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The Tartan Army was one of the breakout stories of the World Cup. Scotland's traveling supporters turned Boston into a sea of kilts and McTominay shirts, and at one point drank the downtown Sam Adams taproom dry, emptying nearly 90 kegs over four days and forcing a string of emergency beer deliveries. It's a great headline.
But Boston is far from the only host metro where bars and pubs are filling up, and it isn't even close to the biggest beneficiary.
Analyzing weekly visits to bars and pubs in host cities during the World Cup compared to the same period in 2025 shows that nearly all metro areas outperformed the nationwide average on a year over year basis. The standouts on the West Coast – the Los Angeles CBSA and the Bay Area (combined San Jose and San Francisco CBSAs) – saw visits up more than 15% above the same period in 2025. Houston also recorded double-digit growth, while New York, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Seattle, Philadelphia, Miami, and Boston all posted gains above the national average.
This data results suggest that every host metro except Kansas City outperformed the national trend, suggesting that the tournament generated a broad-based boost to local bars and pubs across the country.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is already reshaping foot traffic across the country - filling stadiums, lifting restaurant traffic near host venues, and drawing fans to watch parties and festivals. But one of the tournament's clearest retail beneficiaries may be its most visible sponsor: adidas, supplier of the official Trionda match ball and kit provider to national teams from Mexico to Argentina.
Heading into the spring, adidas stores were fighting an uphill battle - weekly visits ran below 2025 levels for most of April, bottoming out at -20.5% YoY the week of April 13th. Traffic gradually stabilized through May, and then the World Cup arrived.
During the week of June 8th – which included the tournament’s June 11th kickoff and the USMNT’s 4-1 opening win over Paraguay at SoFi Stadium – adidas store visits climbed 14.3% YoY. Momentum then accelerated the following week, the first full week of group-stage play, when the USMNT defeated Australia in Seattle and adidas visits surged 44.7% above the same week last year.
Father’s Day, which fell on June 21st this year, may have contributed to that jump, since the comparison week in 2025 began the day after Father’s Day. But the magnitude of the spike, along with its staying power in subsequent weeks, suggests that tournament-driven excitement was the main driver.
Big temporary visit spikes often fade fast – but this one hasn’t. During the weeks of June 22nd and June 29th, visits remained elevated more than 20% YoY – suggesting that the tournament is driving a sustained shift in demand, not just a burst of opening-week excitement.
The World Cup's foot traffic ripple effects extend well beyond the stadiums - into dining, retail, and beyond. And while global sponsorships are usually measured in impressions, location intelligence makes them measurable in visits. For adidas, supplying the match ball and outfitting some of the tournament's biggest teams moved fans into stores, week after week. With knockout rounds running through the July 19th final, the three stripes may not be done running up the score.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Coffee shops remain one of dining’s most dependable bright spots, as consumers continue to splurge on affordable indulgences even while cutting back on pricier outings. In H1 2026, coffee visits were up 4.1% year over year (YoY), even as overall dining traffic fell 0.4%. But in some metros, the caffeine rush was running much stronger.
This month's Placer 5 highlights the nation’s top five major coffee markets – metro areas that logged upwards of 10 million coffee shop visits in H1 2026, where coffee shops saw the most YoY visit growth. Each one is thriving for its own reasons, and together they show that there are many ways to win at coffee.
For many of these metros, coffee visit growth was driven at least in part by fleet expansion. But in all five markets, average visits per coffee shop also rose YoY, suggesting that existing venues are also drawing bigger crowds.
Still, each metro brews its own story.
In inland California’s Riverside and Bakersfield, the surges were powered primarily by Starbucks and Dutch Bros, with Bakersfield – the only analyzed metro without an increase in major coffee chain locations in H1 – seeing traffic at existing coffee shops rise significantly even as the overall store count edged down.
