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How did indoor malls, open-air shopping centers, and outlet malls fare in June 2024? We dove into the data to find out.
Fresh on the heels of May’s strong showing, malls continued to impress in June 2024. Weekly year-over-year (YoY) visits to all three mall types (indoor malls, open-air shopping centers, and outlet malls) remained robust throughout the month, as shoppers took advantage of the warm weather to go shopping.
YoY foot traffic to malls was especially high during the week of June 17th – when a record-breaking heat wave likely drove shoppers to seek refuge in air-conditioned spaces – including both malls and individual stores. During that week, indoor malls, open-air shopping centers, and outlet malls saw YoY visit increases of 9.4%, 9.9%, and 4.5%, respectively.
Malls’ positive June performance appears to herald a strong summer shopping season for the sector – which tends to draw larger crowds in summer months.
Comparing monthly mall visits to a January 2019 baseline shows that all three mall types experience substantial summer foot traffic boosts. For indoor malls and open-air shopping centers, the summer foot traffic increases – though significant – pale in comparison to those of the holiday season. But for outlet malls, the July and August foot traffic spikes rival those seen in December.
Outlet malls’ special summertime opportunity may be driven by a variety of factors. People may have more time to travel to outlet malls during summer vacations and may be more inclined to embrace the experience of a leisurely shopping day trip when the weather is warm. College students and parents eager to find back-to-school deals may also flock to outlet malls in July and August as they gear up for the academic year.
And with such a strong June under their belts, outlet malls – as well as indoor malls and open-air shopping centers – appear poised for a successful summer indeed.
The warm summer months not only bring more shoppers to malls, but also lead to longer visits. Analyzing monthly shifts in malls’ average visit durations since May 2023 shows that like foot traffic, mall dwell time also has a seasonal element – with people staying longer during holiday shopping seasons, as well as in the summer. Visit durations peak in July, and then again in November and December – with smaller jumps seen in March, likely a result of Easter and Spring Break.
And looking more closely at dwell time trends over the past six months shows that since the beginning of 2024, mall visit length increased slightly each month for all three mall types. June 2024 average visit durations to indoor malls, open-air shopping centers, and outlet malls were 1.9, 1.3, and 3.1 minutes longer, respectively, than in January 2024. While these differences are subtle, the consistency of the shift is striking – and considering that the averages are derived from millions of visits to hundreds of malls, it reflects a significant trend.
As the temperatures warm up, shoppers are happy to hit the mall. All three mall types saw a strong June, indicating a promising summer ahead.
Will July and August meet these high expectations for shopping malls across the country?
Visit our blog at placer.ai to find out.
Return-to-office (RTO) mandates are once again the talk of the town, with growing numbers of employers requiring workers to move back closer to the office and come into the office more frequently. Despite employee pushback, the trend is leaving its mark on everything from downtown retailers to local housing markets.
But how is the RTO push impacting office attendance? We dove into the data to find out.
In June 2024, visits to offices nationwide were just 29.4% below June 2019 levels – and the highest they’ve been since before the pandemic. June’s strong year-over-year (YoY) showing is particularly impressive given the fact that June 2024 had one fewer workday than June 2019 (Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday in 2021).
Digging down into regional data shows Miami continuing to lead the office recovery pack, with June 2024 visits down just 9.8% compared to the equivalent period of 2019. New York was once again close on Miami’s heels – driven in part by strict RTO policies on Wall Street. Atlanta, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. also outperformed the nationwide baseline, while Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Houston, and San Francisco took up the rear.
A look at regional YoY visitation patterns offers additional insight into each city’s unique office recovery trajectory. Houston, which was hit hard by inclement weather in May 2024, suffered an additional setback in June – with tropical storm warnings and extreme heat waves likely inducing many locals to stay home.
Atlanta and Boston, on the other hand, experienced their busiest in-office month since the pandemic – with respective June 2024 YoY visit increases of 10.0% and 10.3%. Atlanta, which has been outperforming nationwide averages for some months now, has seen an accelerated recovery fueled by accumulating RTO mandates. And in Boston, too, growing numbers of companies are calling on employees to put in more face time.
San Francisco, meanwhile, surrendered its YoY visit growth lead, even as the San Francisco Federal Reserve president urged tech companies to tighten their in-office policies.
The new hybrid normal may be firmly entrenched – but foot traffic data shows that the RTO story is still very much ongoing. How will office visits continue to shape up as the year wears on?
Follow Placer.ai’s data-driven analyses to find out.
Movie theaters, among the hardest-hit industries during the pandemic, have faced challenges in foot traffic recovering to pre-COVID levels. However, the release of major blockbusters including Barbie, Oppenheimer, Spiderman: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick, and others, led to dramatic surges in movie theater visits, proving that the silver screen can still draw crowds.
