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Discount and Dollar Stores specialize in bargain discretionary offerings –but their role as go-to destinations for essentials is not to be overlooked. We dove into the data for Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below to find out what drove their success in 2024 and what may lie ahead for the chains in 2025.
In 2024, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below continued to expand their real estate footprints, contributing to the chains’ YoY visit growth.
Since the start of H2 2024, all three chains saw consistent monthly visit increases compared to the previous year, contributing to overall YoY traffic increases of 5.1%, 5.2%, and 12.8% for Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below, respectively. And the visit growth has continued in 2025. (The February 2025 minor visit YoY gap for Dollar General can be attributed to the calendar shift and comparison to a 29-day February in 2024).
As Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below plan to continue investing in their physical footprints in 2025 by adding stores and remodeling existing ones, visits are likely to continue on a growth trajectory.
Diving into the consumer behavior of visitors to Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below reveals that at least some of the chains’ visit growth could be due to an increase in repeat visits.
Since Q1 2023, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below’s average visits per visitor have steadily increased compared to the previous year. In other words, the chains’ visitors are visiting more frequently than they did in the past.
This pattern may be driven by consumers’ continued prioritization of value – a trend that doesn’t look to be abating in the near-term.
Discount and dollar stores have long been hailed as treasure hunt destinations for non-necessities, but drilling down to the daily visit date reveals that consumers may be turning to these retailers for more daily essentials.
In 2024, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below’s shares of weekday visits (Monday-Thursday) increased compared to 2023. And Five Below, perhaps best-known for its discretionary offerings in mostly durable goods categories, saw the largest boost in weekday visits of the three chains (from 45.1% in 2023 to 46.4% in 2024). This could be evidence of growing demand in the retailer’s consumable categories like snacks, health, and beauty – essential products that consumers might need to replenish mid-week.
And in part to meet the demand for everyday essentials, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below have expanded product assortments – perhaps positioning themselves for continued weekday visit growth.
Dollar and Discount in 2025
Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below’s success in 2024 was likely driven by a variety of factors including expanding store networks, consumers’ focus on value, and the rising demand for essentials. As these trends are likely to prevail in 2025, discount and dollar chains appear poised to sustain foot traffic growth.
For more data-driven retail insights, Visit Placer.ai.
The Placer.ai Nationwide Office Building Index: The office building index analyzes foot traffic data from some 1,000 office buildings across the country. It only includes commercial office buildings, and commercial office buildings with retail offerings on the first floor (like an office building that might include a national coffee chain on the ground floor). It does NOT include government buildings or mixed-use buildings that are both residential and commercial.
While headlines trumpeting an imminent return to traditional office life fueled by corporate mandates have become increasingly common in recent months, ground-level data reveals a more complex reality. Office building foot traffic indicates that the office recovery has slowed, with February visits down by 36.3% compared to pre-pandemic levels in February 2019. This data suggests that despite top-down pressure and RTO mandates at several major U.S. companies, hybrid and remote work models remain widespread.
Diving into the market-level data reveals that the nationwide average office occupancy metric was driven by relatively significant visit gaps across most analyzed cities, with the exception of New York City and Miami that continued to lead the return to office (RTO) trends, followed by Atlanta. Houston, Washington D.C., and Dallas all experienced year-over-five-year (Yo5Y) visit gaps of 34.6% to 38.4% – close to the nationwide average – while the Yo5Y office visit gaps for Boston, Los Angeles, and Denver was 43.5%, 45.1%, and 46.6%, respectively.
But one metric did stand out in the February data that could hint at a relatively localized RTO acceleration. For the first time since we started tracking the post-pandemic office recovery, San Francisco (47.5% Yo5Y visit gap) outperformed Chicago (48.5%) – perhaps indicating that RTO mandates in the tech world are beginning to move the needle in the country’s tech capital.
The slowing return to office (RTO) trends also emerge when analyzing the year-over-year (YoY) data. Although some visit gaps were to be expected given the comparison to a 29 day February in 2024, most cities – with the exception of Miami, Boston, and San Francisco – saw a larger dip in office visits than the approximately 3.5% visit gap that could be attributed to the calendar shift.
The dip in office visits compared to 2024 suggests that the RTO mandates are not having a significant impact on office occupancy patterns in most major cities and further underscore the enduring impact of remote and hybrid work models.
The RTO data reveals a complex and evolving landscape shaped by both corporate directives and the enduring preferences of a workforce that has experienced the flexibility and autonomy of remote work. At the same time, disparities between major cities – with New York and Miami in the lead and Chicago and San Francisco lagging behind – highlight the influence of local economic factors, industry concentrations, and perhaps even cultural preferences on office occupancy. As businesses continue to navigate this transition, a deeper understanding of these regional nuances and of the underlying drivers of in-person work will be crucial for companies looking to formulate RTO policies that best serve their broader goals.
For more data-driven insights, visit placer.ai.