In Indianapolis and Kansas City, meanwhile, coffee visits were propelled in part by the drive-thru coffee wave sweeping the middle of the country – a format with so much momentum that Technomic’s 2026 America’s Favorite Chains ranking featured three drive-thru coffee brands in its top 10 for the first time ever. Alongside new Dutch Bros locations, fast-growing 7 Brew also expanded its footprint in both metros. Their car-friendly layouts make Indianapolis and Kansas City natural magnets for the format – and with per-location visits still climbing, the new stands appear to be filling up as fast as they open.
Orlando, for its part, appears to be riding a more general demand wave. The metro's population grew 1.29% between July 2024 and July 2025 – well ahead of the 0.52% national average – while record tourist visits kept vacation mornings busy. More residents and more visitors translate directly into more lattes – and several major chains added stores to keep pace.
Tourism and population growth in Orlando, a drive-thru boom in the heartland, and steady strength in inland California – the standout coffee metros of 2026 each found their own path to growth. And it's worth noting that all five sit far from Stars Hollow of Gilmore Girls’ fame: the Northeast may claim the diner-counter coffee mystique, but the caffeine craze is a truly national affair.
The result is a coffee category that remains highly adaptable. Whether fueled by convenience, expansion, tourism, or loyal daily routines, America's coffee shop segment continues to find new ways to keep visits percolating.
Over the past two decades, Boston's Seaport has undergone a remarkable transformation – evolving from an underutilized stretch of waterfront into one of the city's most vibrant mixed-use destinations. The story of Seaport highlights a critical lesson in real estate development: What you build matters, but creating reasons for people to visit, linger, and return matters just as much.
Using AI-powered location intelligence, we explored Seaport's recent growth and the role of community programming, experiential retail, and other placemaking initiatives in making it one of Boston's premier retail corridors.
Experiences and community have been central to Boston Seaport’s historic revitalization. In the late 2010s, mixed-use development and entertainment anchors helped to establish Seaport as a leisure-time destination, while initiatives like Snowport, Seaport Sweat, and The Current emphasized neighborhood programming and experiential concepts. During this period, visitation consistently peaked in the summer, which remained the corridor’s primary traffic driver.
And although visits to the corridor fell sharply at the onset of the pandemic, Seaport continued to invest in public spaces. When social gatherings resumed, new mixed-use projects like Harbor Way, The Superette, and The Paseo helped to reinforce Seaport as an experience-driven destination and fuel the neighborhood’s foot traffic rebound.
Since then, expanded seasonal programming has diversified visitation beyond the summer months. The launch of The Holiday Market in 2021 complemented the already popular Snowport activation, creating a new seasonal traffic peak. Since its introduction, December has consistently generated a significant surge in visitation – a pattern that was largely absent before the pandemic.
Still, summer remains Seaport’s peak season, with the fair-weather appeal of its outdoor spaces becoming the backdrop for community and engagement. Seaport’s summer programming continues to expand, and with it, foot traffic to the corridor, which has risen nearly every year since COVID, exceeding pre-pandemic levels in the summer of 2025 and again in May and June 2026. And with new social venues, America 250 events, and World Cup action taking place in Boston and within the Seaport corridor, the stage is set for another robust summer season.
While some of Seaport's visitation growth can be attributed to the neighborhood's continued real estate development, a closer look at visitor dwell times provides further evidence that foot traffic is being driven by deeper engagement, not just new construction.
Extended visits consistently account for a significant share of Seaport’s overall traffic. Between January and June 2026, out-of-market visits lasting more than 150 minutes (excluding local employees) represented 39.7% of total visits to the corridor, up from 38.4% in 2025. And over the past six months, visits exceeding 150 minutes consistently outperformed overall visits year-over-year (YoY) – suggesting that visitors are becoming more engaged with the area's retail, dining, and public spaces.
Extended visits and increasing foot traffic aren't the only indicators of Seaport's upward trajectory. Audience segmentation suggests that the corridor’s experiential recreation and retail are helping to attract an affluent consumer base – a valuable cohort in today's bifurcated economic environment.