While some of these films shattered box-office records upon release, the recently premiered "Inside Out 2" – an animated coming-of-age film – is poised to exceed even those impressive metrics, setting a new benchmark for success.
Expectations for the new Disney-Pixar powerhouse sequel “Inside Out 2” were high long before its theatrical premiere on June 14th, 2024. Fans and critics alike were eagerly anticipating the return of Riley and her emotions. But even among these high expectations, the film’s effect was astonishing, becoming the fastest-ever animated feature to surpass the billion-dollar mark.
And the film's huge success is only further emphasized by foot traffic data of major movie theater chains across the country. On the week of June 10th, when the film was released, AMC theaters, Cinemark, and Regal Cinemas saw remarkable respective visit peaks of 76.7%, 70.5%, and 83.2% compared to the previous week.
But the momentum didn’t stop there. Theater visits continued to surge into the second week following the film’s release, driven by the ongoing hype surrounding "Inside Out 2." Week over week, AMC theaters, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas experienced respective visits increases of 14.8%, 18.2%, and 14.3%.
The "Inside Out 2" visit effect was not only impressive on its own but also remarkable when compared to other major blockbuster films released in the past two years. Visits to the three biggest theater chains nationwide saw extraordinary upticks ranging from 67.5% to 72.6% compared to the weekly average of the second quarter of 2024. The closest comparable accomplishment in the past two years was the release of the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” in April 2023, which generated theater visits between 32.2% and 35.8% higher than the weekly average visits for that quarter.
The visit surge brought on by "Inside Out 2" highlights the movie’s massive draw and sets a new industry benchmark, solidifying its place as a monumental success in recent cinema history.
Theater chains know in advance that a highly anticipated Disney-Pixar film will fill their theaters with the joyful squeals of little ones. However, family films don’t just attract families; they also draw visitors from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds, all eager to enjoy a much-talked-about film and an affordable outing for the entire family. This was especially true for "Inside Out 2," which premiered just as a record-breaking heat wave hit the country, driving millions to seek refuge in an air-conditioned movie theater.
Indeed, analyzing the captured markets of the most-visited AMC, Cinemark, and Regal Cinemas during the week of the film’s release showed that not only did they attract a higher percentage of visitors from households with children, as anticipated, but they also drew more visitors with lower household incomes. This influx significantly lowered the median household income of the theater’s captured markets, highlighting the film’s broad appeal and its ability to provide accessible entertainment to all.
The impressive visit surge from the release of "Inside Out 2" highlights the still-strong demand for out-of-home entertainment and the staying power of the movie theater industry. And with a lineup of highly anticipated releases this summer, theaters are poised to continue satisfying the demand for in-cinema entertainment well into 2024 and beyond.
Will major blockbuster films continue to be the main factor driving the movie theater industry forward? Can the industry maintain strong visit volumes between top releases?
Visit our blog at Placer.ai to find out.
How did Petco and PetSmart, the two big-box leaders of the pet sector, fare in early 2024? We dove into the data to find out.
In recent months, Inflation and sagging consumer confidence have taken their toll on the pet supplies industry, which relies at least partially on discretionary spending, and in its Q1 2024 earnings report, Petco reported a minor YoY drop in revenue. But while Petco saw YoY visit dips in January and April – softened by minor upticks in February and March – visits increased 3.7% YoY in May.
PetSmart, for its part, experienced even more consistent YoY visit lags in early 2024. But like its competitor, the pet supplies giant also saw signs of a potential softening or even reversal of this trend in May. And for both chains, May’s positive showing may be a sign of even better things to come heading into summer.
But while Petco led PetSmart in YoY visit performance in early 2024, PetSmart hasn’t relinquished its position as the most-visited pet store chain in the country. Between January and May 2024, 62.1% of total foot traffic to the two chains went to PetSmart, compared to just 37.9% for Petco, and PetSmart was the top-visited chain in most regions nationwide.
Still, drilling down into statewide-level data reveals a more complex picture. In New England, Petco was the dominant player in early 2024. And in the Pacific region, the two chains were neck in neck.
PetSmart’s visit share lead is partially driven by its larger fleet. But foot traffic data shows that other factors are likely at play as well.
Indeed, though both chains boast loyal visitor bases, PetSmart customers generate more repeat visits than Petco ones – a factor likely further contributing to PetSmart’s increased visit share.
During the first part of 2024, some 21.1% to 21.8% of PetSmart visitors visited the chain at least twice each month – compared to 18.1% to 19.0% for Petco. PetSmart’s enhanced loyalty may be driven in part by the greater selection in-house pet services offered by the chain.
Pet store visits tend to be seasonal – December is generally the industry’s busiest month of the year, followed by March and July. Do Petco’s and PetSmart’s May upticks herald strong July peaks this year?
Follow Placer.ai’s data driven retail analyses to find out.
