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Darden Restaurants, which counts Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse among its portfolio of leading full-service restaurant (FSR) chains, has been on a solid growth trajectory: In March 2025, the company reported a 6.2% year-over-year (YoY) quarterly sales increase, fueled by expansion and a 0.7% bump in same-restaurant sales.
With Darden set to report again in June 2025, we dove into the data to see how the full-service restaurant (FSR) leader has performed so far this year.
In Q1 2025, overall visits to Darden Restaurants’ brand portfolio outpaced average visits per location, reflecting the company’s expansion in 2024, including the acquisition of Chuy’s. Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, both of which also increased their footprints over the past year, followed similar patterns – with LongHorn Steakhouse enjoying a modest 0.5% uptick in overall foot traffic.
A closer look at monthly visitation data reveals a more nuanced – and positive – picture.
Between January and May 2025, Darden recorded nearly uniform monthly YoY overall visit growth, with only February slipping into the red due to harsh weather and a leap-year comparison. And in April and May, average visits per location rose YoY for both the portfolio and its leading brands – a testament to Darden’s ongoing strength.
Unsurprisingly, LongHorn Steakhouse continued to outperform, drawing customers with the promise of a reasonably priced cut of quality meat – a particularly enticing value proposition as beef prices continue to rise.
Darden’s performance on Mother’s Day, an important milestone for the company, further underscores its positive trajectory.
Olive Garden is a major Mother’s Day destination, and its performance this year didn’t disappoint. May 11th, 2025 was the Italian-American cuisine giant’s single busiest day of the past 12 months, with foot traffic soaring 152.9% compared to an average day and 101.8% compared to an average Sunday. LongHorn Steakhouse experienced a similar surge, and both chains topped their Mother’s Day traffic from last year – showcasing their ability to capitalize on this crucial occasion.
Like Texas Roadhouse, LongHorn Steakhouse is also a major Father’s Day draw. And given its strong performance this year, the chain will certainly be one to watch when June 15th rolls around.
Darden’s recent results show resilience and a clear knack for meeting consumer demand, even in a challenging market. How will the company continue to fare as the year progresses?
Follow Placer.ai's data-driven dining analyses to find out.
Burger King is the latest quick-service restaurant (QSR) brand to jump on the LTO bandwagon, introducing a limited-time menu inspired by the much-anticipated How to Train Your Dragon movie. And though the film isn’t set to hit theaters until June 13th, the offering – which launched on Tuesday, May 27th – already appears to be boosting foot traffic.
On the day of the launch, visits to Burger King rose 6.2% above the chain’s year-to-date (YTD) Tuesday average. Momentum continued to build throughout the week, with May 30th seeing an 11.1% visit bump compared to an average Friday – and emerging as Burger King’s busiest day of the year so far. Year over year, too, Burger King registered increased traffic during the week of the launch – a trend that could intensify once the movie premieres.
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Mall visits increased across all formats in May 2025 as consumer confidence improved. Indoor malls posted the largest gains with a 6.7% year-over-year (YoY) increase in visits, followed by open-air shopping centers (+5.0%) and outlet malls (+3.9%).
The rise in mall visits for a second month in a row suggests that April's positive YoY visit trends were more than a temporary pull-forward of consumer demand in response to tariff uncertainty. Instead, the latest data indicates that the retail sector remains resilient despite the broader economic headwinds.
Some of May's strength was likely also driven by the sector's strong showing over Memorial Day weekend. Indoor malls and open-air shopping centers saw their YoY visits spike on the Saturday and Sunday before the holiday – in contrast with the wider brick-and-mortar retail industry that saw relatively flat YoY visit numbers over the long weekend.
This suggests that shopping centers continue to operate as more than just retail destinations. And malls' entertainment offerings – specifically movie theaters, which posted impressive Memorial Day box office numbers – likely helped boost traffic despite the more muted Memorial Day performance of other discretionary categories.
Diving into the demographic breakdown of mall visitors in May 2025 reveals the median household income (HHI) fell slightly for audiences across all mall formats – while visitation trends show an increase in average visit duration.
