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Black Rock Coffee Bar ended its NASDAQ debut in September 2025 at a market valuation of $1.32 billion – a remarkable showing for the relatively young coffee chain.
We took a closer look at the data to see what sets Black Rock apart from its competitors – and what might be fueling its remarkable valuation and early surge in share price.
Black Rock Coffee Bar, which was founded in Oregon and is currently based in Arizona, has been on an impressive growth trajectory– between 2020 and 2025, the chain doubled its unit count, and the company is now targeting 1,000 locations by 2035.
Fueled by its aggressive expansion, Black Rock’s traffic has surged since 2019, with Q2 2025 visits up 226.5% compared to Q3 2019. These trends echo the trajectory of Dutch Bros – another rapidly growing coffee chain founded in Oregon – whose growth path since 2019 closely mirrors Black Rock’s, as shown in the graph below.
Despite their shared origins and similar growth trajectories, the two chains draw distinct audiences. Dutch Bros tends to attract visitors from less affluent neighborhoods, both nationally and within Oregon – due in large part to its typically younger audience – whereas Black Rock Coffee’s customer base skews more affluent than the median in both contexts.
This contrast suggests that the coffee space has ample room for two Oregon-founded chains to scale quickly, as each taps into a distinct segment of the market with complementary growth potential. Dutch Bros can lean into accessibility and mass-market appeal, while Black Rock is positioned to build loyalty with higher-income consumers, potentially supporting premium offerings, differentiated experiences, and stronger long-term margins.
Focusing on recent months shows that – although Black Rock Coffee is maintaining overall positive visit growth – average visits per location have slipped slightly, as seen in the chart below. What does this mean for Black Rock Coffee's future?
Overall traffic is still climbing and new stores are expanding the brand's customer base, so the slowdown appears to be a short-term adjustment rather than a hard ceiling. But the dip in visits per venue may indicate that the chain is beginning to saturate its traditional western and southern markets – signaling that further growth may depend on expansion into new states and DMAs.
Black Rock Coffee's growth is reminiscent of that of Dutch Bros, and demographic differences between their audiences create room for both chains to continue expanding – though Black Rock's softer per-location trends bear watching as it expands. Still, the chain’s affluent customer base provides resilience and supports long-term growth, helping explain Black Rock Coffee's premium valuation and early market enthusiasm.
For the most up-to-date dining data, check out Placer.ai’s free tools.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
East and South Asian grocery chains continue to perform well, with YoY visits outperforming the broader grocery segment in most cases, as seen in the chart below.
One factor behind the success of specialty grocery chains is their ability to serve as true destinations rather than just another place to pick up groceries, as visitor behavior data suggests that these grocers engage their visitors more deeply than traditional grocery chains.
Shoppers spend more time in these specialty grocery stores (27 to 41 minutes per visit on average compared to 23 minutes at traditional supermarkets). Consumers are also more likely to visit on weekends – the grocery category as a whole receives less than 33% of its visits on weekends, compared to H Mart, 99 Ranch Market, Mitsuwa Marketplace, and Patel Brothers where 39.3% to 42.4% of visits take place over the weekend. Together, these patterns reinforce the positioning of East and South Asian grocers as experiential, destination-driven retailers rather than routine errand stops.
Looking ahead, some chains are working on opening more stores, with H Mart slated to open four new locations in Florida, Texas, and California, while 99 Ranch just opened its first New York City location. These expansions signal continued momentum in both established and new markets.
The success of Southeast and East Asian grocers may highlight a broader consumer shift: shopping trips that feel purposeful, engaging, and even entertaining are increasingly valued in an age where routine purchases can be easily fulfilled online. Traditional grocers looking to tap into this trend may need to rethink their formats, merchandising, and in-store experiences, potentially leaning more into specialty assortments, foodservice options, or community programming. More broadly, for retailers of all types, the success of Asian grocers illustrates the growing importance of creating destination-driven experiences that transform shopping into an outing rather than a chore. Retailers who cultivate environments that invite discovery, linger time, and weekend traffic may find themselves better positioned to capture both customer loyalty and discretionary spending.
For the latest up-to-date grocery trends, check out our free tools.
Costco (COST) has maintained an impressive growth streak since the pandemic, with visits up year-over-year (YoY) every quarter since Q2 2021, as shown in the chart below.
