — 24 cities and 180 million++ consumers. Portage Park's combination of 95.7% employment and 5.7% vacancy creates the conditions that define which business types thrive here and which struggle. StreetSpring refreshes survivability scores every week to reflect new competition and updated spending data — see which locations in Portage Park are available right now and how they rank.

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 Portage Park.

What type of business should you rent your Portage Park storefront to?

StreetSpring's 2026 model places Italian Restaurants, Ukrainian Restaurants, and Filipino Restaurants at the top of the survivability rankings for Portage Park — making them the safest long-term tenant bets for landlords here.

Location is the biggest factor in a business's future success.
No other tool calculates survivability at the storefront level across 700+ business types the way StreetSpring does. 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 Portage Park storefront to an Italian Restaurant?

The data shows an Italian Restaurant is the safest long-term bet for a Portage Park storefront. Top locations reach ~91% survivability; the least favorable addresses in this neighborhood score around ~88%.

No other tool calculates survivability at the storefront level across 700+ business types the way StreetSpring does.

What should I consider when opening a business in Portage Park?

StreetSpring's Survivability Score for your Portage Park 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.

High Revenue Capture Score is the clearest signal that a location can sustain a business over the long term.
StreetSpring uses its own proprietary forecasting tools to identify the Revenue Capture Score for each unique business.
No subscription required: access the current survivability score for any Portage Park address through StreetSpring's free tool.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

Our analysis covers businesses serving more than 180 million+ Americans across 24 major US metros. 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
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.
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.
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

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 Portage Park, Chicago — Top business types scored in Portage Park, 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.

**About Portage Park** — Portage Park is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago in Illinois, United States, located on the northwest side of Chicago. Portage Park is bordered by the community areas of Jefferson Park and Forest Glen to the north, Dunning and the suburb of Harwood Heights to the west, Irving Park to the east and Belmont-Cragin to the south. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_Park%2C_Chicago))

**Daytime vs. resident population (Portage Park):** US Census LEHD workplace data shows Portage Park carries a **0.2× daytime/resident ratio** (a primarily-residential neighborhood with minimal daytime worker traffic), with median 1-mile workplace jobs of **6,436** (and **1,260** retail-sector jobs within that radius). A useful read on demand timing for any new storefront concept here.

Landmark anchor: National Veterans Art Museum anchors Portage Park as an art-museum destination — the kind of pull factor a new business can build a marketing radius around.

**Economic context that bounds the demand environment in Portage Park:** Per ACS, neighborhood unemployment is **4.3%** (below the 24-metro neighborhood median). BLS QCEW shows the Chicago metro's average weekly wage at **$1,198** (below our 24-metro median). And Cook County permitted **5,308** new residential units in 2025 per Census BPS — a population-and-demand growth signal.

**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:

Neighborhood-Specific Questions

Additional questions with answers drawn directly from local data sources.

What's the poverty rate in Portage Park, and what does it imply for businesses?

ACS data shows 10% of Portage Park residents below the federal poverty line, versus 12% metro-wide. The poverty rate tracks the metro median; business-type fit depends more on competition and demographic specifics.

Is Portage Park's population younger or older than the Chicago average?

ACS data puts Portage Park's median age at 40, compared to the Chicago metro median of 37. That's older by 3 years — The demographic profile is close to the metro average, so business-type fit is driven by other factors like income and competition.

How many people live in Portage Park?

ACS data estimates the Portage Park resident population at roughly 37.9K. A larger resident base supports a broader range of business types and can absorb more direct competitors.

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

ACS data puts average household size in Portage Park at 2.7, compared to 2.3 across Chicago. Household composition is close to the metro average.