How much money could a business in Oak Lawn make?

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

What businesses are most in demand in Oak Lawn?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Oak Lawn are Pet Stores, Portuguese Restaurants, and Caribbean / Latin Restaurants.

How can you find the best location to open a business in Oak Lawn?

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 Oak Lawn maximize success.

What are the best businesses to open in Oak Lawn?

The top businesses to open in Oak Lawn include Pet Store with a ~83% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~85%, followed by Portuguese Restaurant and Caribbean / Latin Restaurant.

Business Survivability in Oak Lawn, Dallas

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Oak Lawn is a Pet Store with a ~83% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•17 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Pet Store in Oak Lawn (~83% average survival rate, ~85% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #16 across all neighborhoods in and around Dallas

Neighborhood average: ~79% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Last reviewed by Bobby Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring — April 26, 2026

In this article:

Summary
Is Oak Lawn 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 Oak Lawn is a Pet Store with a ~83% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~85% chance; next is a Portuguese Restaurant with a ~83% chance, followed by a Caribbean / Latin Restaurant with a ~83% chance.

Is Oak Lawn a good place to start a business?

**Comparable neighborhoods:** Among the ~2,500 neighborhoods StreetSpring scores, Oak Lawn's profile most resembles **Wynwood Edgewater (Miami)** and **Aberdeen Forest (Atlanta)**. All three exhibit high destination retail density, more renters, and less transit-reliant — operators with experience in any of those neighborhoods will see familiar patterns in Oak Lawn.

**Failure-mode analysis for Oak Lawn.** The single strongest subtype in our data is **Pet Store** at 83% average survivability. But the within-neighborhood spread for Pet Stores runs **76% to 86%** — meaning a poorly-sited Pet Store in Oak Lawn can score 10 points below a well-sited one. Saturation reality check: Kosher Restaurants are the most-competed tracked subtype here, with 32 existing competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Among all neighborhoods in and around Dallas, Oak Lawn ranks #16 for business survivability, with an average score of ~79%.

The survivability gap between the best and average addresses in Oak Lawn reaches ~2% for the strongest-performing business categories.
Even so, the weakest addresses in Oak Lawn for those same business types can underperform considerably. StreetSpring's address-level scoring exists precisely to identify which specific storefronts make the difference.
Oak Lawn's 11.5% 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.

Where in Oak Lawn should you open a business?

StreetSpring's Oak Lawn data goes block by block — not just neighborhood averages — so you know which specific storefront gives your concept the strongest foundation. The location below represents the address in Oak Lawn with the highest projected survivability for a Pet Store:

Walking the neighborhood: what to look for

Loading live map preview...

The highlighted area represents the address in Oak Lawn that StreetSpring's 2026 analysis ranks highest for a Pet Store survivability. Neighborhood-level averages are a starting point — the exact address will determine your actual survivability score. StreetSpring's scoring incorporates 100 inputs, including competitive quality and density, projected consumer spending, Revenue Capture Score, and mobility data.

Check if this location is still available →

Top-ranked business types for Oak Lawn

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Oak Lawn

Pet Store — ~81%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Oak Lawn.
Opening a Portuguese Restaurant in Oak Lawn shows ~83% average survivability. Top locations reach ~85%; lower-end sites show ~81%.
Caribbean / Latin Restaurant (Ranked #3): ~83% average in Oak Lawn. Best-case storefronts: ~85%. Challenging locations: ~81%.
South African Restaurant is ranked #4 for top businesses to open in Oak Lawn: ~83% chance on average, best at ~84%, challenging at ~82%.
Ethiopian Restaurant — ~82%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Oak Lawn.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Oak Lawn

Opening a German Restaurant in Oak Lawn shows ~83% average survivability. Top locations reach ~85%; lower-end sites show ~81%.
Syrian Restaurant (Ranked #7): ~83% average in Oak Lawn. Best-case storefronts: ~85%. Challenging locations: ~81%.
Watch Store or Repair Shop is ranked #8 for top businesses to open in Oak Lawn: ~83% chance on average, best at ~86%, challenging at ~80%.
Afghan Restaurant — ~82%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Oak Lawn.
Opening a Veterinary Clinic in Oak Lawn shows ~83% average survivability. Top locations reach ~85%; lower-end sites show ~81%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

Caribbean / Latin Restaurant — See how this compares to other cities →

What you could earn opening a business in Oak Lawn

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, securing a location with maximum Revenue Capture potential in Oak Lawn 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

Site selection requires evaluating the specific combination of your business type and the exact address — neighborhood-level data is only the starting point.
Among all variables that affect business outcomes, location has the highest predictive weight in our models.
StreetSpring's analysis shows that businesses in top-scoring locations generate meaningfully more revenue and stay open longer than those in average locations.
Our address-level scoring shows the exact survivability odds for over 700 business types at any given storefront.

