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In Q3 2025, consumers continued to pull back on food-away-from-home spending amid rising prices and shifting behaviors, creating persistent pressure across the dining landscape. McDonald’s (MCD) and Chipotle (CMG) each navigated these challenges with mixed results, underscoring the difficulty of sustaining growth even for well-established brands. Both chains showed relative resilience compared to the broader market but faced mounting headwinds that tempered performance and tested their strategic approaches.
The quick-service category is under pressure from multiple fronts: persistent inflation, shifting consumer behavior, value-menu fatigue, and even the growing adoption of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are dampening demand for food consumed away from home. And McDonald’s has not been immune from these challenges.
The company’s successful Minecraft Meal collaboration helped lift traffic in April, contributing to a 2.5% increase in U.S. comparable sales in Q2 – a welcome rebound from Q1’s 3.6% comp sales decline. But the momentum has been difficult to sustain. Foot traffic lagged 2024 levels throughout the summer – albeit lapping last year’s Summer of Value promotion – and remained sluggish even after the September debut of McDonald’s new Extra Value Meal. In Q3, visits were down 3.5% year over year (YoY), with same-store traffic falling 4.0%, underscoring how difficult it is to reignite growth in 2025 even with special promotions – especially for a chain reliant on a customer base that is less affluent than the national average.
Like McDonald’s, Chipotle has leaned on special promotions, such as its recent “Wear a College Football Jersey” BOGO on September 15, 2025, to help navigate this year’s headwinds. But its primary strategy has been expansion. Since the start of 2024, Chipotle has opened hundreds of new locations, most featuring a Chipotlane drive-thru pickup lane.
And this aggressive growth has helped sustain Chipotle’s momentum. Chain-wide visits have remained positive YoY in most months of 2025 – likely supported by Chipotle’s more affluent customer base. And in Q3, overall visits rose 0.5% YoY ,keeping pace with the broader fast-casual segment, which saw visits grow by 0.7%.
At the same time, same-store visits have trended slightly negative YoY, echoing Q2’s 4.0% decline in comparable sales. This suggests that while new unit growth is cushioning the slowdown, maintaining traffic at established locations remains a challenge. Still, the declines have been relatively modest, highlighting Chipotle’s underlying resilience – especially given the comparison to a particularly strong 2024.
External pressures continue to weigh on the dining sector, and McDonald’s and Chipotle are no exception. Being able to remain nimble and embrace challenges will remain crucial for both chains as Q4 gets underway.
For the most up-to-date dining data, check out Placer.ai’s free tools.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
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Weekly visits to Placer’s Industrial Manufacturing Index remained below 2024 levels throughout September and into early October. Although trends began to stabilize during the week of September 22nd, activity continued to lag behind last year’s benchmarks – signaling a sustained year-over-year (YoY) slowdown.
These findings align broadly with the ISM Manufacturing PMI, which edged up to 49.1% in September from 48.7% in August – signaling contraction, but at a potentially moderating pace. (Any value below 50 indicates a decline.) Still, sentiment indicators remain mixed, with the S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing PMI easing from 53.0 in August to 52.0 in September – reflecting slower growth but still remaining in expansionary territory.
As shown in the chart above, the slowdown was particularly acute in the auto sector, where U.S. sales forecasts have been revised downward and production figures indicate declining output. The sharp divergence from the overall index beginning the week of September 15th likely also reflects industry-wide disruption following last month’s devastating fire at the Novelis plant in New York, which reverberated throughout the industry.
Beyond short-term disruptions like the Novelis fire and ongoing tariff uncertainty, structural forces tied to AI and automation may also be contributing to the industrial deceleration. Many plants are adopting AI-enabled predictive maintenance, robotics, and remote monitoring, which reduce the need for certain categories of employees. And in autos especially, the shift to EV production and AI-driven retooling may already be visible in lower employee presence.
For more data-driven manufacturing insights, follow Placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
August’s drop in office foot traffic left many wondering – had the return-to-office movement finally hit a wall, or was it just summer taking its usual toll?
We analyzed the latest location analytics to find out.