This suggests that malls' current resilience is not due to their effective appeal to higher-income shoppers during times of economic uncertainty, as the median HHI in their trade areas is on par with (and even slightly lower than) May 2024 levels. Instead, the longer visit duration suggests that top-tier malls are succeeding by positioning themselves as social hubs and experiential destinations – using their diverse tenant base to keep visits up also during times of reduced retail activity.
Malls are continuing to adapt to evolving consumer behaviors, with top-tier malls leaning into their role as multifaceted social and entertainment venues – positioning them well for continued growth and sustained relevance in a dynamic economic landscape.
For more data-driven consumer insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
While the overall luxury apparel market has seen its traffic slow in recent months, Coach is seeing visit growth. The company posted an impressive 15% increase in revenue year-over-year (YoY) in Q1 2025 – and YoY visits were also elevated.
Overall foot traffic grew in all but one analyzed month of 2025, culminating in May 2025 with 7.5% YoY visit growth.
Some of Coach’s success may be tied to its positioning as an affordable luxury brand. The company has also made attracting younger, Gen Z consumers, a priority. And this focus appears to be paying off, as evidenced by its demographic and psychographic data.
Nationwide, visitors to Coach stores typically come from trade areas with a median household income (HHI) of $82.5K. While higher than the nationwide median of $79.6K, this figure remains significantly lower than the $109.3K median HHI of traditional luxury shoppers. And this disparity in income suggests that the “affordable” part of the affordable luxury retail experience is resonating.
And diving into the psychographic data for Coach’s captured market further supports this idea: visitors to Coach came from trade areas with much lower shares of “Power Elite” shoppers, defined by the Experian: Mosaic as the wealthiest households in the country. And the share of “Singles and Starters” – city-based Gen Z professionals – was higher than that of luxury shoppers.
Taken together, these data points suggest that Coach is driving success by reaching a consumer segment not typically targeted by other major luxury brands. Coach's strong performance in a challenging retail environment suggests that luxury's appeal is broader than often assumed and highlights the opportunities created by tailoring products to a wider range of consumers.
Aside from offering affordable luxuries to a wide range of shoppers, Coach also places a strong emphasis on creating compelling retail experiences. In 2023, the company introduced its interactive Coach Play stores – designed for experiential shopping – as well as Coachtopia, a new product line focused on sustainability that currently has twelve dedicated stores across the country.
And diving into the visit data for one of these Coachtopia locations suggests that, much like Coach Play stores, this retail concept encourages visitors to linger. Visitors to a Coachtopia store in The Grove, Los Angeles, stayed, on average, 30% longer than visitors to other Coach stores in California.
Visitors to the store also tended to come from trade areas where the median household income, while exceeding the nationwide median ($88.1K compared to $79.6K), was lower than that of the average Coach shopper and the average California resident. This suggests that concepts like Coachtopia are not only attracting their target audience – middle-income shoppers who value affordable luxuries – this demographic is also happy to spend more time in-store.
Coach’s success, especially in a period marked by significant challenges for the apparel and luxury markets, serves as a reminder that perceived worth can make even a luxury purchase compelling for a wide audience.
Will Coach continue to see foot traffic and visit success in the second half of the year? Visit Placer.ai/anchor for the latest data-driven retail insights.
DICK's Sporting Goods outlined a number of reasons behind its decision to acquire Foot Locker this week, including: creating a global platform in the sporting goods retail category, strengthening partnerships with suppliers, and improving its omnichannel capabilities. However, the opportunity to tap into a larger target audience strikes us as the most interesting rationale behind the acquisition, so we thought we’d take a closer look using Placer.ai data.
Foot Locker has a strong presence in malls and urban centers, coupled with its deep connection to sneaker culture and a younger, more fashion-conscious demographic. On the other hand, DICK's has traditionally attracted a broader, family-oriented sporting goods appeal and suburban footprint. Our data reflects this, with the captured market data for the DICK’s Sporting Goods banners showing higher median household income ($87.4K) relative to the Foot Locker banners ($62.3K) as well as a higher percentage of visitors with a Bachelor’s Degree and a smaller household size.
