What businesses are most in demand in South East?

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

Is South East a good place to start a business?

South East is ranked number 158 across neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~73%. StreetSpring data shows the best-fit business types at prime South East addresses outperform the neighborhood average by as much as ~2%.

What are the best businesses to open in South East?

The top businesses to open in South East include American Restaurant with a ~83% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~85%, followed by Kosher Restaurant and Pet Grooming Shop.

How much money could a business in South East make?

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

How can you find the best location to open a business in South East?

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 South East maximize success.

Business Survivability in South East, Los Angeles

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in South East is an American Restaurant 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: an American Restaurant in South East (~83% average survival rate, ~85% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #158 across all neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles

Neighborhood average: ~73% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Reviewed and updated: May 11, 2026 — Bobby Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring

In this article:

Summary
Is South East 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 South East is an American Restaurant 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 Kosher Restaurant with a ~83% chance, followed by a Pet Grooming Shop with a ~82% chance.

What does the data say about opening in South East?

**Pattern match:** South East's neighborhood signature — captured across demographic, employment, and amenity features — most closely matches **Salem (Boston)** and **Montavilla (Portland)**. The three share older housing stock and older population, which helps explain why business types that succeed in those areas tend to translate to South East.

**The pattern in South East.** Of 93 tracked subtypes, Bar leads at **84% average survivability** — yet within the neighborhood, sites for this subtype range **76-88%** (12-point spread). That spread is the real failure surface: pick the wrong block in South East and a top-subtype play still scores in the bottom quartile. Meanwhile Middle Eastern Restaurants are already saturated here — 13 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

South East is the #158 most survivable neighborhood for new businesses in and around Los Angeles, with an average score of ~73% across all analyzed categories.

StreetSpring data shows the best-fit business types at prime South East addresses outperform the neighborhood average by as much as ~2%.
However, these same business types at the worst locations in South East can sometimes provide a projected Survivability Score considerably below the average. Thus, even the businesses that are most in need in South East could have trouble succeeding if the best location is not selected.
With 93.5% of the local population employed, South East presents a stable consumer base — particularly for food, beverage, and service businesses that depend on repeat discretionary spending.

Employment and vacancy figures sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.

Pinpointing the best locations within South East

StreetSpring's address-level analysis reveals which specific storefronts in South East offer the strongest survivability odds for your business type. The map below highlights the highest-survivability address for an American Restaurant in South East:

Reading visibility, frontage, and parking carefully

Loading live map preview...

This map shows the optimal location for an American Restaurant in South East based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis. These figures represent averages across a neighborhood; your specific address may score meaningfully higher or lower depending on block-level competitive conditions. 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 →

What kinds of businesses thrive in South East?

#1-5: Highest Survivability in South East

American Restaurant is ranked #1 for top businesses to open in South East: ~83% chance on average, best at ~85%, challenging at ~81%.
Kosher Restaurant — ~81%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across South East.
Opening a Pet Grooming Shop in South East shows ~82% average survivability. Top locations reach ~84%; lower-end sites show ~80%.
Dance Club (Ranked #4): ~81% average in South East. Best-case storefronts: ~83%. Challenging locations: ~79%.
Ukrainian Restaurant is ranked #5 for top businesses to open in South East: ~81% chance on average, best at ~84%, challenging at ~79%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in South East

Pet Boarding Facility — ~79%–~83% survivability range, with an average of ~81% across South East.
Opening a Watch Store or Repair Shop in South East shows ~80% average survivability. Top locations reach ~83%; lower-end sites show ~77%.
Filipino Restaurant (Ranked #8): ~80% average in South East. Best-case storefronts: ~81%. Challenging locations: ~78%.
Veterinary Clinic is ranked #9 for top businesses to open in South East: ~79% chance on average, best at ~81%, challenging at ~77%.
Russian Restaurant — ~78%–~81% survivability range, with an average of ~79% across South East.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

American Restaurant — See how this compares to other cities →

How location selection in South East affects revenue

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, going with one of the top-scoring locations in the neighborhood rather than an average one in South East 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

No two business types have identical location needs; survivability scores reflect these differences at the address level.
A great product in the wrong location will underperform; an average product in the right location can thrive.
StreetSpring has found that selecting the location with the highest survivability score for a business is the best way to maximize the amount of money you will make.
StreetSpring analyzes your specific address against comparable businesses to forecast success.