In September 2025, a wave of new RTO mandates took effect nationwide, with companies from Intel to Toyota requiring employees to spend at least four days per week in the office. And following August’s sharp retreat, September delivered a decisive rebound: Office visits were just 26.3% below 2019 levels – a clear improvement from August and essentially tied with June’s performance.
This suggests that August’s dip was seasonal rather than structural – a reflection of flexible post-pandemic work habits during vacation-heavy periods. As fall routines took hold, RTO momentum strengthened once again, underscoring the nonlinear yet sustained nature of office recovery progress.
To be sure, some of September’s upswing can be chalked up to calendar math – the month had 21 working days, compared to 20 in both September 2024 and 2019. But that extra day alone doesn’t explain the full rebound.
Even when adjusting for working days, September 2025 ranked as the third busiest in-office month since COVID, just behind June and July 2025.
Miami and New York City – two markets where in-person work has firmly reestablished itself as the norm – continued to lead the office recovery in September. In Miami, ongoing corporate migration is reinforcing an “office-first” culture, while in New York, a growing wave of finance-sector mandates is accelerating the push back to the office.
And several other markets also saw significant improvement. Dallas and Atlanta outperformed the nationwide average with office visit gaps just 15.4% and 22.9% below September 2019 levels, respectively. Meanwhile, San Francisco – though still trailing other major markets – closed its post-pandemic gap to 40.2%.
In addition, San Francisco recorded the largest year-over-year gain in office visits this September, outpacing national trends and surpassing more recovered markets.
That combination – still lagging but accelerating rapidly – mirrors what’s happening in the city’s leasing market, where AI-driven demand is fueling fresh activity and major employers are renewing their commitments to the Bay Area. Salesforce’s new multi-year investment in San Francisco further underscores confidence in the city’s long-term role as an innovation hub. And in late August, the city’s municipal workers also returned to the office four days a week, further helping set the tone for a city in the midst of a comeback.
With fall routines reestablished and corporate mandates expanding, the office recovery appears to be regaining momentum.
Will this renewed surge carry through the winter – or will the season’s holidays bring another pause?
Follow Placer.ai’s data-driven RTO analyses to find out.
**NOTE: Data in the office index has changed due to a regular process of enhancing the list of buildings. This includes the addition of nearly 300 new entities across the index and the removal of buildings that no longer met the necessary standard - either due to renovation or repurposing. In total, the removed assets amounted to less than 5% of the overall count, and the overall trendlines remained the same.
Following a brief lift in spring – when mall visits nationwide rose year-over-year (YoY) across all formats – the Placer.ai Mall Index showed momentum fading through the summer and softening further into fall.
Indoor malls registered slight year-over-year (YoY) visit upticks in July and August, but saw visits drop 1.9% YoY in September. Meanwhile, open-air centers and outlet malls, which maintained minor visit gaps in the summer, saw these widen to 1.7% and 6.8%, respectively, in September. Some of this decline can be attributed to a calendar shift: September 2025 had one fewer Sunday than the same month in 2024, a change likely to hit outlet malls the hardest. (So far this year, 18.2% of outlet mall visits have occurred on Sundays, compared to just 16.0% for indoor malls and 15.4% for open-air centers). But the September drop also signals that malls’ summer slowdown isn’t over.
Still, zooming out to quarterly visitation patterns shows that YoY changes in foot traffic have remained relatively modest across mall types since the start of 2025. In Q3 2025, visits to indoor malls were down just 0.1% compared to 2024, while visits to open-air shopping centers and outlet malls dipped just 1.1% and 2.8%, respectively. Given the macroeconomic headwinds that have challenged retail this year – including persistent inflation, tariffs, and higher living costs – these are mild declines.
And with the all-important holiday season approaching, retailers have an opportunity to shift the narrative. Strategic promotions, in-store experiences, and omnichannel integration could help convert cautious consumer sentiment into stronger end-of-year traffic.
Even so, despite relative stability in the sector, outlet malls have underperformed other mall types for YoY visits since the start of the year. The format’s steeper YoY declines likely reflect its stronger appeal to value-focused consumers – shoppers who are increasingly turning to large discounters and online bargain platforms.