Importantly, although the retailer has expanded significantly during this time, this growth has not been fueled by expansion alone: Same-store visits have also consistently increased during this period – indicating that the retailer is driving more traffic to existing stores and quickly building strong member bases at its new warehouses.
The latest data suggests that Costco has no plans of slowing down. Overall visits continued to grow in 2025 while same-store visits increased or held steady. And even as brick-and-mortar retail traffic softened over the summer, Costco bucked the trend: August 2025 traffic to Costco grew 5.5% YoY while same-store visits rose 4.0% – likely boosted by back-to-school demand.
In-store consumer behavior also highlights Costco's consumer appeal. Visitors to the chain spend considerably more time per visit than visitors to other superstores or grocery chains. This longer dwell time not only increases the likelihood of larger basket sizes, but also highlights the effectiveness of Costco’s curated merchandising strategy that offers consumers an engaging experience while encouraging cross-category shopping.
Macro conditions may help Costco grow even further in the near future. Gas prices have fallen recently, reducing the cost of driving to warehouse clubs often located outside dense residential areas. Grocery inflation has cooled as well, relieving pressure on households that might have pulled back from bulk purchases, while keeping value top of mind. Together, lower fuel costs and moderating food prices reduce friction and reinforce steady trip frequency to value-oriented, drive-to formats like Costco.
Looking ahead, Costco’s combination of consistent traffic growth, favorable macro conditions, and industry-leading in-store engagement underscores its resilience in a challenging retail environment. For investors, these trends point to continued revenue durability supported by membership economics and strong spend-per-visit. For retailers, Costco offers a blueprint: build loyalty through value and elevate engagement with experience. This approach has made Costco not only a standout performer today, but also one of the best-positioned retailers to sustain growth into the next cycle.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
The state of the consumer was top of mind during second-quarter 2025 earnings calls, as restaurant executives consistently described a more cautious and discerning customer. Leaders from major brands like McDonald's, Chipotle, and Starbucks noted that lower-income consumers, in particular, are feeling the pressure of a challenging economy and are pulling back on the frequency of their visits.
McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski framed it as a "two-tier economy," where affluent consumers continue to spend while lower-to-middle income households face significant cost-of-living pressures. This trend is visible in visitation data, which shows quick-service (QSR) and fast-casual restaurants underperforming full-service restaurants and coffee chains in recent months.
This consumer caution has led to a "trade-down" effect, where customers actively seek value-oriented promotions or skip add-ons like a beverage to manage their check size. In response, brands are emphasizing affordable meal bundles – like McDonald’s Extra Value Meals and Taco Bell’s Decades Y2K throwback menu featuring fan-favorites under $3 – and leveraging their loyalty programs to retain these budget-conscious patrons.
As 2025 progresses, QSRs face intense competition not just from each other, but from a growing array of value-oriented retailers. Driven by rising menu prices at fast-food chains, highly price-conscious consumers are actively seeking more affordable meal options. Value-oriented grocery stores, dollar stores, and convenience stores have aggressively expanded their grab-and-go and prepared food offerings, making them direct rivals for lunch and dinner.
As the price gap between dining out and eating at home widens, these channels are successfully capturing a greater "share of stomach," particularly from consumers who now view a trip to the grocery or dollar store as a more economical alternative to a QSR visit. We see this in our visitation data, where the number of McDonald’s and other other QSR visitors are increasingly visiting Aldi and other value-oriented options.
The lunch hour has become a key battleground, with fresh-format and value grocers seeing a notable increase in foot traffic as they expand their high-quality, convenient, and affordable grab-and-go options. This has siphoned off a portion of the traditional lunch crowd from fast-casual restaurants, as consumers – particularly office workers – increasingly opt for a trip to the grocery store.
This pressure contributed to weaker-than-expected results for premium fast-casual chains like Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and CAVA. While these brands were up against tough comparisons from product launches a year ago (Chicken al Pastor for Chipotle, steak options for sweetgreen and CAVA), the slowdown was more significant than anticipated.
What’s to make of this slowdown? In addition to tougher comparisons, the explanation is likely a multi-faceted consumer response to a challenging economic environment and a crowded marketplace. Like QSR chains, many budget-conscious fast-casual customers began trading down, either opting for less expensive fast-food alternatives or simply reducing the frequency of their visits to these pricier lunch spots.