This year is expected to present challenges for many restaurant operators, including (1) an uncertain macroeconomic environment; (2) growing encroachment from grocers, warehouse clubs, and convenience stores; and (3) difficulties connecting with consumers as they prioritize both value and convenience. Against this backdrop, Chipotle’s management is forecasting low- to mid-single-digit comparable sales growth for the full year. The company faces tough year-over-year (YoY) comparisons—our data shows a 4.2% increase in visits per location in 2024, placing Chipotle among the top-performing restaurant chains with more than 100 locations. However, despite the uncertain landscape, our data highlights several reasons why Chipotle may surpass this forecast.
Between 2020 and 2024, Chipotle introduced several new protein options that significantly contributed to its growth and customer engagement. In 2021, the launch of Smoked Brisket became a fan favorite, leading to its return in 2024 due to popular demand. The re-introduction of Chicken al Pastor also played a role in boosting visits, significantly lifting visits trends during the second quarter of 2024. These innovative protein additions have not only diversified Chipotle's menu but also resonated with customers, driving sales and enhancing the brand's market presence.
Chipotle introduced Honey Chicken as a limited-time protein option systemwide on March 7th 2025. According to management, Honey Chicken was the brand’s best-performing limited-time offer test, excelling in both early sensory testing and broader market trials. To validate this claim, we examined YoY visitation data for the 55 locations in Sacramento and 25 locations in Nashville where Honey Chicken was tested in the fall of 2024. Launched on August 27th, 2024, our data indicates an immediate boost in visits per location in Sacramento and sustained outperformance in Nashville.
While it’s difficult to extrapolate the success of a limited-time product nationwide based on its performance in a few test markets, our data indicates that Chipotle’s Honey Chicken will likley be among the best performing new product launches in 2025.
In recent years, Chipotle Mexican Grill has experienced notable success by expanding into smaller markets across the United States. This strategic move has led the company to increase its long-term goal from 6,000 to 7,000 North American locations, with many new restaurants opening in towns with populations around 40,000. These small-town locations have demonstrated unit economics comparable to or even surpassing those in larger markets.
Our data shows continued visit outperformance in smaller markets in 2024, with Chipotle locations in non top-25 markets seeing greater visits per location than locations in top 25 markets. And this strategic expansion sets the stage for continued outperformance as store openings in the company’s smaller markets continue to enter the comparable sales base in 2025.
Chipotle's “Chipotlane” format stores—which include a dedicated drive-thru lanes for digital order pickups—has significantly enhanced operational efficiency. According to management, Chipotlane location stores often see transactions completed in less than a minute, which compares favorably to traditional QSR drive-thru times. This swift service has led to a 10%-15% increase in sales at Chipotlane-equipped locations compared to traditional formats. Chipotle now has more than 1,000 Chipotlane locations, with plans to include this feature in the majority of new restaurants, aiming for an annual unit growth of 8% to 10%.
We grouped the first 100 Chipotlane locations with our data to better understand the impact on throughput and operational efficiency. Our data indicates that Chipotlane locations outperformed the chain average by a meaningful amount – especially during peak lunch and dinner hours – adding further support for the company’s potential outperformance in the year ahead.
Overall, while 2025 presents a challenging landscape for the restaurant industry, Chipotle appears well-positioned to navigate these headwinds and potentially exceed its growth expectations. The company’s proven track record of successful menu innovations, along with the promising early results of Honey Chicken, demonstrate its ability to resonate with consumers. Additionally, Chipotle's strategic expansion into smaller markets and the continued rollout of Chipotlane locations are key drivers that could boost visitation and operational efficiency. Despite a difficult macroeconomic environment and increased competition, Chipotle’s combination of menu innovation, market expansion, and enhanced convenience through Chipotlanes sets the stage for continued success in 2025.
Allbirds rose to prominence during the direct-to-consumer (DTC) boom, quickly gaining a loyal following. However, the brand faced challenges in recent years and, in 2024, made a strategic pivot to optimize its store fleet and significantly rightsize its retail footprint. How has this shift impacted foot traffic? We took a closer look.
Allbirds closed almost a third of its U.S. store fleet in the first three quarters of 2024 – downsizing from 45 U.S. stores at the end of 2023 to 31 stores as of September 2024 – leading to expected declines in overall visit numbers. But as the number of Allbirds stores in operation fell, visits per location increased steadily – suggesting that the company is successfully consolidating its physical footprint and funneling visitors to its most successful stores.
While Allbirds has locations in a number of states across the country, its main stronghold remains its home state of California. And diving into the visit data reveals that its rightsizing strategy has paid off handsomely in the state, with YoY visits per location surging by 28.2% in January 2025 compared to 19.8% YoY growth nationwide, suggesting that Allbirds is successfully optimizing its footprint to focus on high-performing markets.