Analyzing the three mall types’ trade areas with demographics from STI: PopStats shows that outlet malls attract a higher share of lower- to middle-income consumers than other mall formats. Over the past 12 months, 43.8% of households within outlet malls’ captured markets earned less than $75K annually, compared to 40.8% for indoor malls and 37.8% for open-air shopping centers. These shoppers are more likely to be watching their budgets (including for transportation) and choosing more convenient off-price alternatives such as T.J. Maxx, Ross Dress for Less, Burlington, Marshalls, or HomeGoods – all of which saw consistently steady YoY visits throughout the summer and early fall, as shown in the chart below.
Outlet malls also tend to offer fewer of the experiential elements – dining, entertainment, and events – that have helped other mall types regain momentum, leaving them struggling to differentiate and sustain consistent foot traffic. At the same time, shoppers have become more selective, turning to malls for quick, mission-driven visits rather than leisurely outings, a shift that is also reflected in shorter visit durations.
Although September capped off a sluggish summer, the broader picture offers reason for cautious optimism. Year-to-date performance has remained relatively stable, suggesting that underlying consumer demand remains intact, even if somewhat restrained.
If retailers and mall operators can re-engage shoppers through compelling promotions, festive in-person activations, and other special draws, the upcoming holiday season could still outperform expectations.
For more data-driven shopping center insights visit Placer.ai’s free industry trends tool.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
One of the hallmarks of Americana is the image of a biker riding fast and free down enormous expanses of American highways. For tens of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts, nothing compares to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, held annually in Sturgis, South Dakota. In 2025, the event took place between August 1st and August 10th – and the week and a half of food, folks, and festivities drove a massive spike in out-of-market visitors to Sturgis.
Saturday, August 2, was the most popular day of visits, with visits up 14.7% compared to the prior year and up a whopping +549.9% compared to an average Saturday in Sturgis.
One popular place to visit within Sturgis is Lynn’s Dakotamart on Lazelle St, where one can find groceries ranging from NY strip steaks to fresh Midwest watermelon. During the Sturgis motorcycle rally, the store's trade area more than doubled from 15 miles to 33 miles.
Large events like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally can also hold much promise for brands, as they seek to capture attention from motorcycle devotees. Placer.ai data shows that some of the top-visited places during the 10 days in August include Wells Fargo, McDonald’s, Burger King, Dairy King, Ace Hardware, and restaurant/live venues such as Loud American. The rally also brings an influx of affluent suburban visitors, with nearly 1 in 5 out-of-town visitors with a household income greater than $150K, and 13.4% belonging to the "Wealthy Suburban Families" Spatial.ai segment.
In sum, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is a unique opportunity for local businesses and local and national brands to capitalize on the excitement and celebratory frame of mind of the out-of-town visitors. Many of the guests come with the mindset to enjoy themselves, mingle with others, stay in local lodgings, and even visit shopping centers and eateries that would normally seem a bit further afield but that in the context of riding are just part of the journey itself.
For more data-driven consumer insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
It’s been a wild ride for the beauty category. Following a strong couple of years, the segment's growth has stalled in recent months, with clothing – led by the strong performance of off-price chains – taking over the top discretionary growth spot. The slowdown in the beauty space has led some to wonder whether the category's boost from the "lipstick-effect" has reached a ceiling.
However, there are a few niches within the beauty category that may portend success, including Korean Beauty (aka K-Beauty), as well as brands focusing on personalization and sustainability.
First up, K-Beauty. Every summer, there is a song or movie that takes over the charts and goes viral. This summer, it is the unstoppable juggernaut from Netflix K-Pop Demon Hunters. Viewers and listeners around the world just can’t shake the catchy tunes like Soda Pop and the powerful anthem Golden. This animated feature is breaking records left and right: Netflix’s most-watched original animated film, first Netflix film ever to reach a new viewing peak in its fifth week of release showing the power of word of mouth, and the film’s lead single, “Golden,” sung by the girl group Huntrix (EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami), hit No. 1 on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs on July 8th.