At the same time, a segment of their health-conscious consumer base increasingly turned to specialty grocers like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, where they could assemble their own high-quality bowls for a lower cost. Compounding the issue was a growing sentiment of "slop bowl" fatigue, a perception that the once-innovative format had become commoditized, with little differentiation between the chains, leading some consumers to seek out more unique dining experiences.
Chili's continued its significant outperformance of the restaurant industry in the second quarter of 2025 by successfully executing a multi-faceted strategy centered on a compelling value message that resonated with increasingly price-conscious consumers. The brand's success was largely driven by the popularity of its heavily marketed "3 for Me" bundled meal deal and its "Triple Dipper" appetizer promotion, which together attracted a surge of new and repeat customers. This effective value messaging was supported by substantial investments in marketing and crucial back-of-house operational improvements, which enhanced food quality and service consistency, allowing Chili's to capture a significant share of visits while many competitors in the casual dining space struggled with declining traffic.
It’s not just Chili’s however. Applebee's, for instance, managed to drive a 4.9% increase in same-store sales during its most recent quarter, a significant turnaround attributed to its own value-driven promotions and menu innovations that successfully boosted customer traffic. Olive Garden delivered a solid performance in its most recent quarter, achieving a 2.0% increase in same-restaurant sales. This growth was largely fueled by the success of its value promotions and a significant nearly 20% surge in takeout sales, which helped attract a younger, more frequent customer base according to management.
As the restaurant industry moves into the second half of 2025, the second quarter's results paint a clear picture of a market defined by a strategic, value-seeking consumer. The resounding success of casual dining chains like Chili's and Applebee's, which leaned heavily into affordable, bundled meals, demonstrates that a compelling value proposition can still drive significant traffic and sales. Conversely, the fast-casual and QSR segments are facing an identity crisis, squeezed by intense competition from lower-priced grocery and convenience store alternatives and the aggressive promotions from sit-down restaurants.
Ultimately, the brands that will thrive for the remainder of the year will be those that can master the art of delivering a strong, clear value equation – whether through price, experience, or convenience – to a customer who is more discerning with their dining dollars than ever before.
For more data-driven insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
Since June 30, 2025, Costco has offered Executive members an extra hour to shop at many warehouses, and by September the perk expanded company-wide. Traffic data shows that the extended hours are already reshaping shopping patterns, with measurable impacts on both visit timing and dwell times.
The chart below compares Costco visit patterns between April and June 2025, before extended Executive Member hours were introduced, with July and August 2025, when most warehouses began offering exclusive early access from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM. The additional morning hour appears to have encouraged some Executive members to shift their trips earlier in the day, which in turn reduced traffic concentration during late-morning and afternoon peaks.
This redistribution helps create a more balanced flow of visitors, likely improving the shopping experience for members overall.
The impact of early openings extends beyond when members shop – it also affects how they shop. The chart below, which tracks visit lengths before and after the introduction of early Executive openings, shows that the share of Costco visits lasting 30 to 45 minutes increased in July and August while the share of visits lasting 45 to 60 minutes fell.
This shift suggests that early-access shoppers are more purposeful and efficient, taking advantage of lighter crowds and easier store navigation. Importantly, Costco did not assign additional staff hours to cover the new morning window – a decision that seems to be validated by the data. With members shopping more efficiently, the company managed to enhance customer experience without increasing operational costs.
A Win-Win for Members and Retail Operations
By extending special hours to Executive members, Costco not only rewards high-value customers but also reduces congestion during traditional peaks. The smoother distribution of visits and more efficient shopping trips underscore how strategic adjustments to operating hours can drive meaningful changes in consumer behavior.
As retailers navigate evolving shopper expectations, Costco’s example highlights the power of data-driven scheduling to enhance both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
The 2025 US Open Tennis Championships once again transformed New York City into a global stage for sport, culture, and entertainment. Hosted at the iconic USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the tournament drew thousands of fans across two distinct phases: Fan Week (August 18-23, 2025) and the Main Draw (August 24-September 7, 2025).
Fan Week, a series of mainly free events, features player practices, qualifying matches, music, and more, has grown into a family-friendly celebration of tennis, opening the gates to casual fans and tennis enthusiasts seeking a festival-like atmosphere. In contrast, the ticketed main draw is the core of the Grand Slam competition, where men’s and women’s singles, doubles, and mixed doubles champions are crowned.
