Business Survivability in Walnut Hill, Philadelphia

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Walnut Hill is a Cafe with a 86.8% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

•13 min read

Quick Summary

  • Survivability Score: the projected chance a business type lasts two or more years at a specific address
  • Best business: a Cafe in Walnut Hill (86.8% Typical, 89.9% Best)
  • Neighborhood rank: #30 of 127 neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia
  • Neighborhood average: 70.5% two-year survival across the business types ranked here
  • Coverage: This ranking carries one row per business type and neighborhood. Its score is the projected chance of lasting two or more years, averaged across the price points StreetSpring scores separately in the tool (most types have 5). The 10 business types here are base types; the tool offers 500+ business types, counting each type at each of its price points.
  • Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data
  • Detailed methodology

Last reviewed: November 2026 by Robert Koons, Founder & CEO, StreetSpring

In this article:

Summary

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Walnut Hill is a Cafe with a 86.8% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, and 89.9% Best; next is a Hair Salon with 89.2% Best, followed by a Coffee Shop with 89.2% Best.


Is Walnut Hill a good place to start a business?

StreetSpring ranks Walnut Hill #30 of 127 neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia, with an average Survivability Score of 70.5% across the business types ranked there.

  • For the top-ranked business type, 89.9% Best is 3.1 points above 86.8% Typical in Walnut Hill.
  • But at poorly chosen addresses within Walnut Hill, even the top-ranked business types can fall well below the neighborhood average. Location selection remains critical: a promising concept at the wrong spot still carries significant risk.
  • With a 86.6% employment rate, Walnut Hill has the consumer spending foundation that supports a range of brick-and-mortar business types.

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


How can you find the best location to open a business in Walnut Hill?

Using StreetSpring, you can identify the exact address in Walnut Hill that gives your specific business concept the highest survivability score. This is the address StreetSpring's 2026 analysis recommends most strongly for a Cafe in Walnut Hill:

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The highlighted area represents the address in Walnut Hill that StreetSpring's 2026 analysis ranks highest for a Cafe survivability. For the most current predictions, visit StreetSpring to analyze your specific location in real-time. StreetSpring's scoring incorporates hundreds of inputs, including competitive quality and density, projected consumer spending, Revenue Capture Score, and local demand patterns.

Check if this location is still available →


What are the best businesses to open in Walnut Hill?

RankBusiness typeBestTypicalWorst
1Cafe89.9%86.8%83.0%
2Hair Salon89.2%83.7%78.0%
3Coffee Shop89.2%81.6%75.8%
4Laundromat88.7%80.1%74.6%
5Bar88.4%79.4%74.0%
6Chiropractor Office87.8%82.4%77.1%
7Gym86.1%77.8%73.1%
8Convenience Store85.9%77.2%71.6%
9Eye Care Center85.0%79.8%74.5%
10Dermatology Clinic84.7%79.3%73.9%

Best and Worst are the average results for the better and the worse of two addresses picked at random in the place: a weighted average of every scored location in which the best locations count the most for Best and the weakest count the most for Worst. Typical is the average address. Best is shown for a smaller space (half the standard size) and Worst for a larger one (half again as large), at the metro's median asking rent, using the same rent rule as our tool; Typical is at the market rent.

Ties on Best: Hair Salon and Coffee Shop are tied. A tie is a tie: the rank column is the published file's order, which looks at Typical next.

Highest Survivability in Walnut Hill

  • #1 Cafe: 86.8% Typical across Walnut Hill; Best 89.9%, Worst 83.0%.
  • #2 Opening a Hair Salon in Walnut Hill shows 83.7% Typical survivability, 89.2% Best and 78.0% Worst.
  • #3 Coffee Shop (Ranked #3): 81.6% Typical in Walnut Hill. Best: 89.2%. Worst: 75.8%.
  • #4 Laundromat is ranked #4 for top businesses to open in Walnut Hill: 80.1% Typical, 88.7% Best, 74.6% Worst.
  • #5 Bar: 79.4% Typical across Walnut Hill; Best 88.4%, Worst 74.0%.