Rightsizing typically allows brands to focus on their best-performing markets – and it looks like Allbirds has succeeded in that regard. Between January 2024 and January 2025, the median household income (HHI) in Allbirds’ captured market rose from $108.5K to $125.6K. Similarly, the share of "Educated Urbanites" and "Ultra-Wealthy Families" Spatial.ai: PersonaLive segments increased, indicating that the brand is now catering to a more affluent visitor base that could help it weather economic uncertainties and wider retail challenges.
Allbirds’ strategic repositioning seems to be delivering some of the desired results. By focusing efforts on high-performance locations and the shopper experience, the brand is seeing higher visits per location and a more engaged customer base.
Will Allbirds continue to soar?
Visit Placer.ai to find out.
Last year was a leap year, so February 2025 had one less day than February 2024 – leading to dips in year-over-year (YoY) monthly comparisons across the board, including in the mall space.
But comparing YoY at average daily visits – a more accurate analysis of YoY performance when comparing a regular year to a leap year – reveals that visits to indoor malls and open-air shopping centers held relatively stable in February 2025, despite the sharp drop in consumer confidence. And both mall types outperformed the wider retail YoY average – highlighting the ongoing resilience of the retail format.
Meanwhile, outlet malls continued lagging behind both overall retail numbers and the other two mall types. This mall type tends to attract a slightly lower-income visitor base, which could be more susceptible to economic uncertainties – and outlet mall shoppers may have avoided long travels in the cold, preferring to look for discounted items online or in off-price stores closer to home.
Malls’ unique position as both shopping centers and entertainment hubs likely contributed to malls’ stable February visitation patterns amidst the wider consumer headwinds. All three mall types saw significant visit increases on Valentine’s Day (February 14th) along with a rise in the share of evening (7 PM to 10 PM) visits. At the same time, only outlet malls saw a slight increase in the share of shorter visits (under 30 minutes) on Valentine’s Day.
This data suggests that malls played a role in many consumers’ Valentine’s Day celebrations – both in serving as a one-stop shop for gifts and as a centralized place with a variety of dining and entertainment options for the perfect Valentine’s date night.
The steady February foot traffic coupled with strong engagement on key holidays like Valentine’s Day underscores the enduring role of malls as more than just shopping destinations. As we move further into 2025, the ability of malls to adapt and cater to evolving consumer behaviors will remain a critical factor in their continued success.
For more data-driven retail insights visit placer.ai.
The beauty industry’s reign over specialty retail may be slowly coming to an end in 2025. In the post-pandemic retail economy, beauty had been an outlier as it continued to grow visitation despite declines in other discretionary categories and a general pullback in retail demand. Beauty retailers were primed for the interaction of mass and prestige beauty growth; brands at both the low and high end benefited as consumers' appetite for make up and skincare exploded.
But in 2024, consumers began to shift their focus away from beauty and back towards other discretionary categories, such as apparel and home furnishings. At the same time, we’ve also observed more caution amongst consumers surrounding all discretionary demand. Beauty tends to do well during times of economic uncertainty; items are small and generally less expensive than other discretionary purchases like shoes or accessories.
However, the category’s sustained success over the past few years may have run out, even as consumers look for value and small indulgences. Beauty executives warned of these headwinds in early 2024, and Placer’s visit trends have corroborated the softening of trends across the industry.
2024 visits to beauty and self care retail chains grew 1.5% versus the previous year, compared to 18% growth in 2023 and 17% growth in 2022. There was a true shift in momentum of this industry over the last year, and the deceleration of growth is in stark contrast to the industry’s flourishing in the immediate post-pandemic years.
When we put this into the context of broader discretionary retail, the trends in beauty counter those of apparel and home furnishings, who accelerated their rebounds throughout last year. There are a myriad of reasons for these changes in 2024, but major beauty brands have shared a drop-off in demand and waning sales, signs that point to changing consumer behavior instead of a shift in channel preference from physical to digital.
Ulta Beauty had been driving much of the growth of the beauty industry, due to its positioning as a destination for both mass and prestige beauty products. This business model, which served it well over the past few years, also exposed some potential hurdles as demand decelerated in 2024. Ulta’s visit growth in 2024 was just 1.9% year-over-year (2.5% YoY growth for Q4 2024), which surpassed other beauty chains, but slowed dramatically compared to previous trends.
A potential source of Ulta’s visit growth declaration could be one of its greatest opportunities over the past few years; its shop-in-shop partnership with Target. The two chains attract similar consumer demographics and align in their value offerings to shoppers. Looking at Placer’s cross visitation analysis, among visitors to Ulta Beauty, those who also visited Target increased from 86.9% in 2022 to 90.1% in 2024. Ulta visitors may be choosing to visit an Ulta outpost in Target more frequently than in the past, due to the convenience. But, that increase in visits to Target may be cannibalizing visit frequency to standalone Ulta Beauty locations.