K-Pop has already been quite popular in the US for quite some time, with headliners like Blackpink and BTS drawing record crowds. Korean shows like Squid Game have also riveted viewers. And one of the most recent beauty trends on TikTok involves Korean beauty strategies to attain “glass skin.” Key ingredients in K-Beauty such as snail mucin in the holy grail product CosRX, green tea antioxidants, or ginseng have already made their way into many Americans’ daily skincare routines.
With all this recent interest in Korean culture, Ulta is one retailer perfectly poised to introduce its curated selection of K-beauty brands.
In mid-July, the company launched K-Beauty World, which introduces American consumers to a host of K-beauty brands, such as Chasin’ Rabbits, I’m From, Mixsoon, NEOGEN, Rom&nd, Some By Mi, Sungboon Editor and Unleashia. K-Beauty World had an immersive multi-city tour earlier this year including Westfield Century City in Los Angeles, SXSW in Austin, Revolve at Coachella, and Lollapalooza in Chicago. And since the launch, Ulta has drawn longer visits and a higher share of singles to its stores.
Personalization is another big buzzword in the beauty world. With over a dozen stores across the US and Canada, Lip Lab is one beauty chain that allows patrons to customize their products (lipstick, gloss, balm or cheek stick), pick their perfect shade, select a case, add a scent, and engrave the name of their creation. In the case of Lip Lab at Scottsdale Quarter, Spatial.ai’s PersonaLive's dataset shows that this tenant helps to attract Wealthy Suburban Families and Young Urban Singles to a shopping center that otherwise skews a bit older – usually, Sunset Boomers make up over one-fifth of Scottsdale Quarter's shoppers.
In sum, beauty is ever-changing and consumers can be quite fickle. What was once a must-have brand with tweens or a sold-out item on BeautyTok can quickly become yesterday’s news. However, for the year ahead, we do think that K-beauty and personalization can help brands burst through the zeitgeist to capture consumers’ attention.
For more data-driven consumer insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
Commercial real estate in 2026 is characterized by differentiated performance across markets and asset types. Office recovery trajectories vary meaningfully by metro, retail performance reflects format-specific resilience, and domestic migration patterns continue to influence long-term demand fundamentals.
Many higher-income metros continue to trail 2019 benchmarks but drive the strongest Year-over-year gains, signaling a potential inflection in office utilization trends.
• Sunbelt markets along with New York, NY are closest to pre-pandemic office visit levels, while many coastal gateway and tech-heavy markets trail 2019 benchmarks.
• Many of the metros still furthest below pre-pandemic levels are now posting the strongest year-over-year gains.
• Leasing velocity may accelerate in coastal markets – particularly in high-quality assets – even if full recovery remains distant. The expansion of AI-driven firms and innovation-focused employers could support incremental demand in these ecosystems, reinforcing a bifurcation between top-tier buildings and the broader office inventory.
• Higher-income metros such as San Francisco show deeper structural gaps vs 2019, perhaps due to their higher concentration of hybrid-eligible workers – yet those same metros are driving the strongest YoY recovery in 2025.
• Accelerating growth in 2025 suggests that shifting employer policies, workplace enhancements, or broader labor dynamics may be beginning to drive increased in-office activity.
• Office performance in higher-income markets will increasingly depend on workplace quality and policy alignment. Assets that support premium amenities, modern design, and tenants implementing clear in-office expectations are likely to influence sustained office visits and leasing velocity in these metros.
Retail traffic is broadly improving across states, though performance varies by region and format.
• Retail traffic growth is broad-based, with the majority of states showing year-over-year gains in shopping center traffic in 2025.
• Still, even as many states are posting gains, pockets of softer performance remain – specifically in parts of the Southeast and Midwest.
• Broad-based traffic gains indicate consumer demand is more durable than anticipated. In growth states, operators can shift from defensive stabilization to capturing upside – pushing rents, upgrading tenant quality, and accelerating leasing while momentum holds. In softer markets, the focus should remain on protecting traffic through strong anchors and necessity-driven tenancy.