While there are a number strategic benefits for DICK's Sporting Goods acquiring Foot Locker, the significant expansion and diversification of its customer reach is paramount. For major brand partners like Nike and adidas, this unified retail entity presents a compelling advantage: access to Foot Locker's younger, urban, and fashion-forward "sneakerhead" demographic alongside DICK's established suburban consumers through a single, more influential wholesale relationship, thereby maximizing their market penetration and simplifying brand messaging across a broader spectrum of the U.S. consumer landscape. This should also allow for stronger co-marketing opportunities between the footwear brands and retailers, which is crucial in an industry where major brands are increasingly focused on direct-to-consumer strategies.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Small-format stores are all the rage. Retailers from Macy’s to IKEA are experimenting with more compact locations to save on operating costs, expand into new markets, and offer customers a more convenient, curated shopping experience.
But just how effective is this approach? Is “going small” truly the key to brick-and-mortar retail success in 2025?
We dove into the data to find out.
One chain that has successfully embraced a small-format strategy is Sprouts Farmers Market, the upscale, fresh-format grocery brand that has been steadily expanding over the past few years. Since 2022, the chain has pivoted from its traditional 30,000-32,000-square-foot stores to a more compact model of around 23,000 square feet. And location analytics suggest that this shift has been instrumental in Sprouts’ ongoing success.
In Q1 2025, the average number of visits per Sprouts location nationwide rose 4.4% year over year (YoY). But the chains’ smaller-format stores – those under 24,000 square feet – saw an even more impressive 8.8% YoY jump.
And digging into demographic data reveals that these smaller stores are helping Sprouts connect with new, urban audiences while still appealing to its core suburban customer base. Like Sprouts’ larger stores, the smaller outlets attract a higher-than-average share of “Suburban Periphery” shoppers, though less than the chain overall. But these smaller stores also draw more customers from urban areas – including shoppers from “Principal Urban Centers” that tend to be under-represented in Sprouts’ trade areas. Meanwhile, small-format Sprouts’ also attract visitors from slightly less affluent areas (though still above the nationwide median) – showing how Sprouts is expanding its audience without losing its suburban, affluent core.
Kohl’s is another chain demonstrating the potential of scaled-down stores. In 2022, the retailer announced plans to open about 100 smaller-format stores – around 35,000 square feet – a marked reduction from Kohl’s typical 80,000-square-foot footprint. And the success of Kohl’s 37,000 square-foot “concept” store in Tacoma, WA – opened in November 2022 as a testing ground for this format – showcases the promise of this approach.
The store offers a curated selection of active lifestyle products geared towards local preferences – as well as an improved self-pickup area. And location analytics suggest that the location’s offerings are resonating: The Tacoma store’s convenient set-up appears to help speed up shopping trips, as reflected by reduced dwell times. And over the past two quarters, YoY visits at the Tacoma Kohl’s have significantly outperformed other area locations.
But going small isn’t the only recipe for retail success in 2025. Some chains are finding that bigger is better – creating gigantic stores that offer an unforgettable shopping experience, and keep customers coming back.
Convenience stores are rarely known for their size – but Buc-ee’s, the Texan favorite that holds the record for the largest c-store in the world, is the exception that proves the rule. Many of Buc-ee’s locations exceed 70,000 square feet. And over the past 12 months, Buc-ee’s has enjoyed consistent YoY visit growth, even as the broader category has languished. The massive c-store’s over-the-top offerings, from homemade fudge to Beaver Nuggets, have cemented Buc-ee’s reputation as a destination in its own right.
Supersized store formats have also fueled success in the recreational and sporting goods space. Dick’s House of Sport, Bass Pro Shop, and other chains have invested in expansive, experiential stores meant to serve as community hubs for sports fans and outdoor enthusiasts. And expanding Midwestern and Mountain State brand Scheels is emerging as a benchmark for this approach.