Another change to Ulta Beauty’s overall visitation comes from the distribution of visitors to the retail chain. There were declines in the share of visits to Ulta from wealthier, suburban, and younger consumer segments, which account for the largest consumer bases for the retailer. There have been slight increases in the share of visits by Blue Collar Families and diverse shopper segments, but those consumers are likely to be more constrained in purchasing power than Ulta’s core shoppers.
Overall, the beauty space’s journey in 2024 is likely an indicator of what’s to come, especially for the larger chains. One retailer that has been the exception to the rule is Bluemercury, which Placer selected as a 10 Top Brands to Watch in 2025. For the remainder of the industry, retailers must find their reason for consumers to visit, despite a potential decline in demand for the category.
1. Market Divergence: While San Francisco's return-to-office trends have stabilized, Los Angeles is increasingly lagging behind national averages with office visits down 46.6% compared to pre-pandemic levels as of June 2025.
2. Commuter Pattern Shifts: Los Angeles faces a persistent decline in out-of-market commuters while San Francisco's share of out-of-market commuters has recovered slightly, indicating deeper structural challenges in LA's office market recovery.
3. Visit vs. Visitor Gap: Unlike other markets where increased visits per worker offset declining visitor numbers, Los Angeles saw both metrics decline year-over-year, suggesting fundamental workforce retention issues.
4. Century City Exception: Century City emerges as LA's strongest office submarket with visits only 28.1% below pre-pandemic levels, driven by its premium amenities and strategic location adjacent to Westfield Century City shopping center.
5. Demographic Advantage: Century City's success may stem from its success in attracting affluent, educated young professionals who value lifestyle integration and are more likely to maintain consistent office attendance in hybrid work arrangements.
While return-to-office trends have stabilized in many markets nationwide, Los Angeles and San Francisco face unique challenges that set them apart from national patterns. This report examines the divergent trajectories of these two major West Coast markets, with particular focus on Los Angeles' ongoing struggles and the emergence of one specific submarket that bucks broader trends.
Through analysis of commuter patterns, demographic shifts, and localized performance data, we explore how factors ranging from out-of-market workforce changes to amenity-driven location advantages are reshaping the competitive landscape for office real estate in Southern California.
Both Los Angeles and San Francisco continue to significantly underperform the national office occupancy average. In June 2025, average nationwide visits to office buildings were 30.5% below January 2019 levels, compared to a 46.6% and 46.4% decline in visits to Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, respectively.
While both cities now show similar RTO rates, they arrived there through different trajectories. San Francisco has consistently lagged behind national return-to-office levels since pandemic restrictions first lifted.
Los Angeles, however, initially mirrored nationwide trends before its office market began diverging and falling behind around mid-2022.
The decline in office visits in Los Angeles and San Francisco can be partly attributed to fewer out-of-market commuters. Both cities saw significant drops in the percentage of employees who live outside the city but commute to work between H1 2019 and H1 2023.
However, here too, the two cities diverged in recent years: San Francisco's share of out-of-market commuters relative to local employees rebounded between 2023 and 2024, while Los Angeles' continued to decline – another indication that LA's RTO is decelerating as San Francisco stabilizes.
Like in other markets, Los Angeles saw a larger drop in office visits than in office visitors when comparing current trends to pre-pandemic levels. This is consistent with the shift to hybrid work arrangements, where many of the workers who returned to the office are coming in less frequently than before the pandemic, leading to a larger drop in visits compared to the drop in visitors.
But looking at the trajectory of RTO more recently shows that in most markets – including San Francisco – office visits are up year-over-year (YoY) while visitor numbers are down. This suggests that the workers slated to return to the office have already done so, and increasing the numbers of visits per visitor is now the path towards increased office occupancy.
In Los Angeles, visits also outperformed visitors – but both figures were down YoY (the gap in visits was smaller than the gap in visitors). So while the visitors who did head to the office in LA in Q2 2025 clocked in more visits per person compared to Q2 2024, the increase in visits per visitor was not enough to offset the decline in office visitors.
While Los Angeles may be lagging in terms of its overall office recovery, the city does have pockets of strength – most notably Century City. In Q2 2025, the number of inbound commuters visiting the neighborhood was just 24.7% lower than it was in Q2 2019 and higher (+1.0%) than last year's levels.
According to Colliers' Q2 2025 report, Century City accounts for 27% of year-to-date leasing activity in West Los Angeles – more than double any other submarket – and commands the highest asking rental rates. The area benefits from Trophy and Class A office towers that may create a flight-to-quality dynamic where tenants migrate from urban core locations to this Westside submarket.
The submarket's success is likely bolstered by its strategic location adjacent to Westfield Century City shopping center – visit data reveals that 45% of weekday commuters to Century City also visited Westfield Century City during Q2 2025. The convenience of accessing the mall's extensive retail, dining, and entertainment options during lunch breaks or after work may encourage employees to come into the office more frequently.
Perhaps thanks to its strategic locations and amenities-rich office buildings, Century City succeeds in attracting relatively affluent office workers.