With the US Open ostensibly split into two phases, we dove into the data to find out how visitors to Fan Week and the main draw compared in terms of visitor behavior and demographic characteristics.
The US Open seems to be deliberately branding Fan Week as the particularly family-friendly portion of the tournament, with kids’ meal deals and “Arthur Ashe Kids Day” designed to engage fans of all ages.
And analyzing the National Tennis Center’s trade area (in the chart below) shows that the pre-Grand Slam audience did indeed encompass slightly more households with children than the main tournament. But the share of families in the National Tennis Center’s trade area still fell well below the national average – suggesting that the US Open still has white space to drive traffic from more families during both Fan Week and the main draw.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the low shares of family attendees, the US Open attracts an outsized share of singles. “One Person” and “Non Family” households overrepresented during Fan Week – and even more so in the main draw – perhaps thanks to their greater flexibility to attend high-profile sporting events, and especially late-night matches.
The prevalence of singles during both phases of the Open also indicates that focusing on this audience segment, perhaps with after-hours events – can help cement the US Open as a social, lifestyle-driven experience and not just a tennis championship.
Whether attended by singles or families, further analysis of audience differences between Fan Week and the main draw reveals that the US Open 2025 was a premier destination for high-income consumers.
The main draw’s captured market median household income HHI reached $152.7K – perhaps no surprise given the steep cost of tickets and the heavy presence of influencers, celebrities and other VIPs.
And despite the mostly free Fan Week events, visitors to Flushing Meadows before the main draw still came from areas significantly more affluent than the New York State median, as seen in the chart below. The added costs of travel, lodging, and time away likely mean that even mostly-free Fan Week resonates most with households that have greater flexibility and resources.
Fan Week’s affluent audience creates opportunities for premium partnerships, from luxury brand sponsorships to exclusive experiences like tastings, wellness events, or VIP meet-and-greets. At the same time, reducing barriers for less affluent households, through transit discounts, local outreach, or weekend-heavy programming could broaden participation and grow the fan base, strengthening Fan Week’s role as a community event.
Although there are an array of supplementary events that take place at the US Open, tennis remains at the center of the action.
Visit data reveals that nearly 70% of visits during the main draw in 2025 lasted more than 150 minutes, with the average visit lasting 237 minutes, within the range of a typical professional match. And during Fan Week – with its extensive off-court programming – 50% of visits also exceeded 150 minutes with an average visit of 176 minutes, a time consistent with typical 3-set qualifying match play times. What’s more, the graph below shows that the share of shorter visits remained relatively low and evenly distributed between visits of 15 minutes and 150 minutes in length.
This suggests that few fans made quick trips out of their US Open visit, but rather stayed long enough to watch entire matches, proving that tennis itself continues to anchor the US Open experience.
The 2025 US Open highlighted the unique character of its two phases – Fan Week and the main draw – but also revealed important similarities in how visitors engaged with the event. While Fan Week strives to be family-friendly and accessible regardless of wealth, it continues to resonate strongly with singles and high-income households, although to a lesser extent than the main draw. But the length of visits showed that fans across both phases centered their experience on the matches themselves – proving that tennis remains the heart of the U.S. Open.
Want more data-driven event insights? Visit Placer.ai/anchor
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
Commercial real estate in 2026 is characterized by differentiated performance across markets and asset types. Office recovery trajectories vary meaningfully by metro, retail performance reflects format-specific resilience, and domestic migration patterns continue to influence long-term demand fundamentals.
Many higher-income metros continue to trail 2019 benchmarks but drive the strongest Year-over-year gains, signaling a potential inflection in office utilization trends.
• Sunbelt markets along with New York, NY are closest to pre-pandemic office visit levels, while many coastal gateway and tech-heavy markets trail 2019 benchmarks.
• Many of the metros still furthest below pre-pandemic levels are now posting the strongest year-over-year gains.
• Leasing velocity may accelerate in coastal markets – particularly in high-quality assets – even if full recovery remains distant. The expansion of AI-driven firms and innovation-focused employers could support incremental demand in these ecosystems, reinforcing a bifurcation between top-tier buildings and the broader office inventory.
• Higher-income metros such as San Francisco show deeper structural gaps vs 2019, perhaps due to their higher concentration of hybrid-eligible workers – yet those same metros are driving the strongest YoY recovery in 2025.