Roughly half of Scheels stores span at least 200,000 square feet, featuring attractions like Ferris wheels, massive saltwater aquariums, shooting galleries, archery lanes, and more. Unsurprisingly, these entertainment-oriented spaces draw more weekend crowds than other sporting goods stores. The chain has also grown its audience, outperforming the wider sector for YoY visit growth.
The takeaway? There’s no single formula for retail success in 2025. But whether scaled-down and curated or grandiose and experiential, retail chains that intentionally and creatively leverage their physical spaces to engage audiences will continue to thrive.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit Placer.ai.
The past few years have provided the tourism sector with a multitude of headwinds, from pandemic-induced lockdowns to persistent inflation and a rise in extreme weather events. But despite these challenges, people are more excited than ever to travel – more than half of respondents to a recent survey are planning on increasing their travel budgets in the coming months.
And while revenge travel to overseas destinations is still very much alive and well, the often high costs associated with traveling abroad are shaping the way people choose to travel. Domestic travel and tourism are seeing significant growth as more affordable alternatives.
This white paper takes a closer look at two of the most popular domestic tourism destinations in the country – New York City and Los Angeles. Over the past year, both cities have continued to be leading tourism hotspots, offering a wealth of attractions for visitors. What does tourism to these two cities look like in 2024, and what has changed since before the pandemic? How have inflation and rising airfare prices affected the demographics and psychographics of visitors to these major hubs?
Analyzing the distribution of domestic tourists across CBSAs nationwide from May 2023 to April 2024 reveals New York and Los Angeles to be two of the nation’s most popular destinations. (Tourists include overnight visitors staying in a given CBSA for up to 31 days).
The New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro area drew the largest share of domestic tourists of any CBSA during the analyzed period (2.7%), followed closely by the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA CBSA (2.5%). Other domestic tourism hotspots included Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL (tied for second place with 2.5% of visitors), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (1.9%), Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV (1.8%), Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL (1.8%), and Chicago-Naperville, Elgin, IL-IN-WI (1.6%).
The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. Empire City. Whatever it’s called, New York City remains one of the most well-known tourist destinations in the world. And for many Americans, New York is the perfect place for an extended weekend getaway – or for a multi-day excursion to see the sights.
But where do these NYC-bound vacationers come from? Diving into the data on the origin of visitors making medium-length trips to New York City (three to seven nights) reveals that increasingly, these domestic tourists are coming from nearby metro areas.
Between 2018-2019 and 2023-2024, for example, the number of tourists visiting New York City from the Philadelphia metro area increased by 19.2%.
The number of tourists coming from the Boston and Washington, D.C metro areas, and from the New York CBSA itself (New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA) also increased over the same period.
Meanwhile, further-away CBSAs like San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, GA, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL fed fewer tourists to NYC in 2023-2024 than they did pre-pandemic. It seems that residents of these more distant metro areas are opting for vacation destinations closer to home to avoid the high costs of air travel.
Diving even deeper into the characteristics of visitors taking medium-length trips to New York City reveals another demographic shift: Tourists staying between three and seven nights in the Big Apple are skewing younger.
Between 2018-2019 and 2023-2024, the share of visitors to New York City from areas with median ages under 30 grew from 2.1% to 4.5%. Meanwhile, the share of visitors from areas with median ages between 31 and 40 increased from 34.3% to 37.7%.
The impact of this trend is already being felt in the Big Apple, with The Broadway League reporting that the average age of audiences to its shows during the 2022- 2023 season was the youngest it had been in 20 seasons.
The shift towards younger tourists can also be seen when examining the psychographic makeup of visitors to popular attractions in New York City. Analyzing the captured markets of major NYC landmarks with data from Spatial.ai’s PersonaLive dataset reveals an increase in households belonging to the “Educated Urbanites” segment between 2018-2019 and 2023-2024.