Century City's office submarket has a higher median trade area household income (HHI) than either mid-Wilshire or Downtown LA. The neighborhood also attracts significant shares of the "Educated Urbanite" Spatial.ai: PersonaLive segment – defined as "well educated young singles living in dense urban areas working relatively high paying jobs".
This demographic typically has fewer family obligations and greater flexibility in their work arrangements, making them more likely to embrace hybrid schedules that include regular office attendance. Affluent singles also tend to value the lifestyle amenities and networking opportunities that come with working in a premium office environment like Century City: This demographic is often in career-building phases where in-person collaboration and visibility matter more, driving consistent office utilization that helps sustain the submarket's performance even as other LA office areas struggle with lower occupancy rates.
The higher disposable income of this audience also aligns well with the submarket's upscale retail and dining options at nearby Westfield Century City, creating a mutually reinforcing ecosystem where the office environment and surrounding amenities cater to their preferences.
As the broader Los Angeles market grapples with a shrinking commuter base and declining office utilization, the performance gap between premium, amenity-rich locations and traditional office districts is likely to widen. For investors and tenants alike, these trends underscore the growing importance of location quality, demographic targeting, and lifestyle integration in determining long-term office market viability across Southern California.
Century City's success – anchored by its affluent, career-focused workforce and integrated lifestyle amenities – can offer a blueprint for office market resilience in the hybrid work era.
1. Appetite for offline retail & dining is stronger than ever. Both retail and dining visits were higher in H1 2025 than they were pre-pandemic.
2. Consumers are willing to go the extra mile for the perfect product or brand. The era of one-stop-shops may be waning, as many consumers now prefer to visit multiple chains or stores to score the perfect product match for every item on their shopping list.
3. Value – and value perception – gives chains a clear advantage. Value-oriented retail and dining segments have seen their visits skyrocket since the pandemic.
4. Consumer behavior has bifurcated toward budget and premium options. This trend is driving strength at the ends of the spectrum while putting pressure on many middle-market players.
5. The out-of-home entertainment landscape has been fundamentally altered. Eatertainment and museums have stabilized at a different set point than pre-COVID, while movie theater traffic trends are now characterized by box-office-driven volatility.
6. Hybrid work permanently reshaped office utilization. Visits to office buildings nationwide are still 33.3% below 2019 levels, despite RTO efforts.
The first half of 2025 marked five years since the onset of the pandemic – an event that continues to impact retail, dining, entertainment, and office visitation trends today.
This report analyzes visitation patterns in the first half of 2025 compared to H1 2019 and H1 2024 to identify some of the lasting shifts in consumer behavior over the past five years. What is driving consumers to stores and dining venues? Which categories are stabilizing at a higher visit point? Where have the traffic declines stalled? And which segments are still in flux? Read the report to find out.
In the first half of 2025, visits to both the retail and dining segments were consistently higher than they were in 2019. In both the dining and the retail space, the increases compared to pre-COVID were probably driven by significant expansions from major players, including Costco, Chick-fil-A, Raising Cane's, and Dutch Bros, which offset the numerous retail and dining closures of recent years.
The overall increase in visits indicates that, despite the ubiquity of online marketplaces and delivery services, consumer appetite for offline retail and dining remains strong – whether to browse in store, eat on-premises, collect a BOPIS order, or pick up takeaway.
A closer look at the chart above also reveals that, while both retail and dining visits have exceeded pre-pandemic levels, retail visit growth has slightly outpaced the dining traffic increase.
The larger volume of retail visits could be due to a shift in consumer behavior – from favoring convenience to prioritizing the perfect product match and exhibiting a willingness to visit multiple chains to benefit from each store's signature offering. Indeed, zooming into the superstore and grocery sector shows an increase in cross-shopping since COVID, with a larger share of visitors to major grocery chains regularly visiting superstores and wholesale clubs. It seems, then, that many consumers are no longer looking for a one-stop-shop where they can buy everything at once. Instead, shoppers may be heading to the grocery stores for some things, the dollar store for other items, and the wholesale club for a third set of products.
This trend also explains the success of limited assortment grocers in recent years – shoppers are willing to visit these stores to pick up their favorite snack or a particularly cheap store-branded basic, knowing that this will be just one of several stops on their grocery run.
Diving into the traffic data by retail category reveals that much of the growth in retail visits since COVID can be attributed to the surge in visits to value-oriented categories, such as discount & dollar stores, value grocery stores, and off-price apparel. This period has been defined by an endless array of economic obstacles like inflation, recession concerns, gas price spikes, and tariffs that all trigger an orientation to value. The shift also speaks to an ability of these categories to capitalize on swings – consumers who visited value-oriented retailers to cut costs in the short term likely continued visiting those chains even after their economic situation stabilized.
Some of the visit increases are due to the aggressive expansion strategies of leaders in those categories – including Dollar General and Dollar Tree, Aldi, and all the off-price leaders. But the dramatic increase in traffic – around 30% for all three categories since H1 2019 – also highlights the strong appetite for value-oriented offerings among today's consumers. And zooming into YoY trends shows that the visit growth is still ongoing, indicating that the demand for value has not yet reached a ceiling.