• Accelerating growth in 2025 suggests that shifting employer policies, workplace enhancements, or broader labor dynamics may be beginning to drive increased in-office activity.
• Office performance in higher-income markets will increasingly depend on workplace quality and policy alignment. Assets that support premium amenities, modern design, and tenants implementing clear in-office expectations are likely to influence sustained office visits and leasing velocity in these metros.
Retail traffic is broadly improving across states, though performance varies by region and format.
• Retail traffic growth is broad-based, with the majority of states showing year-over-year gains in shopping center traffic in 2025.
• Still, even as many states are posting gains, pockets of softer performance remain – specifically in parts of the Southeast and Midwest.
• Broad-based traffic gains indicate consumer demand is more durable than anticipated. In growth states, operators can shift from defensive stabilization to capturing upside – pushing rents, upgrading tenant quality, and accelerating leasing while momentum holds. In softer markets, the focus should remain on protecting traffic through strong anchors and necessity-driven tenancy.
• Convenience-oriented formats are leading traffic growth, with strip/convenience centers materially outperforming all other shopping center types, and neighborhood and community centers also posting gains. This reinforces the strength of proximity-driven, daily-needs retail.
• Destination retail formats, including regional malls and factory outlets, continue to lag, while super-regional malls were essentially flat. Larger-format, discretionary-driven centers are not capturing the same momentum as convenience-based formats.
• The data suggests that consumer behavior continues to favor convenience, frequency, and necessity over destination-based shopping. Operators should lean into service-oriented and daily-needs tenancy in strip and neighborhood formats, while mall operators may need to further reposition assets toward experiential, mixed-use, or non-retail uses to stabilize traffic.
Domestic migration continues to reshape state-level demand, with gains clustering in select growth corridors.
• Domestic migration drove population gains in parts of the Southeast and Northern Plains, while several Western and Northeastern states show flat or negative migration.
• Some previously strong in-migration states in the South and West, including Texas and Utah, are showing softer movement, while other established migration leaders such as Florida and the Carolinas continue to attract net inbound residents.
• Migration flows are shifting relative to prior years. Operators should temper growth assumptions in states where inflows are slowing and prioritize markets where inbound demand remains strong.
• Florida dominates metro-level migration growth, with eight of the top ten U.S. metros for net domestic migration are in Florida.
• The markets with the strongest domestic migration-driven population gains are not major gateway cities but smaller, often retirement- or lifestyle-oriented metros, suggesting that migration-driven demand is increasingly flowing to secondary markets.
• CRE operators should prioritize expansion, leasing, and site selection in high-growth secondary metros where population inflows can directly translate into retail spending, housing absorption, and service demand.
1. Expanded grocery supply is increasing overall category engagement. New locations and deeper food assortments across formats are bringing shoppers into the category more often, rather than fragmenting demand.
2. Grocery visit growth is being driven by low- and middle-income households. Elevated food costs are leading to more frequent, budget-conscious trips, reinforcing grocery’s role as a non-discretionary category.
3. Short, frequent trips are a major driver of brick-and-mortar traffic growth. Fill-in shopping, deal-seeking, and omnichannel behaviors are pushing visit frequency higher, even as trip duration declines.
4. Scale is accelerating consolidation among large grocery chains. Larger retailers are using their size to invest in value, assortment, private label, and execution, allowing them to capture longer and more engaged shopping trips.
5. Both large and small grocers have viable paths to growth. Large chains are winning by competing for the full grocery list, while smaller banners can grow by specializing, owning specific missions, or offering compelling value that earns them a place in shoppers’ routines.
While much of the retail conversation going into 2026 focused on discretionary spending pressure, digital substitution, and higher-income consumers as the primary drivers of growth, grocery foot traffic tells a different story.
Rather than being diluted by new formats or eroded by e-commerce, brick-and-mortar grocery engagement is expanding. Visits are rising even as grocery supply spreads across wholesale clubs, discount and dollar stores, and mass merchants. At the same time, growth is being powered not by affluent trade areas, but by low- and middle-income households navigating higher food costs through more frequent, targeted trips. Shoppers are showing up more often and increasingly splitting their trips across retailers based on value, availability, and mission – pushing grocers to compete for portions of the grocery list instead of the full weekly basket.