These well-educated, young singles are increasingly visiting iconic NYC venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American Museum of Natural History, and the Statue of Liberty. This shift highlights the growing popularity of these attractions among young, educated singles, reflecting a broader trend of increased domestic tourism among this demographic.
New York City’s tourism sector is adapting to meet the changing needs of travelers, fueled increasingly by younger visitors who may be unable to take a costly international vacation. How have travel patterns to Los Angeles changed in response to increasing travel costs?
While New York City is the East Coast’s tourism hotspot, Los Angeles takes center stage on the West Coast. And as overseas travel has become increasingly out of reach for Americans with less discretionary income, the share of domestic tourists originating from areas with lower HHIs has risen.
Before the pandemic, 57.6% of visitors to LA came from affluent areas with median household incomes (HHIs) of over $90K/year. But by 2023-2024, this share decreased to 50.7%. Over the same period, the share of visitors from areas with median HHIs between $41K and $60K increased from 9.7% to 12.5%, while the share of visitors from areas with HHIs between $61K and $90K rose from 32.1% to 35.8%.
Diving into the psychographic makeup of visitors to popular Los Angeles attractions – Universal Studios Hollywood, Disneyland California, the Santa Monica Pier, and Griffith Observatory – also reflects the above-mentioned shift in HHI. The captured markets of these attractions had higher shares of middle-income households belonging to the “Family Union” psychographic segment in 2023-2024 than in 2018-2019.
Experian: Mosaic defines this segment as “middle income, middle-aged families living in homes supported by solid blue-collar occupations.” Pre-pandemic, 16.0% of visitors to Universal Studios Hollywood came from trade areas with high shares of “Family Union” households. This number jumped to 18.8% over the past year. A similar trend occurred at Disneyland, Santa Monica Pier, and Griffith Observatory.
And like in New York City, growing numbers of visitors to Los Angeles appear to be coming from nearby areas. Between 2018-2019 and 2023-2024, the share of in-state visitors to major Los Angeles attractions increased substantially – as people likely sought to cut costs by keeping things local.
Pre-pandemic, for example, 68.9% of visitors to Universal Studios Hollywood came from within California – a share that increased to 72.0% over the past year. Similarly, 59.7% of Griffith Observatory visitors in 2018-2019 came from within the state – and by 2023-2024, that number grew to 64.7%.
Even when times are tight, people love to travel – and New York and Los Angeles are two of their favorite destinations. With prices for airfare, hotels, and dining out increasing across the board, younger and more price-conscious households are adapting, choosing to visit nearby cities and enjoy attractions closer to home. And as the tourism industry continues its recovery, understanding emerging visitation trends can help stakeholders meet travelers where they are.
The positive retail momentum observed in Q1 2024 continued into Q2 – as stabilizing prices and a strong job market fostered cautious optimism among consumers. Year-over-year (YoY) retail foot traffic remained elevated throughout the quarter, with June in particular seeing significant weekly visit boosts ranging from 4.7% to 8.5%.
The robustness of the retail sector in Q2 was also highlighted by positive visit growth during the quarter’s special calendar occasions, including Mother’s Day (the week of May 6th) and Memorial Day (the week of May 27th). And though consumer spending may moderate as the year wears on, retail’s strong Q2 showing offers plenty of room for optimism ahead of back-to-school sales and other summer milestones.
On a quarterly basis, overall retail visits rose 4.2% in Q2. And diving into specific categories shows that value continued to reign supreme, with discount and dollar stores seeing the most robust YoY visit growth (11.2%) of any analyzed category.
Other essential goods purveyors, such as grocery store chains (7.6%) and superstores (4.6%), also outperformed the overall retail baseline. And fitness – a category deemed essential by many health-conscious consumers – outpaced overall retail with a substantial 6.0% YoY foot traffic increase.
The decidedly more discretionary home improvement industry performed less well than overall retail in Q2 – but in another sign of consumer resilience, it too experienced a YoY visit uptick. And overall restaurant foot traffic increased 2.6% YoY.