While affordable pricing has clearly driven success for value retailers, offering low prices isn't a guaranteed path to growth. Although traffic to beauty and wellness chains remains significantly higher than in 2019, this growth has now plateaued – even top performers like Ulta saw slight YoY declines following their post-pandemic surge – despite the relatively affordable price points found at these chains.
Some of the beauty visit declines likely stems from consumers cutting discretionary spending – but off-price apparel's ongoing success in the same non-essential category suggests budget constraints aren't the full story. Instead, the plateauing of beauty and drugstore visits while off-price apparel visits boom may be due to the difference in value perception: Off-price retailers are inherently associated with savings, while drugstores and beauty retailers, despite carrying affordable items, lack that same value-driven brand positioning. This may suggest that in today's market, perceived value matters as much as actual affordability.
Another indicator of the importance of value perception is the decline in visits to chains selling bigger-ticket items – both home furnishing chains and electronic stores saw double-digit drops in traffic since H1 2019.
And looking at YoY trends shows that visits here have stabilized – like in the beauty and drugstore categories – suggesting that these sectors have reached a new baseline that reflects permanently shifted consumer priorities around discretionary spending.
A major post-pandemic consumer trend has been the bifurcation of consumer spending – with high-end chains and discount retailers thriving while the middle falls behind. This trend is particularly evident in the apparel space – although off-price visits have taken off since 2019 (as illustrated in the earlier graph) overall apparel traffic declined dramatically – while luxury apparel traffic is 7.6% higher than in 2019.
Dining traffic trends also illustrate this shift: Categories that typically offer lower price points such as QSR, fast casual, and coffee have expanded significantly since 2019, as has the upscale & fine dining segment. But casual dining – which includes classic full-service chains such as Red Lobster, Applebee's, and TGI Fridays – has seen its footprint shrink in recent years as consumers trade down to lower-priced options or visit higher-end venues for special occasions.
Chili's has been a major exception to the casual dining downturn, largely driven by the chain's success in cementing its value-perception among consumers – suggesting that casual dining chains can still shine in the current climate by positioning themselves as leaders in value.
Consumers' current value orientation seems to be having an impact beyond the retail and dining space: When budgets are tight, spending money in one place means having less money to spend in another – and recent data suggests that the consumer resilience in retail and dining may be coming at the expense of travel – or perhaps experiences more generally.
While airport visits from domestic travelers were up compared to pre-COVID, diving into the data reveals that the growth is mostly driven by frequent travelers visiting airports two or more times in a month. Meanwhile, the number of more casual travelers – those visiting airports no more than once a month – is lower than it was in 2019.
This may suggest that – despite consumers' self-reported preferences for "memorable, shareable moments" – at least some Americans are actually de-prioritizing experiences in the first half of 2025, and choosing instead to spend their budgets in retail and dining venues.
The out of home entertainment landscape has also undergone a significant change since COVID – and the sector seems to have settled into a new equilibrium, though for part of the sector, the equilibrium is marked by consistent volatility.
Eatertainment chains – led by significant expansions from venues like Top Golf – saw a 5.5% visit increase compared to pre-pandemic levels, though YoY growth remained modest at 1.1%. On the other hand, H1 2025 museum traffic fell 10.9% below 2019 levels with flat YoY performance (+0.2%). The minimal year-over-year changes in both categories suggest that these entertainment segments have found their new post-COVID equilibrium.
The rise of eatertainment alongside the drop in museum visits may also reflect the intense focus on value for today's consumers. Museums in 2025 offer essentially the same value proposition that they offered in 2019 – and for some, that value proposition may no longer justify the entrance fee. But eatertainment has gained popularity in recent years as a format that offers consumers more bang for their buck relative to stand-alone dining or entertainment venues – which makes it the perfect candidate for success in today's value-driven consumer landscape.
But movie theaters traffic trends are still evolving – even accounting for venue closures, visits in H1 2025 were well below H1 2019 levels. But compared to 2024, movie traffic was also up – buoyed by the release of several blockbusters that drove audiences back to cinemas in the first half of 2025. So while the segment is still far from its pre-COVID baseline, movie theaters retain the potential for significant traffic spikes when compelling content drives consumer demand.
The blockbuster-driven YoY increase can perhaps also be linked to consumers' spending caution. With budgets tight, movie-goers may want to make sure that they're spending time and money on films they are sure to enjoy – taking fewer risks than they did in 2019, when movie tickets and concession prices were lower and consumers were less budget-conscious.
H1 2025 also brought some moderate good news on the return to office (RTO) front, with YoY visits nationwide up 2.1% and most offices seeing YoY office visit increases – perhaps due to the plethora of RTO mandates from major companies. But comparing office visitation levels to pre pandemic levels highlights the way left to go – nationwide visits were 33.3% below H1 2019 levels in H1 2025, with even RTO leaders New York and Miami still seeing 11.9% and 16.1% visit gaps, respectively.
