What businesses are most in demand in Highland Park?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Highland Park are Pet Grooming Shops, Kosher Restaurants, and Pet Stores.

What are the best businesses to open in Highland Park?

The top businesses to open in Highland Park include Pet Grooming Shop with a ~82% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~84%, followed by Kosher Restaurant and Pet Store.

Business Survivability in Highland Park, Los Angeles

Q: What is the median household income in Highland Park?

Highland Park's median household income (~$133K) is above the Los Angeles metro median (~$113K) by approximately $20K. Higher median income supports premium retail, upscale dining, and discretionary services.

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Highland Park is a Pet Grooming Shop with a ~82% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•18 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: a Pet Grooming Shop in Highland Park (~82% average survival rate, ~84% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #113 across all neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles

Neighborhood average: ~75% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Last reviewed: May 14, 2026 by Bobby Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring

In this article:

Summary
Is Highland 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 Highland Park is a Pet Grooming Shop with a ~82% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~84% chance; next is a Kosher Restaurant with a ~81% chance, followed by a Pet Store with a ~81% chance.

Is Highland Park a good place to start a business?

**Pattern match:** Highland Park's neighborhood signature — captured across demographic, employment, and amenity features — most closely matches **Olympia Heights (Miami)** and **Wrigleyville (Chicago)**. The three share older housing stock, longer commutes, and high high-earner share, which helps explain why business types that succeed in those areas tend to translate to Highland Park.

**The pattern in Highland Park.** Of 93 tracked subtypes, Kosher Restaurant leads at **81% average survivability** — yet within the neighborhood, sites for this subtype range **74-86%** (12-point spread). That spread is the real failure surface: pick the wrong block in Highland Park and a top-subtype play still scores in the bottom quartile. Meanwhile Juice & Smoothie Bars are already saturated here — 12 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Among all neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles, Highland Park ranks #113 for business survivability, with an average score of ~75%.

At the strongest addresses in Highland Park, the most viable business types score ~2% higher than the average survivability rate across all locations.
Yet the same categories that score highest in Highland Park can underperform significantly at the wrong address. Location precision within the neighborhood matters as much as choosing the neighborhood itself.
Highland Park's employment rate of 91.3% and commercial vacancy of 6.3% 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 can you find the best location to open a business in Highland Park?

StreetSpring scores survivability at the exact address level in Highland Park — so you can compare two storefronts on the same block before committing to a lease. StreetSpring's 2026 analysis identifies this area as the top location for a Pet Grooming Shop in Highland Park:

Reading visibility, frontage, and parking carefully

Loading live map preview...

StreetSpring's 2026 model identifies this area as the highest-survivability location for a Pet Grooming Shop in Highland Park. Even the best-ranked neighborhoods contain locations that underperform — and the worst-ranked ones have hidden gems. 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 Highland Park?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Highland Park

Opening a Pet Grooming Shop in Highland Park shows ~82% average survivability. Top locations reach ~84%; lower-end sites show ~80%.
Kosher Restaurant (Ranked #2): ~81% average in Highland Park. Best-case storefronts: ~83%. Challenging locations: ~79%.
Pet Store is ranked #3 for top businesses to open in Highland Park: ~81% chance on average, best at ~83%, challenging at ~79%.
American Restaurant — ~79%–~82% survivability range, with an average of ~81% across Highland Park.
Opening a Caribbean / Latin Restaurant in Highland Park shows ~81% average survivability. Top locations reach ~82%; lower-end sites show ~79%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Highland Park

South African Restaurant (Ranked #6): ~81% average in Highland Park. Best-case storefronts: ~82%. Challenging locations: ~79%.
Armenian Restaurant is ranked #7 for top businesses to open in Highland Park: ~81% chance on average, best at ~82%, challenging at ~79%.
Ethiopian Restaurant — ~79%–~82% survivability range, with an average of ~81% across Highland Park.
Opening a Syrian Restaurant in Highland Park shows ~81% average survivability. Top locations reach ~83%; lower-end sites show ~79%.
Vietnamese Restaurant (Ranked #10): ~81% average in Highland Park. Best-case storefronts: ~82%. Challenging locations: ~78%.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

How much money could a business in Highland Park make?