Location intelligence combined with the STI: PopStats dataset reveals that the Seaport retail corridor attracts a relatively affluent audience, with a trade area median household income (HHI) of $131.3K over the past six months, compared to $124.8K for the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH CBSA overall. But concepts such as Ballers – a new padel and pickleball venue with social events – and The Current, a seasonal retail pop-up along Seaport's main pedestrian thoroughfare, draw even more affluent audiences. The captured market median HHIs for these venues were $143.6K and $144.1K, respectively.
Further analysis using the Spatial.ai: PersonaLive dataset suggests that Ballers and The Current attract distinct mixes of affluent consumers. The Current attracts a substantially larger share of Ultra Wealthy Families (24.5%) than either Ballers (17.5%) or the Seaport retail corridor overall (19.4%). Meanwhile, Ballers over-indexes for Educated Urbanites – affluent young professionals living in dense urban areas – relative to both The Current and the broader corridor. This suggests that Seaport's growing mix of experiential concepts is deepening the corridor's appeal across multiple affluent audience segments.
For retail corridors, creating reasons to visit is just as important as creating places to shop.
Boston's Seaport illustrates how placemaking extends beyond development itself. While new retail, dining, and mixed-use projects have reshaped the neighborhood, the data suggests that ongoing investments in programming, public spaces, and experiential concepts have helped transform the corridor into a destination for community engagement.
As Seaport prepares for another busy summer, pairing physical development with curated experiences is likely to sustain the corridor's momentum.
For more insights, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
Spoiler Alert – one of the key pieces of our look back on Q3 will be a focus on those who benefitted from World Cup visitation.
But soccer’s quadrennial – yup, it’s a word, I looked it up – kicked off in June, and brands like Chipotle got into the action. The chain's Buy One Get One (BOGO) free campaign on June 11th drove the highest visit count for the entire year, surpassing a former BOGO-driven peak in March. The lesson? Value works, but value plus a buzzy reason to visit works even better.
It does feel like every time the wider home improvement sector is poised to have a breakout period, something happens to dampen the potential. In 2025, just as visits were starting to rise, momentum stalled as consumers faced with the threat of tariffs looked to offset the risk of rising prices by deferring certain purchases. And it happened in the middle of the segment’s seasonal peak.
In 2026, it was rising gas prices – again during the segment’s most highly trafficked period. Year-over-year visits for the sector went from up 3.6% on average for January and February, to being up just 0.4% on average for March, April and May year over year. The same was seen for the sector’s leaders with Home Depot going from average monthly visit increases of 2.7% in January and February to a decline of 0.2% in March and May, and Lowe’s going from 3.0% to up just 0.7% during those same periods.
The takeaway? The home improvement sector – and leaders Home Depot and Lowe’s – are probably in a better position than they are showing. A little bit of luck – or just the removal of bad timing – seems to be all that stands in the way of significant and ongoing visit growth. Just another reason why the segment and these chains in particular are high on our watch list for the second half of 2026.
Many pontificated about why the rising retail leader would make a move on Everlane, pointing to the lift received from tapping into a socially conscious retail brand. And while this is very likely a piece of the puzzle, there are elements that should not be overlooked.
Not only does Everlane offer the positive brand lift associated with a player committed to certain values, it also offers more access to key markets and audiences – in this case young, high earning urban shoppers and wealthy families, among others. Shein – via a range of pop up experiments – has already displayed an understanding of the value of physical spaces and the benefits that come from offline touchpoints, especially with the aim of user acquisition. With Everlane, they leverage these touchpoints to bring customers – existing and potential – into an even larger world of apparel options.
And the user acquisition piece is key. The use of spaces as an entry point into the wider Shein ecosystem will offer massive long term potential.
One of the more fascinating data points of the year thus far was the incredible correlation between rising gas prices and visits to membership clubs – Costco, BJ’s Wholesale, Sam’s Club – gas locations.
The takeaway here is absolutely clear – when prices rise these locations are trusted by customers to provide the best possible value. But the really important takeaway is that these ‘shorter term’ swings have significant and long term impacts for these retailers. During the pandemic we saw that visits to locations like these don’t just provide a quick win, they indicate a likelihood that these visitors will now be making membership club locations a larger and ongoing part of their retail patterns.