Strong Performers in Walnut Hill

  • #6 Opening a Chiropractor Office in Walnut Hill shows 82.4% Typical survivability, 87.8% Best and 77.1% Worst.
  • #7 Gym (Ranked #7): 77.8% Typical in Walnut Hill. Best: 86.1%. Worst: 73.1%.
  • #8 Convenience Store is ranked #8 for top businesses to open in Walnut Hill: 77.2% Typical, 85.9% Best, 71.6% Worst.
  • #9 Eye Care Center: 79.8% Typical across Walnut Hill; Best 85.0%, Worst 74.5%.
  • #10 Opening a Dermatology Clinic in Walnut Hill shows 79.3% Typical survivability, 84.7% Best and 73.9% Worst.

Top 3 Compared Nationally


How much money could a business in Walnut Hill make?

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations for your business in Walnut Hill starts with the Revenue Capture Score, the most important factor in choosing a location: StreetSpring's estimate of the revenue a business can capture at that address.

How StreetSpring calculates location value

  • However, each business concept should be evaluated for fit within each potential location.
  • A business's location is one of the few things about its future you can check in advance.
  • When the question is money, the Revenue Capture Score comes first: it is StreetSpring's estimate of the revenue a business can capture at a specific address.
  • Two storefronts on the same street can have different survivability scores: StreetSpring calculates each one individually.

What businesses should open next in Walnut Hill?

The top businesses to open next in Walnut Hill:

  • Cafes: 86.8% Typical, 89.9% Best
  • Hair Salons: 83.7% Typical, 89.2% Best
  • Coffee Shops: 81.6% Typical, 89.2% Best

For the most current predictions, visit StreetSpring to analyze your specific location in real-time. We have been studying the businesses serving more than 180 million+ Americans. StreetSpring scores 500+ business types: 153 base business types, most of them at 5 price points, which is 569 type-and-price combinations you can choose in the tool. The 86.6% employment rate in Walnut Hill is a key signal of consumer health, and the 24.1% housing vacancy rate is another Census characteristic the model reads for the rankings above. StreetSpring regularly updates survivability scores for available locations: check the live tool now to see which storefronts in Walnut Hill are currently available and how they score.

See the Survivability Score for your new business

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Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the most common questions about opening a business in Walnut Hill.


What type of business should you rent your Walnut Hill storefront to?

If you own commercial space in Walnut Hill, StreetSpring's 2026 data points to Cafes, Hair Salons, and Coffee Shops as the tenant types with the strongest projected longevity at this location.

  • A business's location is one of the few things about its future you can check in advance.
  • Two storefronts on the same street can have different survivability scores: StreetSpring calculates each one individually. Rather than guessing which tenant type will last, landlords can verify survivability for each category at their exact address using StreetSpring.

Related: See How Landlord Representatives in Philadelphia Can Reduce Vacancy & Increase Tenant Longevity


Should you rent your Walnut Hill storefront to a Cafe?

Yes. Among all business types analyzed for Walnut Hill in 2026, a Cafe ranks first, at 89.9% Best and 83.0% Worst, making it the most reliable tenant choice here.

  • Two storefronts on the same street can have different survivability scores: StreetSpring calculates each one individually.

What should I consider when opening a business in Walnut Hill?

Don't commit to a storefront in Walnut Hill without first checking its Survivability Score: two addresses on the same block can carry different projected chances.

  • Revenue Capture Score is the top factor to weigh before signing a lease, because it measures how much of the local customer spending a business at that address can win.
  • StreetSpring's in-house models are trained on 570,000+ real business outcomes.
  • StreetSpring's live scoring tool starts with a free 10-minute trial: enter any address in Walnut Hill to see its current Survivability Score for your business type.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.


StreetSpring's AI platform has studied businesses serving more than 180 million+ Americans, giving its predictions a scale of validation unmatched in site-selection tools. Aggregated survivability rankings for Philadelphia are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

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