Best location vs. average location

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

Every business type has unique location requirements that must be considered.
Site selection is the highest-leverage decision most entrepreneurs make — it sets every other variable in motion.
Businesses in high-scoring locations consistently outperform those in average or low-scoring sites.
StreetSpring generates location-specific predictions tailored to your exact site.

Where the next great business in Highland Park should go

The top businesses to open next in Highland Park:

Pet Grooming Shops — ~82% average survival rate, up to ~84% at best locations
Kosher Restaurants — ~81% average survival rate
Pet Stores — ~81% average survival rate

Even the best-ranked neighborhoods contain locations that underperform — and the worst-ranked ones have hidden gems. StreetSpring measures competition through a 30-factor framework layered on top of proprietary consumer spending forecasts and mobility models. With Highland Park's 91.3% employment rate factored in, the businesses best positioned to succeed here are those that benefit from a well-employed, spending-capable local consumer base. Because market conditions shift constantly, StreetSpring updates every location's survivability score weekly — you can see current scores for available storefronts in Highland Park right now.

See the Survivability Score for your new business

Related Articles:

See the Los Angeles Business Survivability Rankings
See the Los Angeles Neighborhood Survivability Rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the most common questions about opening a business in Highland Park.

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

StreetSpring's 2026 model places Pet Grooming Shops, Kosher Restaurants, and Pet Stores at the top of the survivability rankings for Highland Park — making them the safest long-term tenant bets for landlords here.

Site selection is the highest-leverage decision most entrepreneurs make — it sets every other variable in motion.
StreetSpring generates location-specific predictions tailored to your exact site. 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 Highland Park storefront to a Pet Grooming Shop?

StreetSpring's data confirms a Pet Grooming Shop as the highest-survivability tenant type for Highland Park. The best addresses show a ~84% chance of lasting more than 2 years; less optimal addresses score around ~80%.

StreetSpring generates location-specific predictions tailored to your exact site.

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

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

Revenue Capture Score is the single best indicator of whether a business will thrive at a location.
StreetSpring's forecasting tools are purpose-built for commercial location decisions and are not available through any publicly accessible data source.
Access StreetSpring's current survivability data for any address in Highland Park for free at any time.

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 Los Angeles 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
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.
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.

Full dataset for Los Angeles: /resources/data/los-angeles-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 Los Angeles business mix by survivability score — Treemap of business mix in Los Angeles — cell size = number of locations, color = average survivability score.

Radar chart of business-subtype survivability in Highland Park, Los Angeles — Top business types scored in Highland Park, Los Angeles — each axis is a subtype, taller = stronger survival rate.

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

How we measure this: Supplier proximity matters more for some subtypes (restaurants, repair shops) than others (online-anchored retail).

**A bit of history.** Highland Park is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, located in the city's Northeast region. It was one of the first subdivisions of Los Angeles and is inhabited by a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Park%2C_Los_Angeles))

**Daytime population context (Highland Park):** Per US Census LEHD LODES, the median 1-mile workplace-jobs population within Highland Park is **5,409** — about **0.1× the resident population**, which qualifies as a primarily-residential neighborhood with minimal daytime worker traffic. Retail-sector jobs in that radius: **717**. This shapes which business models have a natural demand floor here.

Landmark anchor: Los Angeles Police Museum sits in Highland Park as a history-museum anchor — the kind of cultural draw that shapes weekend foot-traffic patterns nearby.

**Economic context that bounds the demand environment in Highland Park:** Per ACS, neighborhood unemployment is **8.7%** (above the 24-metro neighborhood median). BLS QCEW shows the Los Angeles metro's average weekly wage at **$1,127** (below our 24-metro median). And Los Angeles County permitted **22,446** new residential units in 2025 per Census BPS — a population-and-demand growth signal.

**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.