The biggest opportunity gaps in South East

The top businesses to open next in South East:

American Restaurants — ~83% average survival rate, up to ~85% at best locations
Kosher Restaurants — ~83% average survival rate
Pet Grooming Shops — ~82% average survival rate

These figures represent averages across a neighborhood; your specific address may score meaningfully higher or lower depending on block-level competitive conditions. Our platform incorporates data from thousands of neighborhoods nationwide. South East's combination of 93.5% employment and 7.9% vacancy creates the conditions that define which business types thrive here and which struggle. Because market conditions shift constantly, StreetSpring updates every location's survivability score weekly — you can see current scores for available storefronts in South East 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 South East.

What type of business should you rent your South East storefront to?

According to StreetSpring's 2026 data, the strongest tenant types for a storefront in South East are American Restaurants, Kosher Restaurants, and Pet Grooming Shops.

A great product in the wrong location will underperform; an average product in the right location can thrive.
StreetSpring analyzes your specific address against comparable businesses to forecast success. StreetSpring's free tool lets you check the survivability score for any business type at any address in South East — a powerful filter when evaluating prospective tenants.

Should you rent your South East storefront to an American Restaurant?

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis strongly supports renting to an American Restaurant in South East: best-in-class addresses achieve ~85% survivability, and even the lower-end sites come in at ~81% — above average for most business types.

StreetSpring analyzes your specific address against comparable businesses to forecast success.

What should I consider when opening a business in South East?

When selecting a location in South East it is crucial to select a location with a very high Survivability Score.

The most important driver of a high Survivability Score is the Revenue Capture Score for the business at the location it selects.
StreetSpring's forecasting tools are purpose-built for commercial location decisions and are not available through any publicly accessible data source.
No subscription required: access the current survivability score for any South East 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 Los Angeles are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

The hidden costs of operating in this neighborhood

Area to check	What can go wrong	How to de-risk it
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.
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.
Permitted hours	Late-night or early-morning ops blocked by zoning, neighborhood association, or shared-wall restrictions.	Confirm the permitted hours-of-operation are in your lease AND in the local code. Pull recent variances or complaints from the zoning portal.

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

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.

Dumbbell chart comparing best vs worst locations for businesses in Los Angeles — Best vs worst neighborhood per business type in Los Angeles — the gap shows how much location choice matters for each subtype.

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 (South East):** Median 1-mile workplace jobs across South East: **9,610** (LEHD LODES 2022). That works out to a **0.4:1 daytime-to-resident ratio** — a primarily-residential signal with some daytime worker pull. Of those workplace jobs, **1,234** are retail-sector. Use this to gauge whether your concept is weekday-commuter-driven or evening-and-weekend-driven.

Landmark anchor: Hale Solar Laboratory is South East's museum landmark, shaping weekend visitor traffic for nearby storefronts.

**Three local anchors for South East:** **6.5%** neighborhood unemployment (above the 24-metro median, ACS), **$1,127/week** average wage in the Los Angeles area (below our metro median, BLS QCEW), and **22,446** new residential units permitted in Los Angeles County in 2025 (Census BPS). These three together describe the demand-and-labor environment any new South East 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:

Neighborhood-Specific Questions

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

Does South East's poverty rate signal lower retail spending?

10% of South East households fall below the federal poverty line — below the Los Angeles metro median (11%). The poverty rate tracks the metro median; business-type fit depends more on competition and demographic specifics.

Does ownership stability in South East support steady local spending?

Home ownership in South East is approximately 50%, versus the Los Angeles metro median of 43%. The ownership profile is typical for the metro.

What is the median age in South East, and what does that mean for businesses?

South East's median age is 42 versus a Los Angeles metro median of 39 — older by 3 years. This shapes which business types tend to survive: An older profile tends to favor healthcare, professional services, and family-oriented retail over nightlife.