Is Wicker Park a good place to start a business?

Wicker Park is ranked number 57 across neighborhoods in and around Chicago to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~81%. Strong business types at their best-match addresses in Wicker Park consistently score ~2% higher than the overall neighborhood survivability average.

How much money could a business in Wicker Park make?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations in Wicker Park could lead to making ~2% more than selecting an average location, and ~4% more than one of the worst locations.

What are the best businesses to open in Wicker Park?

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

What businesses are most in demand in Wicker Park?

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

Business Survivability in Wicker Park, Chicago

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Wicker Park is a Filipino 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: a Filipino Restaurant in Wicker Park (~88% average survival rate, ~90% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #57 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: May 3, 2026 by Bobby Koons, StreetSpring founder — updated weekly

In this article:

Summary
Is Wicker 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 Wicker Park is a Filipino 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 an Ukrainian Restaurant with a ~88% chance, followed by a Kosher Restaurant with a ~88% chance.

How business-friendly is Wicker Park right now?

**Pattern match:** Wicker Park's neighborhood signature — captured across demographic, employment, and amenity features — most closely matches **Roxborough Park (Philadelphia)** and **Park Forest (Dallas)**. The three share low poverty, higher employment, and low vacancy, which helps explain why business types that succeed in those areas tend to translate to Wicker Park.

**The pattern in Wicker Park.** Of 93 tracked subtypes, Ukrainian Restaurant leads at **88% average survivability** — yet within the neighborhood, sites for this subtype range **76-97%** (21-point spread). That spread is the real failure surface: pick the wrong block in Wicker Park 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.

In Chicago's neighborhood survivability rankings, Wicker Park comes in at #57, with an average Survivability Score of ~81% across all business types.

Strong business types at their best-match addresses in Wicker Park consistently score ~2% higher than the overall neighborhood survivability average.
That said, the same business types at the worst-fit addresses in Wicker Park can drop substantially below average. The survivability gap between the best and worst addresses in a single neighborhood can be 20 points or more.
Wicker Park's 4.9% 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 can you find the best location to open a business in Wicker Park?

Using StreetSpring, you can identify the exact address in Wicker Park that gives your specific business concept the highest survivability score. Here is the top survivability address for a Filipino Restaurant in Wicker Park, per StreetSpring's 2026 model:

The locations that show up in our top-10 lists

Loading live map preview...

This map shows the optimal location for a Filipino Restaurant in Wicker Park based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis. However, individual locations vary widely, and even in lower-scoring neighborhoods there are pockets that perform exceptionally well. 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 →

Which business types have the highest survivability in Wicker Park?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Wicker Park

Filipino Restaurant (Ranked #1): ~88% average in Wicker Park. Best-case storefronts: ~90%. Challenging locations: ~87%.
Ukrainian Restaurant is ranked #2 for top businesses to open in Wicker Park: ~88% chance on average, best at ~91%, challenging at ~86%.
Kosher Restaurant — ~86%–~90% survivability range, with an average of ~88% across Wicker Park.
Opening a Bangladeshi Restaurant in Wicker Park shows ~88% average survivability. Top locations reach ~90%; lower-end sites show ~86%.
South American Restaurant (Ranked #5): ~88% average in Wicker Park. Best-case storefronts: ~90%. Challenging locations: ~86%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Wicker Park

Chinese Restaurant is ranked #6 for top businesses to open in Wicker Park: ~88% chance on average, best at ~89%, challenging at ~86%.
Chicken Shop — ~87%–~90% survivability range, with an average of ~88% across Wicker Park.
Opening an Indonesian Restaurant in Wicker Park shows ~88% average survivability. Top locations reach ~90%; lower-end sites show ~87%.
Deli (Ranked #9): ~88% average in Wicker Park. Best-case storefronts: ~89%. Challenging locations: ~86%.
French Restaurant is ranked #10 for top businesses to open in Wicker Park: ~88% chance on average, best at ~90%, challenging at ~87%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

Filipino Restaurant — See how this compares to other cities →

How location selection in Wicker Park affects revenue

Best location vs. average location

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

Site-specific factors can dramatically alter outcomes even within the same neighborhood.
Nothing influences a business's future more than its location.
Businesses in high-scoring locations consistently outperform those in average or low-scoring sites.
StreetSpring provides address-specific survivability predictions for over 700 business types.