The data also suggests that the largest grocery chains are capturing a disproportionate share of rising grocery demand – but the multi-trip nature of grocery shopping in 2026 means that smaller banners can still drive traffic growth. By strengthening their value proposition, specializing in specific products, or owning specific shopping missions, these smaller chains can complement, rather than compete with, larger one-stop destinations.
Ultimately, AI-based location analytics point to a clear set of grocery growth drivers in 2026: expanded supply that increases overall engagement, more frequent and mission-driven trips, and continued traffic concentration among large chains alongside new opportunities for smaller banners.
One driver of grocery growth in recent years is simply the expansion of grocery supply across multiple retail formats. Wholesale clubs are constantly opening new locations and discount and dollar stores are investing more heavily in their food selection, giving consumers a wider choice of where to shop for groceries. And rather than fragmenting demand, this broader availability appears to have increased overall grocery engagement – benefiting both dedicated grocery stores and grocery-adjacent channels.
Grocery stores continue to capture nearly half of all visits across grocery stores, wholesale clubs, discount and dollar stores, and mass merchants. That share has remained remarkably stable thanks to consistent year-over-year traffic growth – so even as grocery supply increases across categories, dedicated grocery stores remain the primary destination for food shopping.
Meanwhile, mass merchants have seen a decline in relative visit share as expanding grocery assortments at discount and dollar stores and the growing store fleets of wholesale clubs give consumers more alternatives for one-stop shopping.
While much of the broader retail conversation heading into 2026 centers on higher-income consumers carrying growth, the trend looks different in the grocery space. Recent visit trends show that grocery growth has increasingly shifted toward lower- and middle-income trade areas, underscoring the distinct dynamics of non-discretionary retail.
For lower- and middle-income shoppers, elevated food costs appear to be translating into more frequent grocery trips as consumers manage budgets through smaller baskets, deal-seeking, and shopping across retailers. In contrast, higher-income households – often cited as a key growth engine for discretionary retail – are contributing less to grocery visit growth, likely reflecting more stable shopping patterns or a greater ability to consolidate trips or shift spend online.
This means that, in 2026, grocery growth is not being propped up by high-income consumers. Instead, it is being fueled by necessity-driven shopping behavior in lower- and middle-income communities – reinforcing grocery’s role as an essential category and suggesting that similar dynamics may be at play across other non-discretionary retail segments.
Another factor driving grocery growth is the rise in short grocery visits in recent years. Between 2022 and 2025, the biggest year-over-year visit gains in the grocery space went to visits under 30 minutes, with sub-15 minute visits seeing particularly big boosts. As of 2025, visits under 15 minutes made up over 40% of grocery visits nationwide – up from 37.9% of visits in 2022.
This shift toward shorter visits – especially those under 15 minutes – is driven in part by the continued expansion of omnichannel grocery shopping, as many consumers complete larger stock-up orders online and rely on in-store trips for order collection or quick, fill-in needs. At the same time, the rise in short visits paired with consistent YoY growth in grocery traffic points to additional, behavior-driven forces at play – consumers' growing willingness to shop around at different grocery stores in search of the best deal or just-right product.
Value-conscious shoppers – particularly consumers from low- and middle-income households, which have driven much of recent grocery growth – seem to be increasingly shopping across multiple retailers to secure the best prices. This behavior often involves making targeted trips to different stores in search of the strongest deals, a pattern that is contributing to the rise in shorter, more frequent grocery visits. At the same time, other grocery shoppers are making quick trips to pick up a single ingredient or specialty item – perhaps reflecting the increasingly sophisticated home cooks and social media-driven ingredient crazes. In both these cases, speed is secondary to getting the best value or the right product.
So while some shorter visits reflect a growing emphasis on efficiency – as shoppers use in-store trips to complement primarily online grocery shopping – others appear driven by a preference for value or product selection over speed. Despite their differences, all of these behaviors have one thing in common – they're all contributing to continued growth in brick-and-mortar grocery visits. Grocers who invest in providing efficient in-store experiences are particularly well-positioned to benefit from these trends.
As early as 2022, the top 15 most-visited grocery chains already accounted for roughly half of all grocery visits nationwide. And by outpacing the industry average in terms of visit growth, these chains have continued to capture a growing share of grocery foot traffic.