• Convenience-oriented formats are leading traffic growth, with strip/convenience centers materially outperforming all other shopping center types, and neighborhood and community centers also posting gains. This reinforces the strength of proximity-driven, daily-needs retail.
• Destination retail formats, including regional malls and factory outlets, continue to lag, while super-regional malls were essentially flat. Larger-format, discretionary-driven centers are not capturing the same momentum as convenience-based formats.
• The data suggests that consumer behavior continues to favor convenience, frequency, and necessity over destination-based shopping. Operators should lean into service-oriented and daily-needs tenancy in strip and neighborhood formats, while mall operators may need to further reposition assets toward experiential, mixed-use, or non-retail uses to stabilize traffic.
Domestic migration continues to reshape state-level demand, with gains clustering in select growth corridors.
• Domestic migration drove population gains in parts of the Southeast and Northern Plains, while several Western and Northeastern states show flat or negative migration.
• Some previously strong in-migration states in the South and West, including Texas and Utah, are showing softer movement, while other established migration leaders such as Florida and the Carolinas continue to attract net inbound residents.
• Migration flows are shifting relative to prior years. Operators should temper growth assumptions in states where inflows are slowing and prioritize markets where inbound demand remains strong.
• Florida dominates metro-level migration growth, with eight of the top ten U.S. metros for net domestic migration are in Florida.
• The markets with the strongest domestic migration-driven population gains are not major gateway cities but smaller, often retirement- or lifestyle-oriented metros, suggesting that migration-driven demand is increasingly flowing to secondary markets.
• CRE operators should prioritize expansion, leasing, and site selection in high-growth secondary metros where population inflows can directly translate into retail spending, housing absorption, and service demand.
1. Expanded grocery supply is increasing overall category engagement. New locations and deeper food assortments across formats are bringing shoppers into the category more often, rather than fragmenting demand.
2. Grocery visit growth is being driven by low- and middle-income households. Elevated food costs are leading to more frequent, budget-conscious trips, reinforcing grocery’s role as a non-discretionary category.
3. Short, frequent trips are a major driver of brick-and-mortar traffic growth. Fill-in shopping, deal-seeking, and omnichannel behaviors are pushing visit frequency higher, even as trip duration declines.
4. Scale is accelerating consolidation among large grocery chains. Larger retailers are using their size to invest in value, assortment, private label, and execution, allowing them to capture longer and more engaged shopping trips.
5. Both large and small grocers have viable paths to growth. Large chains are winning by competing for the full grocery list, while smaller banners can grow by specializing, owning specific missions, or offering compelling value that earns them a place in shoppers’ routines.
While much of the retail conversation going into 2026 focused on discretionary spending pressure, digital substitution, and higher-income consumers as the primary drivers of growth, grocery foot traffic tells a different story.
Rather than being diluted by new formats or eroded by e-commerce, brick-and-mortar grocery engagement is expanding. Visits are rising even as grocery supply spreads across wholesale clubs, discount and dollar stores, and mass merchants. At the same time, growth is being powered not by affluent trade areas, but by low- and middle-income households navigating higher food costs through more frequent, targeted trips. Shoppers are showing up more often and increasingly splitting their trips across retailers based on value, availability, and mission – pushing grocers to compete for portions of the grocery list instead of the full weekly basket.
The data also suggests that the largest grocery chains are capturing a disproportionate share of rising grocery demand – but the multi-trip nature of grocery shopping in 2026 means that smaller banners can still drive traffic growth. By strengthening their value proposition, specializing in specific products, or owning specific shopping missions, these smaller chains can complement, rather than compete with, larger one-stop destinations.
Ultimately, AI-based location analytics point to a clear set of grocery growth drivers in 2026: expanded supply that increases overall engagement, more frequent and mission-driven trips, and continued traffic concentration among large chains alongside new opportunities for smaller banners.
One driver of grocery growth in recent years is simply the expansion of grocery supply across multiple retail formats. Wholesale clubs are constantly opening new locations and discount and dollar stores are investing more heavily in their food selection, giving consumers a wider choice of where to shop for groceries. And rather than fragmenting demand, this broader availability appears to have increased overall grocery engagement – benefiting both dedicated grocery stores and grocery-adjacent channels.