Which business types are most underserved in Wicker Park?

The top businesses to open next in Wicker Park:

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

However, individual locations vary widely, and even in lower-scoring neighborhoods there are pockets that perform exceptionally well. The model draws from 100+ location-specific factors to generate each survivability score. The 4.9% commercial vacancy rate in Wicker Park means there is available space for new entrants — but it also signals that survivability depends heavily on choosing the right address within the neighborhood, not just the neighborhood itself. Because market conditions shift constantly, StreetSpring updates every location's survivability score weekly — you can see current scores for available storefronts in Wicker Park 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 Wicker Park.

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

Based on 2026 survivability scores across all business types in Wicker Park, the top three tenant categories for landlords are Filipino Restaurants, Ukrainian Restaurants, and Kosher Restaurants.

Nothing influences a business's future more than its location.
StreetSpring provides address-specific survivability predictions for over 700 business types. With StreetSpring, you can rank every potential tenant type by survivability score at your property address before committing to a lease.

Should you rent your Wicker Park storefront to a Filipino Restaurant?

Yes — our 2026 model places a Filipino Restaurant at the top of the survivability rankings for Wicker Park storefronts, with a best-case score of ~90% and a floor of ~87% at the most challenging addresses.

StreetSpring provides address-specific survivability predictions for over 700 business types.

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

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

StreetSpring's analysis consistently shows Revenue Capture Score predicts survival odds more accurately than demographic data or foot traffic estimates alone.
StreetSpring uses its own proprietary forecasting tools to identify the Revenue Capture Score for each unique business.
StreetSpring's live scoring tool is free: enter any address in Wicker Park to see its current Survivability Score for your business type.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

StreetSpring's AI platform has analyzed thousands of business openings to identify success patterns. Aggregated survivability rankings for Chicago are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

How seasonality plays out here

Area to check	What can go wrong	How to de-risk it
Build-out budget	Underestimating mechanical, electrical, and plumbing — the "hidden" 30-50% of build-out cost.	Get 3 quotes from licensed contractors and pad budget by +20% for surprises. Confirm landlord TI allowance in writing.
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.
Lease term	Locking into 7-10 years without break clauses, then needing to relocate after year 2.	Negotiate a relocation or termination clause. Confirm assignment + sublease rights are in writing.

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.

How we measure this: Most retail competition operates within a 500-meter radius — outside that, behavioral economics show customers don't routinely switch.

**A bit of history.** Wicker Park is a neighborhood in the West Town community area of the West Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States, west of the Kennedy Expressway, east of Humboldt Park, and south of the Bloomingdale Trail, known for its nightlife and food scene. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicker_Park%2C_Chicago))

**Daytime population context (Wicker Park):** Per US Census LEHD LODES, the median 1-mile workplace-jobs population within Wicker Park is **27,056** — about **1.5× the resident population**, which qualifies as a balanced mixed-use pattern. Retail-sector jobs in that radius: **3,571**. This shapes which business models have a natural demand floor here.

Landmark anchor: Sapere Art/Intuitive Works anchors Wicker Park as an art-museum destination — the kind of pull factor a new business can build a marketing radius around.

**Three local anchors for Wicker Park:** **3.0%** neighborhood unemployment (below the 24-metro median, ACS), **$1,198/week** average wage in the Chicago area (below our metro median, BLS QCEW), and **5,308** new residential units permitted in Cook County in 2025 (Census BPS). These three together describe the demand-and-labor environment any new Wicker Park business operates within.

**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:

Local Data Questions

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

Does Wicker Park's poverty rate signal lower retail spending?

ACS data shows 5% of Wicker Park residents below the federal poverty line, versus 12% metro-wide. Low poverty supports the broadest range of business types, including premium and discretionary categories.

How educated is the population in Wicker Park?

85% of Wicker Park adults have at least a bachelor's degree — above the Chicago metro median of 52%. A highly educated population tends to support specialty retail, premium services, and professional offices.

What is the median age in Wicker Park, and what does that mean for businesses?

Wicker Park's median age is 33 versus a Chicago metro median of 37 — younger by 5 years. This shapes which business types tend to survive: A younger profile tends to drive demand for nightlife, fitness, and casual dining over family-oriented services.