What businesses are most in demand in West Side?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in West Side are Filipino Restaurants, Pet Boarding Facilities, and Italian Restaurants.

Is West Side a good place to start a business?

West Side is ranked number 80 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 West Side show a ~2% survival rate advantage over the neighborhood average.

What are the best businesses to open in West Side?

The top businesses to open in West Side include Filipino Restaurant with a ~86% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~88%, followed by Pet Boarding Facility and Italian Restaurant.

Business Survivability in West Side, Chicago

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in West Side is a Filipino Restaurant with a ~86% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•18 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Filipino Restaurant in West Side (~86% average survival rate, ~88% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #80 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: April 30, 2026 by Bobby Koons, StreetSpring founder

In this article:

Summary
Is West Side 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 West Side is a Filipino Restaurant with a ~86% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~88% chance; next is a Pet Boarding Facility with a ~86% chance, followed by an Italian Restaurant with a ~86% chance.

Should you open a business in West Side?

**Pattern match:** West Side's neighborhood signature — captured across demographic, employment, and amenity features — most closely matches **Sugaw Creek Ritch Ave (Charlotte)** and **Big Bear Lake (Los Angeles)**. The three share low high-earner share, lower-income, and younger population, which helps explain why business types that succeed in those areas tend to translate to West Side.

**The pattern in West Side.** Of 93 tracked subtypes, Filipino Restaurant leads at **86% average survivability** — yet within the neighborhood, sites for this subtype range **78-94%** (16-point spread). That spread is the real failure surface: pick the wrong block in West Side and a top-subtype play still scores in the bottom quartile. Meanwhile Kosher Restaurants are already saturated here — 3 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

StreetSpring ranks West Side #80 among all analyzed neighborhoods in and around Chicago, with a neighborhood-wide average survivability of ~77%.

Top-performing business types at the best addresses in West Side show a ~2% survival rate advantage over the neighborhood average.
Yet the same categories that score highest in West Side can underperform significantly at the wrong address. Location precision within the neighborhood matters as much as choosing the neighborhood itself.
StreetSpring's model incorporates West Side's 5.8% 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.

How can you find the best location to open a business in West Side?

StreetSpring's address-level analysis reveals which specific storefronts in West Side offer the strongest survivability odds for your business type. The map below shows the highest-scoring storefront area for a Filipino Restaurant in West Side per 2026 data:

Walking the neighborhood: what to look for

Loading live map preview...

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis of 100 location-specific factors, this area offers the highest projected survivability for a Filipino Restaurant in West Side. Market conditions, new competitors, and local spending patterns can change rapidly — always verify with StreetSpring's live tool before signing a lease. Factors evaluated include competition at every distance band, consumer spending forecasts, mobility patterns, and market share projections.

Check if this location is still available →

Which business types have the highest survivability in West Side?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in West Side

Filipino Restaurant is ranked #1 for top businesses to open in West Side: ~86% chance on average, best at ~88%, challenging at ~84%.
Pet Boarding Facility — ~85%–~88% survivability range, with an average of ~86% across West Side.
Opening an Italian Restaurant in West Side shows ~86% average survivability. Top locations reach ~88%; lower-end sites show ~85%.
American Restaurant (Ranked #4): ~86% average in West Side. Best-case storefronts: ~87%. Challenging locations: ~84%.
Singaporean Restaurant is ranked #5 for top businesses to open in West Side: ~86% chance on average, best at ~88%, challenging at ~85%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in West Side

Ukrainian Restaurant — ~84%–~88% survivability range, with an average of ~86% across West Side.
Opening a Bangladeshi Restaurant in West Side shows ~86% average survivability. Top locations reach ~88%; lower-end sites show ~84%.
South American Restaurant (Ranked #8): ~86% average in West Side. Best-case storefronts: ~87%. Challenging locations: ~84%.
Chinese Restaurant is ranked #9 for top businesses to open in West Side: ~86% chance on average, best at ~87%, challenging at ~84%.
Brunch Restaurant — ~83%–~88% survivability range, with an average of ~86% across West Side.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

Filipino Restaurant — See how this compares to other cities →

How much money could a business in West Side make?

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, securing a location with maximum Revenue Capture potential in West Side could lead to you making ~2% 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

Different business models thrive in different micro-locations.
A great product in the wrong location will underperform; an average product in the right location can thrive.
The businesses that outperform their category averages most consistently are those that scored highest on survivability before opening.
StreetSpring delivers pinpoint accuracy down to the exact storefront location.

What West Side needs more of (per our model)

The top businesses to open next in West Side:

Filipino Restaurants — ~86% average survival rate, up to ~88% at best locations
Pet Boarding Facilities — ~86% average survival rate
Italian Restaurants — ~86% 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. Our models are built using machine learning trained on millions of commercial real estate data points. StreetSpring's model accounts for West Side's 95.5% employment rate when projecting survivability — businesses reliant on discretionary spend benefit disproportionately in well-employed neighborhoods. StreetSpring refreshes survivability scores every week to reflect new competition and updated spending data — see which locations in West Side 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 West Side.

What type of business should you rent your West Side storefront to?

Our 2026 survivability data for West Side shows that Filipino Restaurants, Pet Boarding Facilities, and Italian Restaurants rank as the top tenant categories for minimizing vacancy risk.

A great product in the wrong location will underperform; an average product in the right location can thrive.
StreetSpring delivers pinpoint accuracy down to the exact storefront location. 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 West Side storefront to a Filipino Restaurant?

Yes — our 2026 model places a Filipino Restaurant at the top of the survivability rankings for West Side storefronts, with a best-case score of ~88% and a floor of ~84% at the most challenging addresses.

StreetSpring delivers pinpoint accuracy down to the exact storefront location.

What should I consider when opening a business in West Side?

The Survivability Score for your specific address in West Side is the most reliable signal you have before signing a lease — prioritize it above foot traffic estimates and demographic summaries.

Among all the inputs that shape survivability, Revenue Capture Score carries the most predictive weight.
These forecasts are generated using StreetSpring's unique analytical framework.
No subscription required: access the current survivability score for any West Side address through StreetSpring's free tool.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

Real estate professionals and business owners across 24 major metros use StreetSpring to ground their site-selection decisions in data, not guesswork. 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
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.
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.
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.

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

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.

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 West Side, Chicago — Top business types scored in West Side, Chicago — each axis is a subtype, taller = stronger survival rate.

How we measure this: Annual rent / estimated annual revenue = rent burden ratio. Industry rule of thumb: above 12% is uncomfortable, above 18% is fatal.

**West Side at a glance.** The West Side is one of the three major geographical "sides" of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The others are the North Side and South Side. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side%2C_Chicago))

**Daytime population context (West Side):** Per US Census LEHD LODES, the median 1-mile workplace-jobs population within West Side is **28,664** — about **4.9× the resident population**, which qualifies as a worker-heavy mixed-use signal. Retail-sector jobs in that radius: **756**. This shapes which business models have a natural demand floor here.

Landmark anchor: Adam Perry Park anchors West Side's green-space backbone and shapes the neighborhood's foot-traffic patterns.

**Local economic context (West Side, Chicago):** West Side's ACS unemployment rate is **4.5%** (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.

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