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We recently launched a podcast called Anchored – and if you're a frequent visitor of The Anchor, this one's for you. Anchored brings together the sharpest minds in retail, real estate, and consumer behavior for honest, in-depth conversations about where the industry is actually headed.
Every episode is packed with ideas worth holding onto. Here are a few standout insights from our released episodes in Season 1:
Watch: The $4 Billion Ceiling: Why Great Retail Brands Stop Growing
Watch: Why Retail Needs More Art and Less Science
Watch: From Hype to Hybrid: The Evolution of Retail Media
Watch: The In-Store Mega Channel
Watch: Convenience Meets Connection
Watch: The New Retail Recipe
The common thread: the physical store is worth far more than most brands realize. Listen to Anchored to hear why – and explore more retail insights at Placer.ai/anchor.
The 2026 World Cup kicked off on June 11th – and so, it turns out, did one of Chipotle's biggest traffic days of the year. To mark the occasion, the fast-casual chain offered a buy-one-get-one entrée deal to anyone who walked in wearing a soccer jersey after 3 p.m. local time.
And the promotion delivered a World-Cup-worthy visit spike. Nationwide foot traffic on June 11 ran 55.5% above Chipotle's 2026 year-to-date daily average – edging out the chain’s March tattoo BOGO, which ran 48.8% above the daily average. A jersey, it would seem, is an easier ask than a tattoo – even a fake one. And unlike the tattoo promotion, which was only available from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., the World Cup offer ran through closing, giving customers a much larger window to participate.
The afternoon launch also concentrated demand later in the day. Because the promotion began at 3 p.m., visits between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. ran 88.0% above the year-to-date average for those hours, significantly outpacing the all-day lift.
Chipotle's World Cup BOGO is a reminder of how much a well-timed, low-friction promotion can move foot traffic – especially one tied to a cultural moment as big as the World Cup. The jersey requirement kept the barrier to entry low, the 3 p.m. start funneled demand into the dinner daypart, and the brand's everyday regulars likely did the rest.
For more data-driven dining insights, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
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Darden Restaurants will report year-end results on June 25, closing the books on a fiscal year in which the Olive Garden parent raised its guidance even as much of casual dining contended with cautious consumers. What's powering the outperformance – and which of Darden's banners are doing the heavy lifting? We dove into the data to find out.
Visits to Darden's brands climbed 2.4% year over year (YoY) in Q1 2026 (January through March), even as traffic to the wider full-service restaurant category fell 1.3%.
And the gap doesn't just reflect Darden's expanding fleet. Average visits per location rose 0.5% YoY across the company's brands while declining 0.5% for the category as a whole – suggesting Darden is driving incremental demand at existing restaurants, not just adding new ones. The pattern echoes the results posted by the company last quarter, when blended same-restaurant sales beat the casual dining benchmark by 540 basis points.
Visits and Average Visits Per Location, Q1 (Jan.–Mar.) 2026 vs. Q1 2025
So what is fueling Darden’s success?
Among the company’s two largest brands, LongHorn Steakhouse has been the clear pacesetter, posting YoY same-store visit growth in every month of 2026 so far. The brand is likely benefiting from America's protein obsession, with meat demand climbing as high-protein diets go mainstream. And with grocery-store beef prices elevated, a steakhouse dinner may feel like particularly good value – especially as Darden has deliberately kept LongHorn's menu pricing below inflation while continuing to invest in food quality. That pricing gap may begin to narrow, however, as management has indicated that menu price increases are expected to move closer to inflation levels this quarter.
Olive Garden's performance, by contrast, has been more volatile. Some of the brand’s YoY visit fluctuations likely reflect calendar effects – March 2026 had one fewer Saturday than March 2025, while May benefited from an extra Sunday. But the flagship is also doing plenty right. Its springtime Buy One, Take One promotion and lighter-portion menu options have helped sharpen its value message, likely contributing to May's return to growth. And the brand delivered when it mattered most: On Mother's Day – one of the biggest dining-out occasions of the year – average visits per location to Olive Garden jumped 4.1% YoY, even as full-service restaurant visits rose just 2.2%.
Elsewhere in Darden's casual dining portfolio, Chuy’s slipped in four of the first five months of 2026, underscoring the challenges facing full-service Tex-Mex operators amid intense competition from fast-casual alternatives. Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, meanwhile – the company's deepest value brand – generated same-store visit growth in four of the first five months of 2026, including a 3.1% increase in May. While some of that performance likely reflects easier comparisons, it also underscores the continued appeal of clearly differentiated value-oriented dining.