Grocery stores continue to capture nearly half of all visits across grocery stores, wholesale clubs, discount and dollar stores, and mass merchants. That share has remained remarkably stable thanks to consistent year-over-year traffic growth – so even as grocery supply increases across categories, dedicated grocery stores remain the primary destination for food shopping.
Meanwhile, mass merchants have seen a decline in relative visit share as expanding grocery assortments at discount and dollar stores and the growing store fleets of wholesale clubs give consumers more alternatives for one-stop shopping.
While much of the broader retail conversation heading into 2026 centers on higher-income consumers carrying growth, the trend looks different in the grocery space. Recent visit trends show that grocery growth has increasingly shifted toward lower- and middle-income trade areas, underscoring the distinct dynamics of non-discretionary retail.
For lower- and middle-income shoppers, elevated food costs appear to be translating into more frequent grocery trips as consumers manage budgets through smaller baskets, deal-seeking, and shopping across retailers. In contrast, higher-income households – often cited as a key growth engine for discretionary retail – are contributing less to grocery visit growth, likely reflecting more stable shopping patterns or a greater ability to consolidate trips or shift spend online.
This means that, in 2026, grocery growth is not being propped up by high-income consumers. Instead, it is being fueled by necessity-driven shopping behavior in lower- and middle-income communities – reinforcing grocery’s role as an essential category and suggesting that similar dynamics may be at play across other non-discretionary retail segments.
Another factor driving grocery growth is the rise in short grocery visits in recent years. Between 2022 and 2025, the biggest year-over-year visit gains in the grocery space went to visits under 30 minutes, with sub-15 minute visits seeing particularly big boosts. As of 2025, visits under 15 minutes made up over 40% of grocery visits nationwide – up from 37.9% of visits in 2022.
This shift toward shorter visits – especially those under 15 minutes – is driven in part by the continued expansion of omnichannel grocery shopping, as many consumers complete larger stock-up orders online and rely on in-store trips for order collection or quick, fill-in needs. At the same time, the rise in short visits paired with consistent YoY growth in grocery traffic points to additional, behavior-driven forces at play – consumers' growing willingness to shop around at different grocery stores in search of the best deal or just-right product.
Value-conscious shoppers – particularly consumers from low- and middle-income households, which have driven much of recent grocery growth – seem to be increasingly shopping across multiple retailers to secure the best prices. This behavior often involves making targeted trips to different stores in search of the strongest deals, a pattern that is contributing to the rise in shorter, more frequent grocery visits. At the same time, other grocery shoppers are making quick trips to pick up a single ingredient or specialty item – perhaps reflecting the increasingly sophisticated home cooks and social media-driven ingredient crazes. In both these cases, speed is secondary to getting the best value or the right product.
So while some shorter visits reflect a growing emphasis on efficiency – as shoppers use in-store trips to complement primarily online grocery shopping – others appear driven by a preference for value or product selection over speed. Despite their differences, all of these behaviors have one thing in common – they're all contributing to continued growth in brick-and-mortar grocery visits. Grocers who invest in providing efficient in-store experiences are particularly well-positioned to benefit from these trends.
As early as 2022, the top 15 most-visited grocery chains already accounted for roughly half of all grocery visits nationwide. And by outpacing the industry average in terms of visit growth, these chains have continued to capture a growing share of grocery foot traffic.
This widening gap suggests that scale is increasingly enabling grocers to reinvest in the factors that attract and retain shoppers. Larger chains are better positioned to invest in broader and more differentiated product selection, stronger private-label programs that deliver quality at accessible price points, competitive pricing, and operational excellence across stores and omnichannel touchpoints. These capabilities allow top chains to serve a wide range of shopping missions – from quick, convenience-driven trips to more intentional visits in search of the right product or ingredient.
Consolidation at the top of the grocery category is reinforcing a virtuous cycle: scale enables better value, selection, and experience, which in turn draws more shoppers into stores and supports continued grocery traffic growth.