What Oak Lawn needs more of (per our model)

The top businesses to open next in Oak Lawn:

Pet Stores — ~83% average survival rate, up to ~85% at best locations
Portuguese Restaurants — ~83% average survival rate
Caribbean / Latin Restaurants — ~83% average survival rate

Neighborhood-level averages are a starting point — the exact address will determine your actual survivability score. Every prediction draws on a dataset of millions of business openings, closures, and lifecycle events across the U.S. The survivability rankings for Oak Lawn are grounded in real economic conditions: 95.3% employment and 11.5% vacancy are among the key inputs that separate high-scoring locations from low-scoring ones here. Because market conditions shift constantly, StreetSpring updates every location's survivability score weekly — you can see current scores for available storefronts in Oak Lawn right now.

See the Survivability Score for your new business

Related Articles:

See the Dallas Business Survivability Rankings
See the Dallas Neighborhood Survivability Rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

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

What type of business should you rent your Oak Lawn storefront to?

The analysis is clear: in Oak Lawn, Pet Stores, Portuguese Restaurants, and Caribbean / Latin Restaurants consistently score highest on survivability, giving landlords the best chance of retaining tenants for 2+ years.

Among all variables that affect business outcomes, location has the highest predictive weight in our models.
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 Oak Lawn storefront to a Pet Store?

The data shows a Pet Store is the safest long-term bet for a Oak Lawn storefront. Top locations reach ~85% survivability; the least favorable addresses in this neighborhood score around ~81%.

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 Oak Lawn?

In Oak Lawn, the single most important factor in your site-selection decision is the Survivability Score of the specific address you're evaluating.

Revenue Capture Score matters more than any other single metric when predicting business outcomes.
The underlying models are StreetSpring's own — built, trained, and maintained using data external platforms cannot access.
You can check the Survivability Score for any storefront in Oak Lawn at no cost using StreetSpring's live tool.

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

The hidden costs of operating in this neighborhood

Factor	Where new owners get tripped up	Questions to ask before you sign
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.
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.
Anchor co-tenancy	Signing next to a high-traffic anchor that closes 6 months later, leaving you orphaned.	Ask for a co-tenancy clause — rent abatement or termination right if the anchor leaves. Standard for strong markets.

Full dataset for Dallas: /resources/data/dallas-survivability-scores-2026.csv — includes all business subtypes, all neighborhoods, survivability scores, and tier assignments. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Visual Data

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

Bubble chart of business subtypes in Dallas by survivability score and location density — Every business subtype in Dallas plotted by score vs location count — bubble size shows market depth.

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

**LEHD demand-pattern signal (Oak Lawn):** Median 1-mile workplace jobs across Oak Lawn: **42,866** (LEHD LODES 2022). That works out to a **0.9:1 daytime-to-resident ratio** — a balanced mixed-use pattern. Of those workplace jobs, **2,621** are retail-sector. Use this to gauge whether your concept is weekday-commuter-driven or evening-and-weekend-driven.

Landmark anchor: Oak Lawn's cultural-anchor is Kimbell Art Museum di Fort Worth, an art-museum that pulls weekend and tourist foot-traffic into the surrounding blocks.

**Economic context that bounds the demand environment in Oak Lawn:** Per ACS, neighborhood unemployment is **4.7%** (below the 24-metro neighborhood median). BLS QCEW shows the Dallas metro's average weekly wage at **$1,401** (in line with our 24-metro median). And Dallas County permitted **12,358** new residential units in 2025 per Census BPS — a population-and-demand growth signal.

**Sector-level context:** BLS data (BLS Business Employment Dynamics, March 2025 release) shows 5-year survival rates of **47.8%** (Active Life), **47.9%** (Retail Trade), **50.0%** (Restaurants), **50.5%** (Beauty & Personal Care), and **61.8%** (Health & Medical) — the five industry buckets covering most StreetSpring subtypes. Location-specific factors explain the rest of the variance.

Related:

Neighborhood-Specific Questions

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

What's the national survival baseline for businesses by sector?

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

What's the home ownership rate in Oak Lawn, and why does it matter?

ACS housing data shows 32% home ownership in Oak Lawn, compared to 50% metro-wide. A higher renter share often means more population turnover; quick-service food, fitness, and convenience tend to do well in such environments.

Is Oak Lawn more a residential or work-destination neighborhood?

Median commute time in Oak Lawn is about 24 minutes, versus 26 minutes across the Dallas metro. Commute patterns are typical for the metro, so foot traffic timing should not be a primary differentiator.