Discount and dollar stores enjoyed a strong Q2 2024, maintaining YoY visit growth above 10.0% for six out of the quarter’s 13 weeks. Only during the week of April 1st did the category see a temporary decline, likely the result of an Easter calendar shift. (The week of April 1st 2024 is being compared to the week of April 3rd, 2023, which included the run-up to Easter)
Some of this growth can be attributed to the continued expansion of segment leaders like Dollar General. But the category has also been bolstered by the emphasis consumers continue to place on value in the face of still-high prices and economic uncertainty.
Dollar General, which has been expanding both its store count and its grocery offerings, saw YoY visits increase between 9.1% and 15.9% throughout the quarter. Affordable-indulgence-oriented Five Below, which has also been adding locations at a brisk clip, saw YoY visits increase between 4.9% and 18.8%.
And though Dollar Tree has taken steps to rightsize its Family Dollar brand, the company’s eponymous banner – which caters to middle-income consumers in suburban areas – continued to grow both its store count and its visits in Q2.
Grocery store chains also performed well in Q2 2024 – experiencing strongly positive foot traffic growth throughout the quarter. Though the sector continues to face its share of challenges, stabilizing food-at-home prices and improvements in employee retention and supply chain management have helped propel the industry forward.
Diving into the performance of specific chains shows that within the grocery segment, too, price was paramount in Q2 2024 – with limited-assortment value grocery stores like Aldi and Trader Joe’s leading the way.
Traditional chains H-E-B and Food Lion (owned by Ahold Delhaize) – both of which are known for relatively low prices – outperformed the wider grocery sector with respective YoY foot traffic boosts of 11.4% and 8.7%. But ShopRite, Safeway (owned by Albertsons), Kroger, and Albertsons also drew more visits in Q2 2024 than in the equivalent period of last year.
Fitness has proven to be relatively inflation-proof in recent years – thriving even in the face of reduced discretionary spending and consumer cutbacks. Indeed, rising prices may have actually helped boost gym attendance, as people sought to squeeze the most value out of their monthly fees and replace pricy outings with already-paid-for gym excursions.
And despite lapping a remarkably strong 2023, visits to gyms nationwide remained elevated YoY in Q2 2024.
Diving into the data for some of the nation’s leading gyms shows that today’s fitness market has plenty of room at the top. Planet Fitness, 24 Hour Fitness, Life Time Fitness, Orangetheory Fitness, and LA Fitness all experienced YoY visit growth in Q2 2024 – reflecting consumers’ enduring interest in all things wellness-related.
But it was EōS Fitness and Crunch Fitness – two value gyms that have been pursuing aggressive expansion strategies – that really hit it out of the park, with respective YoY foot traffic increases of 23.4% and 21.4%.
The week of April 1st saw a decline in YoY visits to superstores – likely attributable to the Easter calendar shift noted above. But the category quickly rallied, and with back-to-school shopping and major superstore sales events coming up this July, the category appears poised to enjoy continued success throughout the summer.
Within the superstore category, wholesale clubs continued to stand out – with Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club enjoying YoY foot traffic growth ranging from 12.0% to 7.4%. But Target and Walmart also impressed with 4.6% and 4.0% YoY visit increases.
Inflation, elevated interest rates, and a sluggish real estate market have created a perfect storm for the home improvement industry, with spending on renovations in decline. The accelerated return to office has likely also taken its toll on the category, as people spend more time outside the home and have less availability to immerse themselves in DIY projects.
But despite these challenges, weekly YoY foot traffic to home improvement and furnishing chains remained elevated throughout much of the Q2 – with June and April seeing mostly positive YoY visit growth, and May hovering just below 2023 levels. This (modest) visit growth may be driven by consumers loading up on supplies for necessary home repairs, or by shoppers seeking materials for smaller projects. And given the importance of Q2 for the home improvement sector, this largely positive snapshot may offer some promise of good things to come.
Some chains within the home improvement category continued to perform especially well in Q2 2024 – with rapidly expanding, budget-oriented Harbor Freight Tools leading the pack. But Ace Hardware, Menards, The Home Depot, and Lowe’s also saw foot traffic increases in Q2, showcasing the category’s resilience in the face of headwinds.