In 2025, the top 15 most-visited grocery chains accounted for a disproportionate share of visits lasting 15 minutes or more, while smaller grocers captured a larger share of the shortest trips. As shown above, larger grocery chains, which tend to attract longer visits, grew faster than the industry overall – but short visits, which skew more heavily toward smaller chains, accounted for a greater share of total traffic growth. Together, these patterns show that both long, destination trips and short, targeted visits are driving grocery traffic growth and creating viable paths forward for retailers of all sizes.
Larger chains are more likely to serve as destinations for fuller shopping missions, competing for the entire grocery list – or a significant share of it. But smaller banners can grow too by competing for more short visits. By specializing in a specific product category, owning a clearly defined shopping mission, or delivering a compelling value proposition, smaller grocers can earn a place in shoppers’ routines and become a deliberate stop within a broader grocery journey.
As grocery moves deeper into 2026, growth is being driven by the cumulative effect of how consumers are navigating food shopping today. Expanded supply has increased overall engagement, higher food costs are driving more frequent and targeted trips, and shoppers are increasingly willing to split their grocery list across retailers based on value, availability, and mission.
Looking ahead, this suggests that grocery growth will remain resilient, but unevenly distributed. Retailers that clearly understand which trips they are best positioned to win – and invest accordingly – will be best placed to capture that growth. Large chains are likely to continue benefiting from scale, consolidation, and their ability to serve full shopping missions, while smaller banners can grow by earning a defined role within shoppers’ broader grocery journeys. In 2026, success in grocery will be less about winning every trip and more about consistently winning the right ones.
To optimize office utilization and surrounding activity in 2026, stakeholders should:
1. Plan for continued, but slower, office recovery. Attendance continues to rise and has reached a post-pandemic high, but moderating growth suggests the return-to-office may progress at a more gradual and incremental pace than in prior years.
2. Account for growing seasonality in office staffing, local retail operations, and municipal services. As office visitation becomes increasingly concentrated in late spring and summer, offices, downtown retailers, and cities may need to plan for more predictable peaks and troughs by adjusting hours, staffing levels, and local services accordingly, rather than relying on annual averages.
3. Align leasing strategies with seasonal demand. Stronger attendance in Q2 and Q3 suggests these quarters are best suited for leasing activity, while softer Q1 and Q4 periods may be better used for renovations, repositioning, and targeted activation efforts designed to draw workers in.
4. Design hybrid policies around midweek anchor days. With Tuesdays and Wednesdays consistently driving the highest office attendance, employers can maximize collaboration and space utilization by concentrating meetings, programming, and in-office expectations midweek.
5. Reduce early-week commute friction to support attendance. Monday office attendance appears closely correlated with commute ease, suggesting that reliable and efficient transportation may be an important factor in early-week office recovery.
6. Prioritize proximity in leasing and development decisions. Visits from employees traveling less than five miles to work have increased steadily since 2019, reinforcing the value of centrally located offices and housing near employment hubs.
2025 was the year of the return-to-office (RTO) mandate. Employers across industries – from Amazon to JPMorgan Chase – instituted full-time on-site requirements and sought to rein in remote work. But the year also underscored the limits of policy. As employee pushback and enforcement challenges mounted, many organizations turned to quieter tactics such as “hybrid creep” to gradually expand in-office expectations without triggering outright resistance.
For employers seeking to boost attendance, as well as office owners, retailers, and cities looking to maximize today’s visitation patterns, understanding what actually drives employee behavior has become more critical than ever. This reports dives into the data to examine office visitation patterns in 2025 – and explore how structural factors such as weather, commute convenience, and workplace proximity have emerged as key differentiators shaping how and when, and how often workers come into the office.
National office visits rose 5.6% year over year in 2025, bringing attendance to just 31.7% below pre-pandemic levels and marking the highest point since COVID disrupted workplace routines. At the same time, the pace of growth slowed compared to 2024, signaling a possible transition into a steadier phase of recovery.
With new return-to-office mandates expected in 2026, and the balance of power quietly shifting towards employers, additional gains remain likely. But the trajectory suggested by the data points toward gradual progress rather than a return to the more rapid rebounds seen in 2023 or 2024.