This widening gap suggests that scale is increasingly enabling grocers to reinvest in the factors that attract and retain shoppers. Larger chains are better positioned to invest in broader and more differentiated product selection, stronger private-label programs that deliver quality at accessible price points, competitive pricing, and operational excellence across stores and omnichannel touchpoints. These capabilities allow top chains to serve a wide range of shopping missions – from quick, convenience-driven trips to more intentional visits in search of the right product or ingredient.
Consolidation at the top of the grocery category is reinforcing a virtuous cycle: scale enables better value, selection, and experience, which in turn draws more shoppers into stores and supports continued grocery traffic growth.
In 2025, the top 15 most-visited grocery chains accounted for a disproportionate share of visits lasting 15 minutes or more, while smaller grocers captured a larger share of the shortest trips. As shown above, larger grocery chains, which tend to attract longer visits, grew faster than the industry overall – but short visits, which skew more heavily toward smaller chains, accounted for a greater share of total traffic growth. Together, these patterns show that both long, destination trips and short, targeted visits are driving grocery traffic growth and creating viable paths forward for retailers of all sizes.
Larger chains are more likely to serve as destinations for fuller shopping missions, competing for the entire grocery list – or a significant share of it. But smaller banners can grow too by competing for more short visits. By specializing in a specific product category, owning a clearly defined shopping mission, or delivering a compelling value proposition, smaller grocers can earn a place in shoppers’ routines and become a deliberate stop within a broader grocery journey.
As grocery moves deeper into 2026, growth is being driven by the cumulative effect of how consumers are navigating food shopping today. Expanded supply has increased overall engagement, higher food costs are driving more frequent and targeted trips, and shoppers are increasingly willing to split their grocery list across retailers based on value, availability, and mission.
Looking ahead, this suggests that grocery growth will remain resilient, but unevenly distributed. Retailers that clearly understand which trips they are best positioned to win – and invest accordingly – will be best placed to capture that growth. Large chains are likely to continue benefiting from scale, consolidation, and their ability to serve full shopping missions, while smaller banners can grow by earning a defined role within shoppers’ broader grocery journeys. In 2026, success in grocery will be less about winning every trip and more about consistently winning the right ones.
To optimize office utilization and surrounding activity in 2026, stakeholders should:
1. Plan for continued, but slower, office recovery. Attendance continues to rise and has reached a post-pandemic high, but moderating growth suggests the return-to-office may progress at a more gradual and incremental pace than in prior years.
2. Account for growing seasonality in office staffing, local retail operations, and municipal services. As office visitation becomes increasingly concentrated in late spring and summer, offices, downtown retailers, and cities may need to plan for more predictable peaks and troughs by adjusting hours, staffing levels, and local services accordingly, rather than relying on annual averages.
3. Align leasing strategies with seasonal demand. Stronger attendance in Q2 and Q3 suggests these quarters are best suited for leasing activity, while softer Q1 and Q4 periods may be better used for renovations, repositioning, and targeted activation efforts designed to draw workers in.
4. Design hybrid policies around midweek anchor days. With Tuesdays and Wednesdays consistently driving the highest office attendance, employers can maximize collaboration and space utilization by concentrating meetings, programming, and in-office expectations midweek.
5. Reduce early-week commute friction to support attendance. Monday office attendance appears closely correlated with commute ease, suggesting that reliable and efficient transportation may be an important factor in early-week office recovery.
6. Prioritize proximity in leasing and development decisions. Visits from employees traveling less than five miles to work have increased steadily since 2019, reinforcing the value of centrally located offices and housing near employment hubs.
2025 was the year of the return-to-office (RTO) mandate. Employers across industries – from Amazon to JPMorgan Chase – instituted full-time on-site requirements and sought to rein in remote work. But the year also underscored the limits of policy. As employee pushback and enforcement challenges mounted, many organizations turned to quieter tactics such as “hybrid creep” to gradually expand in-office expectations without triggering outright resistance.
For employers seeking to boost attendance, as well as office owners, retailers, and cities looking to maximize today’s visitation patterns, understanding what actually drives employee behavior has become more critical than ever. This reports dives into the data to examine office visitation patterns in 2025 – and explore how structural factors such as weather, commute convenience, and workplace proximity have emerged as key differentiators shaping how and when, and how often workers come into the office.
National office visits rose 5.6% year over year in 2025, bringing attendance to just 31.7% below pre-pandemic levels and marking the highest point since COVID disrupted workplace routines. At the same time, the pace of growth slowed compared to 2024, signaling a possible transition into a steadier phase of recovery.