Restaurants – including full-service restaurants (FSR), quick-service restaurants (QSR), fast-casual chains, and coffee chains – lagged behind grocery stores and other essential goods retailers in Q2 2024, as price-sensitive consumers prioritized needs over wants and ate at home more often.
Still, YoY restaurant foot traffic remained up throughout most of the quarter. And impressively, the sector saw a YoY visit uptick during the week of Mother’s Day (the week of May 6th, 2024, compared to the week of May 8th, 2023) – an important milestone for FSR.
The restaurant industry’s YoY visit growth was felt across segments – though fast-casual and coffee chains experienced the biggest visit boosts. Like in Q1 2024, fast-casual restaurants hit the sweet spot between indulgence and affordability, outpacing QSR in the wake of fast food price hikes. And building on the positive YoY trendline that began to emerge last quarter, full-service restaurants finished Q2 2024 with a 1.4% YoY visit uptick.
Chain expansion was the name of the restaurant game in Q2 2024, with several chains that have been growing their footprints outperforming segment averages – including CAVA, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ziggi’s Coffee, California-based Philz Coffee, Raising Cane’s, Whataburger, and First Watch. Chili’s Grill and Bar also outpaced the full-service category average, aided by the revamping of its “3 for Me” menu.
Retailers and restaurants in Q2 2024 continued to face plenty of challenges, from inflation to rising labor costs and volatile consumer confidence. But foot traffic trends across industries – including both essential goods purveyors like grocery stores and more discretionary categories like home improvement and restaurants – suggest plenty of room for cautious optimism as 2024 wears on.
Return-to-office (RTO) trends have been closely watched over the past few years, with relevant stakeholders trying to puzzle out the impact remote and hybrid work have had on business operations and worker performance. And while visits to office buildings, overall, remain below pre-pandemic levels, office recovery varies from city to city – reflecting the complex and nuanced nature of regional economic trends, workforce preferences, and industry-specific needs.
This white paper harnesses location analytics to explore office recovery in the country’s second-largest economy – Los Angeles. The first part of the report is based on an analysis of foot traffic data from Placer.ai’s Los Angeles Office Index – an index comprising 100 office buildings in LA (including several in the greater metro area). The second part of the report broadens the lens to analyze visits by local employees to points of interest (POIs) corresponding to four major LA-area office districts: Century City, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, and Culver City. The white paper examines the impact that return-to-work mandates have had on visits to office buildings, discovers which demographic groups are driving the RTO, and explores the connection between commute time and return-to-office rates.
The return to office in Los Angeles has consistently lagged behind other major cities, underperforming nationwide recovery levels since the pandemic ground in-office work to a virtual halt. Still, the city’s office buildings are seeing a steady increase in visits, with foot traffic tending to spike at the beginning of each year. This indicates that even though office visits in LA are still below national averages, they are on a steady growth trajectory – a promising sign for stakeholders in the city.
A closer examination of Los Angeles office buildings also shows that despite the overall lag, some top-performing buildings in the LA metro area are defying the odds. Visits to the 20 local office buildings with the narrowest Q2 2024 post-COVID visit gaps were down just 8.7% in June 2024 compared to January 2019 – significantly outperforming the nationwide average.
So while overall office recovery in the city is still behind nationwide trends, these top-performing buildings indicate an optimistic outlook for the city’s office spaces.
Diving into the demographics of visitors to LA’s top-performing office buildings reveals an important insight: these buildings are attracting younger workers. This cohort has shown a stronger preference for in-person work compared to their older colleagues.
Analyzing the buildings’ captured markets with psychographics from AGS: Panorama reveals that these buildings are attracting visitors from areas with larger shares of "Emerging Leaders" and "Young Coastal Technocrats" than the broader metro area.