Darden's strongest momentum, however, is coming from the upper end of its portfolio. After entering fiscal 2026 with same-restaurant sales declining amid soft business travel, Darden’s fine-dining segment swung to 2.1% growth by last quarter on private dining gains and Ruth's Chris Steak House's three-course fixed-price menu. And visit data suggests this recovery continued into the spring, with May benefiting from a strong Mother’s Day across the segment: Average visits per location to The Capital Grille surged 16.7% YoY on the holiday, while Ruth’s Chris and Eddie V’s posted gains of 7.9% and 5.9%, respectively.
Upscale casual Yard House also performed well – strength management has credited to the brand's "socially energized bar" and distinctive menu, which position it as a social gathering destination rather than just another dinner stop.
Darden's results highlight the advantage of a diversified portfolio built around distinct consumer occasions and value propositions. Cheddar's owns everyday affordability, LongHorn serves a juicy steak at an accessible price point, Yard House anchors a night out, and the fine dining banners serve as go-to destinations for life’s celebrations. Olive Garden, meanwhile, competes in the most crowded part of the casual dining market, and its more uneven performance reflects that. But the flagship's value plays – and its standout Mother's Day – suggest it is finding its footing in the middle, too.
Can Darden's distinct brand positioning continue to drive outperformance as 2026 unfolds?
Check back with Placer.ai/anchor for the latest traffic insights.
On a national level, retail foot traffic held notably steady in May 2026. However, even relatively small fluctuations at the state level tell a story of two external pressures – a sharp run-up at the pump and a destructive mid-May storm outbreak – shaping consumer behavior.
The chart below shows year-over-year (YoY) visits to overall retail by state in May 2026. And while performance varied somewhat by state,all changes remained within the narrow range of ±2 percentage points. Nationwide, overall retail sat relatively flat at 0.3% YoY – stability that suggests that consumers are closely managing their budgets amid a challenging economic backdrop.
Still, even modest year-over-year swings in foot traffic highlight the influence of two state-level pressures: ongoing gas price increases and adverse weather conditions.
Gas prices continued to climb sharply in May 2026, and the map above suggests a relationship between YoY price hikes at the pump and retail visitation patterns. Regions that experienced the largest YoY increases in gas prices, such as the Midwest and Ohio – where prices climbed by over 45% and 50%, respectively – were often those that saw retail foot traffic soften. This could at least partly reflect consumers adjusting their spending to offset higher fuel costs.
Meanwhile, the regions with the lowest average gas price, the Gulf Coast and Lower Atlantic, or the West Coast – which experienced the smallest YoY price increase of (only) about 30% – for the most part posted positive YoY retail foot traffic. This trend held even as average gas prices along the West Coast reached over $5.5 per gallon – the highest in the country – suggesting that changes in gas prices had a greater impact on consumer traffic patterns than the absolute price level itself.
But fuel costs were only part of the retail foot traffic story in May 2026. Across the Midwest and parts of the Mid-Atlantic, a multi-day severe weather outbreak brought tornadoes, large hail, and flash flooding to the region. The same weather system also contributed to wildfire activity across southwestern Kansas and parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, and the Texas Panhandle.
As the map above shows, the band of declining retail visits running through the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and Mid-Atlantic – closely tracking the path of these storms. This alignment suggests that severe weather amplified existing economic headwinds and gas price sensitivity, limiting consumer movement in affected markets.
May's retail traffic patterns suggest overall consumer caution with regional nuance influenced by varying degrees of gas price pressures and local weather events.
What will retail foot traffic look like in the weeks ahead? Visit Placer.ai/anchor to find out.
Amazon recently announced that Prime Day 2026 will take place from June 23rd to 26th, marking an earlier-than-usual start to the summer promotional season. While Prime Day itself is primarily an online event, retailers with a significant brick-and-mortar presence often join the fray with competing sales, either during Amazon's event or in the lead-up to Fourth of July promotions. So what does retail foot traffic reveal about the state of the consumer heading into this key shopping period? We dove into the data to find out.
Despite ongoing headwinds, foot traffic to major retail chains for the first five months of the year stayed in positive territory relative to 2025, a notable showing given the macroeconomic uncertainty weighing on consumer sentiment. And even though the pace of growth has cooled since March – likely due in part to the sharp increase in gas prices – the direction never turned negative.
That consistency matters heading into Prime Day. Even as growth moderated through the spring, audiences continued to choose physical retail, suggesting that in-store visits are holding up rather than ceding ground to online channels. For retailers planning competing summer promotions, the steady baseline of positive year-over-year (YoY) traffic suggests that demand is present, and the opportunity lies in converting resilient visit volume into stronger spend during the promotional window.
Segmenting consumer traffic by driving distance shows that even the most acute headwind facing consumers right now – elevated gas prices – has done little to fundamentally alter shopping behavior. Even though longer-distance visits pulled back sharply in March with the onset of the gas price hike, the retreat proved short-lived – by April, every distance band had returned to positive growth, and the recovery held into May.