So while the data suggests that the office recovery story is still being written – with visits inching up slowly – the substantial gap from pre-pandemic levels suggests that remote and hybrid work models have fundamentally reshaped office utilization patterns.
Five years post-pandemic, consumer behavior across the retail, dining, entertainment, and office spaces has crystallized into distinct new patterns.
Traffic to retail and dining venues now surpasses pre-pandemic levels, driven primarily by value-focused segments. But retail and dining segments that cater to higher income consumers –such as luxury apparel and fine dining – have also stabilized at a higher level, highlighting the bifurcation of consumer behavior that has emerged in recent years. Entertainment formats show more variability – while eatertainment traffic has settled above and museums below 2019 levels, and movie theaters still seeking stability. Office spaces remain the laggard, with visits well below pre-pandemic levels despite corporate return-to-office initiatives showing modest impact.
It seems, then, that the new consumer landscape rewards businesses that can clearly articulate their value proposition to attract consumers' increasingly selective spending and time allocation – or offer a premium product or experience catering to higher-income audiences.
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1. Overall dining traffic is mostly flat, but growth is concentrated in specific areas.
While nationwide dining visits were nearly unchanged in early 2025, western states like Utah, Idaho, and Nevada showed moderate growth, while states in the Midwest and South, along with Washington D.C., saw declines.
2. Fine dining and coffee chains are growing through expansion, not just busier locations.
These two segments were the only ones to see an increase in total visits, but their visits-per-location actually decreased, indicating that opening new stores is the primary driver of their growth.
3. Higher-income diners are driving the growth in resilient categories.
The segments that saw visit growth—fine dining and coffee—also attracted customers with the highest median household incomes, suggesting that affluent consumers are still spending on dining despite economic headwinds.
4. Remote work continues to reshape dining habits.
The share of suburban customers at fine dining establishments has increased since 2019, while it has decreased for coffee chains. This reflects a shift towards "destination" dining closer to home and away from commute-based coffee runs.
5. Limited-service restaurants own the weekdays; full-service restaurants win the weekend.
QSR, fast casual, and coffee chains see the majority of their traffic from Monday to Friday, whereas casual and fine dining see a significant spike in visits on weekends.
6. Each dining segment dominates a specific time of day.
Consumer visits are highly predictable by the hour: coffee leads in the early morning, fast casual peaks at lunch, casual dining takes the afternoon, fine dining owns the dinner slot, and QSR captures the late-night crowd.
Overall dining visits held relatively steady in the first five months of 2025, with year-over-year (YoY) visits to the category down 0.5% for January to May 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Most of the country saw slight declines (less than 2.0%), though some states and districts experienced larger drops: Washington, D.C, saw the largest visit gap (-3.6% YoY), followed by Kansas and North Dakota (-2.9%), Arkansas (-2.8%), Missouri and Kentucky (-2.6%), Oklahoma (-2.1%), and Louisiana (-2.0%).
Still, there were several pockets of moderate dining strength, specifically in the west of the United States. January to May 2025 dining visits in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada increased 1.8% to 2.4% YoY, while the coastal states saw traffic rise 0.6% (California) to 1.2% (Washington). Vermont also saw a slight increase in dining visits (+1.9%).
Diving into visit trends by dining segment shows that fine dining and coffee saw the strongest overall visit trends, with visits to the segments up 1.3% and 2.6% YoY, respectively, between January and May 2025. But visits per location trends were negative for both segments – a decline of 0.8% YoY for fine dining and 1.8% for coffee during the period – suggesting that much of the visit strength is due to expansions rather than more crowded restaurants and coffee shops.
In contrast, full-service casual dining saw overall visits decrease by 1.5%, while visits per location remained stable (+0.2%) YoY between January and May 2025. Several casual dining chains have rightsized in the past twelve months – including Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, and Outback Steakhouse – which impacted overall visit numbers. But the data seems to show that their rightsizing was effective, as the remaining locations successfully absorbed the traffic and maintained performance levels from the previous year. And the monthly data also provides much reason for optimism, with May traffic up both overall and on a visit per location basis – suggesting that the casual dining segment is well positioned for growth in the second half of 2025.
Meanwhile, QSR and fast casual chains saw similar minor visits per venue dips (-1.5% and -1.2%, respectively). At the same time, QSR also saw an overall visit dip (-0.8%) while traffic to fast casual chains increased slightly (+0.3%) – suggesting that the fast casual segment is expanding more aggressively than QSR. But the two segments decoupled somewhat in May, with overall traffic and visits per venue to fast casual chains up YoY while traffic remained flat and visits per venue fell slightly for QSR – perhaps due to the relatively greater affluence of fast casual's consumer base.