Providing value amid surging gas prices is just another example of an opportunity these leaders are taking to create a win for customers – something they have proven uniquely capable of turning into long term loyalty.
Super Mario launched at the very tail end of Q1, but it was the first signal of the huge potential movie theatre traffic would have in 2026. Obviously, the peak summer months of July and August will carry a huge amount of weight in this conversation, but the spikes driven by Toy Story 5 and others in Q2 were the necessary ‘next signal’ that the run of blockbusters scheduled for this year could drive big visits.
The other area to track here is who else benefits. We’ve talked a lot about limited time offers - especially those tied to movie releases or other anchors that create urgency. And with so many movies coming, and so many of these having significant retail and dining tie-ins, the wider impact could be even larger.
Every year we gather in Las Vegas for a pulse check on the state of retail real estate. And 2026 continued a trend of clear and significant confidence that the positioning of physical stores and dining locations is in a very strong place.
The big question is now less about how rosy or bleak the segment’s future is, but which players will take advantage of the current state of strength to future proof their portfolios by taking calculated risks on how to up level shopping centers and the retail spaces within them.
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The return-to-office (RTO) wars are grinding on. Mandates are expanding across the private and public sectors, and employers are getting more serious about enforcement. But even as the share of Fortune 100 companies requiring full-time in-person work has climbed to 55%, employees continue to push back in ways both visible and subtle – from protests and petitions to "hushed hybrid" workarounds and coffee badging – quiet quitting's caffeinated cousin.
So where does actual attendance stand? We dove into the data to find out.
Nationwide office visits in June 2026 jumped 8.5% year over year (YoY) and stood 21.0% below June 2019 levels. But June 2026 also came with a calendar assist: The month had 21 working days, compared to 20 in both June 2025 and June 2019. And Juneteenth fell on a Friday this year, rather than a Thursday as in 2025 – meaning the holiday landed on what is typically the week’s quietest office day, likely blunting its drag on attendance.
On a per-working-day basis, office visits rose a more modest 3.3% YoY, continuing the slow but stubborn climb the index has traced for the past several months. Still, even when normalizing for business days, June emerged as the single busiest in-office month since COVID began in March 2020.
Nationwide Office Index, June 2026
| Total Visits | Avg. Visits Per Working Day |
|---|---|
|
Compared to June 2019
Pre-pandemic
▼21.0%
|
Compared to June 2019
Pre-pandemic
▼24.8%
|
|
Compared to June 2025
Year over year
▲8.5%
|
Compared to June 2025
Year over year
▲3.3%
|
Click a key in the legend below to show or hide either line.
Market-level data shows that many analyzed metros – including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami – reached new post-pandemic office attendance highs in June after adjusting for the number of working days. But Miami was the clear June RTO winner, with office visits surpassing 2019 levels. Critically, this is still an estimation, and it remains to be seen how Miami’s recovery will continue to play out over the long term. Still, the obvious takeaway is that the Florida hub – which has also seen the lowest vacancy rate of any major U.S. office market in recent months – is in an especially strong position as the RTO continues.
Every major market also posted YoY visit growth, with Los Angeles leading the pack. The market was lapping a soft June 2025, when local protests disrupted commuting routines – though L.A.’s solid showing in recent months suggests the jump reflects more than an easy comparison. San Francisco ranked second, continuing the momentum that made it the YoY growth leader in May. And Chicago also logged a substantial YoY gain, moving into the middle of the post-pandemic recovery pack as its downtown office market recorded its first vacancy decline in fifteen quarters in Q2 2026.
With California's four-day mandate for state workers taking effect July 1, and full-time office requirements set to roll out this September at employers including Fidelity and TikTok, the second half of 2026 may bring fresh RTO tailwinds. Will these policies push the recovery even further ahead? And will Miami's move above pre-COVID levels hold over time? Time will tell.
For more data-driven RTO insights, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
1. The hypergrowth of Costco, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General between 2019 and 2025 has fundamentally changed the brick-and-mortar retail landscape.