The quick rebound suggests that the March pullback in longer drives was largely temporary and did not mark a lasting shift toward online shopping. Consumers remain willing to make longer trips to stores – a healthy signal of shopping intent heading into the summer promotional season. And with gas prices now beginning to ease, the conditions look even more favorable for offline retailers as the promotional season approaches.
Zooming in on weekly visits to major retailers, however, reveals a more volatile, retailer-specific picture beneath the steady monthly averages.
The biggest distinction is between retailers entering the summer from a position of strength and those looking for a boost. Costco, Target, and (to a slightly lesser effect) Best Buy maintained year-over-year traffic gains throughout the spring – suggesting that, for these retailers, promotional events are more likely to amplify existing momentum than to create it.
Meanwhile, Walmart's traffic in recent weeks remained largely in line with last year, potentially reflecting continued pressure on its more value-oriented customer base – making the upcoming promotional events an important opportunity to reignite growth.
Home Depot and Lowe's fall somewhere in between. Both have shown signs of improvement after a prolonged slowdown, making the July 4th period an important test of whether that recovery can continue.
Consumer sentiment remains under pressure ahead of the early summer promotional events, but foot traffic data suggests that shoppers have not materially pulled back from physical stores. The resilience of longer-distance visits, combined with easing gas prices and generally positive traffic trends, points to a consumer who is becoming more selective rather than disengaged.
As retailers roll out competing promotions over the coming weeks, the key question will be where they choose to spend. Retailers already generating traffic momentum appear well positioned to capitalize on the season, while those facing softer visitation trends will be looking to promotions to reaccelerate growth.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor
Perhaps the nicest gift you can give a parent is a meal they don't have to cook – complete with cloth napkins, quality family time, and no dishes to clean afterward. That's why Mother's Day and Father's Day consistently deliver some of the biggest traffic surges of the year for full-service restaurants (FSRs).
But with fuel prices still elevated and consumers continuing to watch their spending, will families still splurge on dining out this Father's Day, or will some opt for lower-cost alternatives? Which restaurant chains stand to benefit the most from the holiday – and where might diners find a quieter table if they're hoping to avoid the crowds?
Mother's Day and Father's Day have long ranked among the restaurant industry's most important occasions – and Mother's Day this year was no exception.
On May 10th, 2026, visits to full-service restaurants surged 56.0% above the average Sunday, while rising 1.5% year over year compared to Mother's Day 2025. Diners also spent more time at restaurants, with average dwell time climbing 12.8% above a typical Sunday – suggesting longer celebrations and potentially larger checks.
Limited-service restaurants, meanwhile, saw visits dip slightly below their typical Sunday baseline – suggesting that consumers weren't trading down. Even amid economic uncertainty, families appeared willing to pay a premium for the experience of celebrating Mom with a sit-down meal. And with Mother's Day and Father's Day consistently ranking among the busiest days of the year for full-service restaurants, Mother's Day's strong performance bodes well for another successful Father's Day season.
Sunday Visits to Full-Service and Limited-Service Restaurants vs. the 12-Month Sunday Average
FSR Visits on Mother’s Day 2026 vs. Mother’s Day 2025
Mother’s Day vs. 12-Month Sunday Average (FSR)
Father’s Day vs. 12-Month Sunday Average (FSR)
On a typical Sunday, Texas Roadhouse is already the nation's most-visited full-service restaurant chain, capturing 7.9% of FSR visits. Chili's follows at 7.1%, while Olive Garden captures 6.5%.
Mother's Day reshuffles the leaderboard somewhat. Both Texas Roadhouse and Olive Garden gain meaningful share as families gather for celebratory meals, with Texas Roadhouse narrowly maintaining its lead. On Mother's Day 2026, Texas Roadhouse captured 9.2% of FSR visits, while Olive Garden followed closely at 8.8%.
Father's Day, however, is a very different story. Last year, Texas Roadhouse captured 9.4% of all full-service restaurant visits, while both Chili's (5.8%) and Olive Garden (5.7%) lagged far behind. Steak, it seems, is exceptionally dad-coded.
The flip side, of course, is that Father's Day may be one of the quieter times to enjoy a plate of unlimited breadsticks. As families flock to steakhouses to celebrate Dad, Olive Garden's share of visits falls well below its typical Sunday levels, making it a surprisingly uncrowded alternative for diners looking to avoid the holiday rush.
Parents, it turns out, are very good for the restaurant business. And if Mother's Day is any indication, June 21st is poised to provide another meaningful boost for the segment this year – giving operators another opportunity to capitalize on one of the category's most reliable traffic-driving occasions.
To keep on top of full-service dining trends, follow Placer.ai/anchor.
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.