Before COVID, “I couldn’t come in, it was raining” would have sounded like a flimsy excuse to most bosses. But today, weather, travel, and individual scheduling are widely accepted reasons to stay home, reflecting a broader assumption that face time should flex around convenience.
This shift is visible in the growing seasonality of office visitation, which has intensified even as overall attendance continues to rise. In 2019, office life followed a relatively steady year-round cadence, with only modest quarterly variation after adjusting for the number of working days. In recent years, however, greater seasonality has emerged. Since 2024, Q1 and Q4 have consistently underperformed while Q2 and Q3 have posted meaningfully stronger attendance – a pattern that became even more pronounced in 2025. Winter weather disruptions, extended holiday travel, and the growing normalization of “workations” appear to be pulling some visits out of the colder, holiday-heavy months and concentrating them into late spring and summer.
For employers, office owners, downtown retailers, and city planners, this emerging seasonality matters. Staffing, operating budgets, and programming decisions increasingly need to account for predictable soft quarters and peak periods, making quarterly planning a more useful lens than annual averages. Leasing activity may also convert best in Q2 and Q3, when districts feel most active. Slower quarters, meanwhile, may be better suited for renovations, construction, or employer- and city-led programming designed to give workers a reason to show up.
The growing premium placed on convenience is also evident in the persistence of the TGIF workweek – and in the factors shaping its regional variability.
Before COVID, Mondays were typically the busiest day of the week, followed by relatively steady attendance through Thursday and a modest drop-off on Fridays. Today, Tuesdays and Wednesdays have firmly established themselves as the primary anchor days, while Mondays and Fridays see consistently lower activity. And notably, this pattern has remained essentially stable over the past three years – despite minor fluctuations – as workers continue to cluster their in-office time around the days that offer the most perceived value while preserving flexibility at the edges of the week.
At the same time, while the hybrid workweek remains firmly entrenched nationwide, its contours vary significantly across regions – and the data suggests that convenience is once again a key differentiator.
Across major markets, a clear pattern emerges: Cities with higher reliance on public transportation tend to see weaker Monday office attendance, while markets where more workers drive alone show stronger early-week presence. While industry mix and local office culture still matter, the data points to commute hassle as another factor potentially shaping Monday attendance.
New York City, excluded from the chart below as a clear outlier, stands as the exception that proves the rule. Despite nearly half of local employees relying on public transportation (48.7% according to the Census 2024 (ACS)), the city’s extensive and deeply embedded transit system appears to reduce perceived friction. In 2025, Mondays accounted for 18.4% of weekly office visits in the city, even with heavy transit usage.
The contrast highlights an important nuance: Where transit is fast, frequent, and integrated into daily routines, it can support office recovery, offering a potential roadmap for other dense urban markets seeking to rebuild early-week momentum.
Another powerful signal of today’s convenience-first mindset shows up in commute distances. Since 2019, the share of office visits generated by employees traveling less than five miles has steadily increased, largely at the expense of mid-distance commuters traveling 10 to 25 miles.
To be sure, this metric reflects total visits rather than unique visitors, so the shift may be driven by increased visit frequency among workers with shorter, simpler commutes rather than a change in where employees live overall. Still, the pattern is telling: Workers with shorter commutes appear more likely to generate repeat in-person visits, while longer and more complex commutes correspond with fewer trips. Over time, this dynamic could shape office leasing decisions, residential demand near employment centers – whether in urban cores or in nearby suburbs – and the geography of the workforce.
Taken together, the data paints a clear picture of the modern return-to-office landscape. Attendance is rising, but behavior is no longer driven by mandates alone. Instead, workers are making rational, convenience-based decisions about when coming in is worth the effort.
For cities, the implication is straightforward: Ease of access matters. Investments in transit reliability, last-mile connectivity, and housing near employment centers can all play a meaningful role in shaping how consistently people show up. For employers, too, the lesson is that the path back to the office runs through convenience, not just compulsion, as attendance gains are increasingly driven by how effectively organizations reduce friction and increase the perceived value of being on-site.