"Emerging Leaders'' – upper-middle-class professionals in early stages of their careers – make up 20.3% of households in the trade areas feeding visits to these top-performing buildings, compared to 14.9% in the broader LA CBSA. Similarly, "Young Coastal Technocrats," young and highly educated professionals in tech and professional services, account for 14.7% of households driving visits to the top-performing buildings, compared to only 12.1% in the broader area.
The trend suggests that companies in these high-performing office buildings employ many early-career professionals eager to accelerate their careers and work in-person with colleagues and mentors. This is a positive sign for the future of the office market in the LA metro area, indicating that it is attractive to key demographic groups that are likely to drive future growth and innovation.
Over the past few years, the debate regarding return-to-office mandates has been a heated one. Will employees follow return-to-office requirements? Can companies enforce the return to office after offering remote and hybrid work options? Recent location analytics data suggests that, at least in the Los Angeles metro area, some return-to-office mandates have been effective.
Three major tech companies – Activision Blizzard, TikTok, and SNAP Inc. – recently made their return-to-office policies stricter. Activision mandated a full return to the office in January 2024. TikTok has also intensified its return-to-office policy while seeking to expand its office presence in the greater Los Angeles area. And SNAP Inc. required employees to return to the office earlier this year as a condition of continued employment.
Visitation patterns at each of these companies' respective headquarters suggest that their policies have directly impacted visit frequency. Since the beginning of the year, the share of repeat office visits (defined as two or more visits per week) has increased for all three locations. Activision saw its share of repeat office visits grow from 52.1% in H1 2023 to 61.4% in the same period of 2024. TikTok’s repeat visits grew from 49.5% to 61.0%, and SNAP’s repeat visits increased from 36.6% to 42.8%.
These numbers highlight how return-to-office policies can lead to noticeable changes in office visit patterns and offer a blueprint to other businesses looking to foster a stronger in-office workforce.
Los Angeles is the second-largest metro area in the country, with several distinct business districts across its sprawling landscape. And a closer look at four major office hubs in the greater LA area – Century City, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, and Culver City – highlights how the office recovery can vary, not just by city or demographic, but on a neighborhood level.
Weekday visits by local employees to all four analyzed business districts have rebounded significantly since 2020 – though each area has followed its own particular trajectory.
Culver City, home to major businesses including Sony Pictures and Disney Digital Network, saw the least pronounced drop in employee visits during the early days of the pandemic. And in Q2 2024, weekday visits by local workers were down just 18.4% compared to Q1 2019.
Century City, on the other hand, saw the most marked drop in local employee foot traffic as the pandemic set in. But the district’s recovery trajectory has also been the most dramatic – with a Q2 2024 visit gap of just 28.5%, smaller than Downtown LA’s 29.7% visit gap. Perhaps capitalizing on this momentum, Century City is expanding its business district with the addition of a major new office building, set to be completed in 2026 and serve as the headquarters for Creative Artists Agency. Santa Monica, for its part, finished off Q2 2024 with a 23.3% visit gap.
Century City stands out within the Los Angeles metropolitan area for its dramatic decline and subsequent resurgence in local employee foot traffic. And looking at another metric of office recovery – employee commute distance – further underscores the district’s remarkable comeback.
The share of employees commuting to Century City from three to seven miles away has nearly returned to pre-COVID levels – suggesting a normalization of commuting patterns by local workers living in the area. In H1 2019, 33.5% of workers in Century City commuted between 3 and 7 miles to work; in 2022, that number had dropped to 29.8%. But by 2024, the share of visitors making that commute had grown to 32.5% – much closer to pre-COVID numbers.
Similarly, the region’s trade area size, which had contracted significantly in the wake of the pandemic, bounced back significantly in 2024. This serves as another indication of Century City’s rebound, cementing Century City’s status as a key business hub within the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Five years after the upheaval caused by the pandemic, office spaces are still changing. Although the Los Angeles area has taken longer to recover than other major cities, analyzing local visitation data shows significant potential for the city’s business areas. With young employees leading the return-to-office charge, the city is poised to keep driving its strong economy and adjust to an evolving office environment.