With new return-to-office mandates expected in 2026, and the balance of power quietly shifting towards employers, additional gains remain likely. But the trajectory suggested by the data points toward gradual progress rather than a return to the more rapid rebounds seen in 2023 or 2024.
Before COVID, “I couldn’t come in, it was raining” would have sounded like a flimsy excuse to most bosses. But today, weather, travel, and individual scheduling are widely accepted reasons to stay home, reflecting a broader assumption that face time should flex around convenience.
This shift is visible in the growing seasonality of office visitation, which has intensified even as overall attendance continues to rise. In 2019, office life followed a relatively steady year-round cadence, with only modest quarterly variation after adjusting for the number of working days. In recent years, however, greater seasonality has emerged. Since 2024, Q1 and Q4 have consistently underperformed while Q2 and Q3 have posted meaningfully stronger attendance – a pattern that became even more pronounced in 2025. Winter weather disruptions, extended holiday travel, and the growing normalization of “workations” appear to be pulling some visits out of the colder, holiday-heavy months and concentrating them into late spring and summer.
For employers, office owners, downtown retailers, and city planners, this emerging seasonality matters. Staffing, operating budgets, and programming decisions increasingly need to account for predictable soft quarters and peak periods, making quarterly planning a more useful lens than annual averages. Leasing activity may also convert best in Q2 and Q3, when districts feel most active. Slower quarters, meanwhile, may be better suited for renovations, construction, or employer- and city-led programming designed to give workers a reason to show up.
The growing premium placed on convenience is also evident in the persistence of the TGIF workweek – and in the factors shaping its regional variability.
Before COVID, Mondays were typically the busiest day of the week, followed by relatively steady attendance through Thursday and a modest drop-off on Fridays. Today, Tuesdays and Wednesdays have firmly established themselves as the primary anchor days, while Mondays and Fridays see consistently lower activity. And notably, this pattern has remained essentially stable over the past three years – despite minor fluctuations – as workers continue to cluster their in-office time around the days that offer the most perceived value while preserving flexibility at the edges of the week.
At the same time, while the hybrid workweek remains firmly entrenched nationwide, its contours vary significantly across regions – and the data suggests that convenience is once again a key differentiator.
Across major markets, a clear pattern emerges: Cities with higher reliance on public transportation tend to see weaker Monday office attendance, while markets where more workers drive alone show stronger early-week presence. While industry mix and local office culture still matter, the data points to commute hassle as another factor potentially shaping Monday attendance.
New York City, excluded from the chart below as a clear outlier, stands as the exception that proves the rule. Despite nearly half of local employees relying on public transportation (48.7% according to the Census 2024 (ACS)), the city’s extensive and deeply embedded transit system appears to reduce perceived friction. In 2025, Mondays accounted for 18.4% of weekly office visits in the city, even with heavy transit usage.
The contrast highlights an important nuance: Where transit is fast, frequent, and integrated into daily routines, it can support office recovery, offering a potential roadmap for other dense urban markets seeking to rebuild early-week momentum.
Another powerful signal of today’s convenience-first mindset shows up in commute distances. Since 2019, the share of office visits generated by employees traveling less than five miles has steadily increased, largely at the expense of mid-distance commuters traveling 10 to 25 miles.
To be sure, this metric reflects total visits rather than unique visitors, so the shift may be driven by increased visit frequency among workers with shorter, simpler commutes rather than a change in where employees live overall. Still, the pattern is telling: Workers with shorter commutes appear more likely to generate repeat in-person visits, while longer and more complex commutes correspond with fewer trips. Over time, this dynamic could shape office leasing decisions, residential demand near employment centers – whether in urban cores or in nearby suburbs – and the geography of the workforce.
Taken together, the data paints a clear picture of the modern return-to-office landscape. Attendance is rising, but behavior is no longer driven by mandates alone. Instead, workers are making rational, convenience-based decisions about when coming in is worth the effort.
For cities, the implication is straightforward: Ease of access matters. Investments in transit reliability, last-mile connectivity, and housing near employment centers can all play a meaningful role in shaping how consistently people show up. For employers, too, the lesson is that the path back to the office runs through convenience, not just compulsion, as attendance gains are increasingly driven by how effectively organizations reduce friction and increase the perceived value of being on-site.