2. Overall visits to Target and Walmart have remained essentially stable even as traffic to the new retail giants skyrocketed – so the increased competition is not necessarily coming at legacy giants' expense. Instead, each retail giant is filling a different need, and success now requires excelling at specific shopping missions rather than broad market dominance.
3. Cross-shopping has become the new normal, with Walmart and Target maintaining their popularity even as their relative visit shares decline, creating opportunities for complementary rather than purely competitive strategies.
4. Dollar stores are rapidly graduating from "fill-in" destinations to primary shopping locations, signaling a fundamental shift in how Americans approach everyday retail.
5. Walmart still enjoys the highest visit frequency, but the other four chains – and especially Dollar General – are gaining ground in this realm.
6. Geographic and demographic specialization is becoming the key differentiator, as each chain carves out distinct niches rather than competing head-to-head across all markets and customer segments.
Evolving shopper priorities, economic pressures, and new competitors are reshaping how and where Americans buy everyday goods. And as value-focused players gain ground, legacy retail powerhouses are adapting their strategies in a bid to maintain their visit share. In this new consumer reality, shoppers no longer stick to one lane, creating a complex ecosystem where loyalty, geography, and cross-visitation patterns – not just market share – define who is truly winning.
This report explores the latest retail traffic data for Walmart, Target, Costco, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General to decode what consumers want from retail giants in 2025. By analyzing visit patterns, loyalty trends, and cross-shopping shifts, we reveal how fast-growing chains are winning over consumers and uncover the strategies helping legacy players stay competitive in today's value-driven retail landscape.
In 2019, Walmart and Target were the two major behemoths in the brick-and-mortar retail space. And while traffic to these chains remains close to 2019 levels, overall visits to Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Costco have increased 36.6% to 45.9% in the past six years. Much of the growth was driven by aggressive store expansions, but average visits per location stayed constant (in the case of Dollar Tree) or grew as well (in the case of Dollar General and Costco). This means that these chains are successfully filling new stores with visitors – consumers who in the past may have gone to Walmart or Target for at least some of the items now purchased at wholesale clubs and dollar stores.
This substantial increase in visits to Costco, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree has altered the competitive landscape in which Walmart and Target operate. In 2019, 55.9% of combined visits to the five retailers went to Walmart. Now, Walmart’s relative visit share is less than 50%. Target received the second-highest share of visits to the five retailers in 2019, with 15.9% of combined traffic to the chains. But Between January and July 2025, Dollar General received more visits than Target – even though the discount store had received just 12.1% of combined visits in 2019.
Some of the growth of the new retail giants could be attributed to well-timed expansion. But the success of these chains is also due to the extreme value orientation of U.S. consumers in recent years. Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Costco each offer a unique value proposition, giving today's increasingly budget-conscious shoppers more options.
Walmart’s strategy of "everyday low prices" and its strongholds in rural and semi-rural areas reflect its emphasis on serving broad, value-focused households – often catering to essential, non-discretionary shopping.
Dollar General serves an even larger share of rural and semi-rural shoppers than Walmart, following its strategy of bringing a curated selection of everyday basics to underserved communities. The retailer's packaging is typically smaller than Walmart's, which allows Dollar General to price each item very affordably – and its geographic concentration in rural and semi-rural areas also highlights its direct competition to Walmart.
By contrast, Target and Costco both compete for consumer attention in suburban and small city settings, where shopper profiles tilt more toward families seeking one-stop-shopping and broader discretionary offerings. But Costco's audience skews slightly more affluent – the retailer attracts consumers who can afford the membership fees and bulk purchasing requirements – and its visit growth may be partially driven by higher income Target shoppers now shopping at Costco.
Dollar Tree, meanwhile, showcases a uniquely balanced real estate strategy. The chain's primary strength lies in suburban and small cities but it maintains a solid footing in both rural and urban areas. The chain also offers a unique value proposition, with a smaller store format and a fixed $1.25 price point on most items. So while the retailer isn't consistently cheaper than Walmart or Dollar General across all products, its convenience and predictability are helping it cement its role as a go-to chain for quick shopping trips or small quantities of discretionary items. And its versatile, three-pronged geographic footprint allows it to compete across diverse markets: Dollar Tree can serve as a convenient, quick-trip alternative to big-box retailers in the suburbs while also providing essential value in both rural and dense urban communities.