Analyzing the income levels of visitors to the various dining segments over time shows that each segment followed a slightly different trend – and the differences in visitor income may help explain some of the current traffic patterns.
The only three segments with YoY visit growth – casual dining, fine dining, and coffee – also had the highest captured market median household income (HHI). Although the median HHI in the captured market of upscale and fine dining chains fell after COVID, it has risen back steadily over time and now stands at $98.0K – slightly higher than the $97.1K median HHI between January to May 2019. This may explain the segment's resilience in the face of wider consumer headwinds. Meanwhile, the median HHI at fast casual and coffee chains has fallen slightly, perhaps due to aggressive expansions in the space – including Dave's Hot Chicken and Dutch Bros – which likely broadened the reach of the segments, driving visits up and trade area median HHI down.
Like fine dining, casual dining also saw its trade area median HHI increase slightly over time – but the segment has still been facing visit dips. This could mean that, even though consumers trading down to casual dining may have boosted the trade area median HHI for the segment, it still might not have been enough to make up for the customers lost to tighter budgets.
The QSR segment saw its trade area median HHI remain remarkably steady – and visits to the segment have also been quite consistent – staying between $70.6K and $70.9K between 2019 and 2025 – which may explain why the segment's visits remained relatively stable YoY.
Diving into the psychographic segmentation shows that, although the fine dining segment attracted visitors from the highest-income areas between January and May 2025, fast casual chains drew the highest share of visitors from suburban areas, followed by casual dining and coffee. QSR attracted the smallest share of suburban visitors, with just 30.5% of the category's captured market between January and May 2025 belonging to Spatial.ai: PersonaLive suburban segments.
But looking at the data since 2019 reveals small but significant changes in the shares of suburban audiences in some categories' captured markets. And although the percentage changes are slight, these represent hundreds of thousands of diners every year.
The data shows that shares of suburban segments in the captured markets of fine dining chains have increased, while their share in the captured market of coffee chains has decreased. The shares of suburban visitors to QSR, fast casual, and casual chains have remained relatively steady.
This may suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rise of remote and hybrid work models are still impacting consumer dining habits, benefiting destination-worthy experiences in suburban locales such as fine dining chains while reducing the necessity of daily coffee runs that were often tied to commuting and office work. Meanwhile, the stability in QSR, fast casual, and casual dining segments could indicate that these categories continue to meet consistent suburban demand for convenience and everyday dining, largely unaffected by the redistribution seen in the fine dining and coffee sectors.
Although QSR, fast casual, casual dining, fine dining, and coffee all fall under the wider dining umbrella, the data shows distinct consumer behavior patterns regarding visits to these five categories.
Limited service segments, including QSR, fast casual, and coffee tend to see higher shares of visits on weekdays, while full service segments – casual dining and fine dining – receive higher shares of weekend visits. Diving deeper shows that QSR has the largest share of weekday visits, with 72.3% of traffic coming in between Monday and Friday, followed by fast casual (69.8% of visits on weekdays) and coffee (69.4% of visits on weekdays.) Looking at trends within the work week shows that QSR receives a slightly larger visit share between Monday and Thursday compared to the other limited service segments. Meanwhile, coffee seems to receive the smallest share of Friday visits – 16.3% compared to 17.0% for fast casual and 17.2% for QSR.
On the full-service side, casual dining and fine dining chains have relatively similar shares of weekend visits (39.0% and 38.8%, respectively), but fine dining also sees an uptick of visits on Fridays (with 19.1% of weekly visits) as consumers choose to start the weekend on a festive note.
Hourly visit patterns also show variability between the segments. Coffee is the unsurprising leader of early visits, with 14.6% of visits taking place before 8 AM and, almost two-thirds (64.9%) of visits taking place before 2 PM. Fast casual leads the lunch rush (29.4% of visits between 11 AM and 2 PM), casual dining chains receive the largest share of afternoon (2 PM to 5 PM) visits, and fine dining chains receive the largest share of dinner visits, with almost 70% of visits taking place between 5 PM and 11 PM. QSR leads the late night visit share – 4.1% of visits take place between 11 PM and 5 AM – followed by casual dining chains (3.2% late night and overnight visit share), likely due to the popularity of 24-hour diners.
This suggests that each dining segment effectively "owns" a different part of the day, from the morning coffee ritual and the quick lunch break to the leisurely evening meal and late-night cravings.
An analysis of average visit duration also reveals a small but lasting shift in post-pandemic dining behavior. Between January and May 2025, the average dwell time for nearly every dining segment was shorter than during the same period in 2019. This efficiency trend is evident across limited-service categories like QSR, fast casual, and coffee shops, suggesting a continued emphasis on speed and convenience.
The one notable exception to this trend is upscale and fine dining, where the average visit duration has actually increased compared to pre-COVID levels. This may suggest that, while visits to most segments have become more transactional, consumers are treating fine dining more as an extended, deliberate experience, reinforcing its position as a destination-worthy occasion.