As each chain carves out distinct geographic and demographic niches, success increasingly depends on being the best option for particular shopping missions (bulk buying, quick trips, essential needs) rather than trying to be everything to everyone.
Still, despite – or perhaps due to – the increased competition, shoppers are increasingly spreading their visits across multiple retailers: Cross-shopping between major chains rose significantly between 2019 and 2025. And Walmart remains the most popular brick-and-mortar retailer, consistently ranking as the most popular cross-shopping destination for visitors of every other chain, followed by Target.
This creates an interesting paradox when viewed alongside the overall visit share shift. Even as Walmart and Target's total share of visits has declined, their importance as a secondary stop has actually grown. This suggests that the legacy retail giants' dip in market share isn't due to shoppers abandoning them. Instead, consumers are expanding their shopping routines by visiting other growing chains in addition to their regular trips to Walmart and Target, effectively diluting the giants' share of a larger, more fragmented retail landscape.
Cross-visitation to Costco from Walmart, Target, and Dollar Tree also grew between 2019 and 2025, suggesting that Costco is attracting a more varied audience to its stores.
But the most significant jumps in cross-visitation went to Dollar Tree and Dollar General, with cross-visitation to these chains from Target, Walmart, and Costco doubling or tripling over the past six years. This suggests that these brands are rapidly graduating from “fill-in” fare to primary shopping destinations for millions of households.
The dramatic rise in cross-visitation to dollar stores signals an opportunity for all retailers to identify and capitalize on specific shopping missions while building complementary partnerships rather than viewing every chain as direct competition.
Walmart’s status as the go-to destination for essential, non-discretionary spending is clearly reflected in its exceptional loyalty rates – nearly half its visitors return at least three times per month on average -between January to July 2025, a figure virtually unchanged since 2019. This steady high-frequency visitation underscores how necessity-driven shopping anchors customer routines and keeps Walmart atop the retail loyalty ranks.
But the data also reveals that other retail giants – and Dollar General in particular – are steadily gaining ground. Dollar General's increased visit frequency is largely fueled by its strategic emphasis on adding fresh produce and other grocery items, making it a viable everyday stop for more households and positioning it to compete more directly with Walmart.
Target also demonstrates a notable uptick in loyal visitors, with its share of frequent shoppers visiting at least three times a month rising from 20.1% to 23.6% between 2019 and 2025. This growth may suggest that its strategic initiatives – like the popular Drive Up service, same-day delivery options, and an appealing mix of essentials and exclusive brands – are successfully converting some casual shoppers into repeat customers.
Costco stands out for a different reason: while overall visits increased, loyalty rates remained essentially unchanged. This speaks to Costco’s unique position as a membership-based outlet for targeted bulk and premium-value purchases, where the shopping behavior of new visitors tends to follow the same patterns as those of its already-loyal core. As a result, trip frequency – rooted largely in planned stock-ups – remains remarkably consistent even as the warehouse giant grows foot traffic overall.
Dollar Tree currently has the smallest share of repeat visitors but is improving this metric. As it successfully encourages more frequent trips and narrows the loyalty gap with its larger rivals, it's poised to become an increasing source of competition for both Target and Costco.
The increase in repeat visits and cross-shopping across the five retail giants showcases consumers' current appetite for value-oriented mass merchants and discount chains. And although the retail giants landscape may be more fragmented, the data also reveals that the pie itself has grown significantly – so the increased competition does not necessarily need to come at the expense of legacy retail giants.
The retail landscape of 2025 demands a fundamental shift from zero-sum competition to strategic complementarity, where success lies in owning specific shopping missions rather than fighting for total market dominance. Retailers that forego attempting to compete on every front and instead clearly communicate their mission-specific value propositions – whether that's emergency runs, bulk essentials, or family shopping experiences – may come out on top.
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.