Everybody loves ice cream – so with summer underway, we dove into the data to explore the performance of ice cream shops nationwide.
The past couple of years have been all about affordable indulgences – and ice cream chains have been riding the wave. Comparing monthly category-wide visits to a January 2020 baseline shows the industry reaching new peaks each summer, with May 2024 seeing the most monthly foot traffic in 4.5 years.
In June 2024, weekly YoY visits trended upwards even more sharply – as a record-breaking heat wave during the week of June 17th sent Americans nationwide seeking ways to cool down. The scorching temperatures left no doubt that summer had officially arrived, and as consumers fired up their ACs and got their summer wardrobes ready, they also flocked to ice-cream chains to chill out with a sweet treat.
With such strong performance under their belts, ice cream chains appear poised to continue to flourish as the peak summer season wears on.
It’s no secret that ice cream is one of the most seasonal food sectors – and the success of many ice cream chains hinges on their ability to make the most of the summer months, when foot traffic is generally at its highest. But a look at seasonal visitation trends for four major chains – Dairy Queen (focusing on “treat only” locations that do not include a full-service restaurant), Cold Stone Creamery, Carvel, and Ben & Jerry’s – shows that the extent of this seasonality varies among chains – and among different regions of the country.
Visits to Dairy Queen locations in New York, for example, are highly driven by seasonality – with May foot traffic more than 300% higher than that seen in January. Dairy Queen locations in Florida, on the other hand, experience much more subdued summer visit peaks. Similar trends can be observed for the other analyzed chains.
Ice cream’s seasonality impacts consumer behavior in other ways as well. Though there are once again important differences between ice cream chains, all analyzed brands saw visitor dwell time jump during the summer and decline in winter.
In May 2023 and 2024, for example, a respective 49.1% and 48.6% of visits to Dairy Queen lasted more than ten minutes. But between November 2023 and February 2024, less than 40.0% of visits lasted more than ten minutes – as customers likely ordered their ice-cream to go. Visitors to Ben and Jerry’s, on the other hand, are more likely to linger in-store, with over 70.0% of visits lasting more than ten minutes year-round. But like Dairy Queen, the chain also sees a significant jump in longer visits during the summer.
The ice cream industry continues to show strong performance across the board, with indications of an even stronger summer ahead. Are there more visit peaks in store for the category this year?
Follow our blog at Placer.ai to find out.
In recent weeks, we’ve analyzed auto dealers and convenience stores, so we thought we’d extend the conversation by taking a look at the car wash industry. The car wash industry in the United States has been one of the fastest growing retail categories coming out of the pandemic due to the increasing number of vehicles on the road, an increase in average vehicle age, a shift to a membership-based model for many operators, as well as advancements in car wash technology that have made services more efficient and automated. This shift is evidenced by the fact that around 80% of car washes are now done at professional locations, compared to 48% in 1994 according to the International Car Wash Association.
According to car wash trade groups, there are approximately 65,000 car wash locations across the nation. Mister Car Wash is the largest car wash chain in the U.S., operates more than 480 locations across 21 states. However, the category remains highly fragmented, with nearly three-fourths of industry operators having less than 2 locations. This has naturally set the stage for industry consolidation the past several years, with larger companies acquiring smaller operators to expand their footprints. We see the overall growth and consolidation of the category in a visitation trendline of a custom grouping of nearly 60 of the largest car wash chains in the U.S., where total visits have increased by roughly seven times since 2017.
We also see consolidation show up share of visit numbers from 2019-2023, which we show below. Mister Car Wash has remained the largest player in the category with respect to share of visits the past several years by growing both its unit counts (from 322 at the end of 2019 to 482 as of March) and visits per location (up more than 8% over the same time period). There has been movement among the chains ranked number 2 through 6 the past several years, but the group has generally included Quick Quack Car Wash, Take 5 Car Wash, Tommy’s Express Car Wash, and Zips Car Wash. However, the most notable observation from share of visit trends is the tremendous growth in visit share among smaller chains the past several years.
Car washes have been an attractive investment for private equity the past several years, helping to fuel some of the growth of smaller chains. Individual car wash locations generate an estimated $1.5M in annual sales according to industry trade groups–which is slightly ahead of the average unit sales of a quick-service restaurant chain of $1.4 million–while offering lower labor requirements and more predictable results due to the increasing popularity of membership models. In many respects, the growth of the car wash category mirrors the growth we’ve seen across the fitness category the past several years.
Despite the strong industry growth the past several years, Q1 2024 trends were impacted by a number of factors according to Mister Car Wash’s management team, including increased competition and a lower-income customer cohort that's been under more pressure (inclement weather in January across much of the country also likely played a role). Placer data confirms that Q1 2024 was in fact the weakest quarter from a category visit per location standpoint in several years. However, we’ve seen a rebound in Q2 2024 trends so far, with quarter-to-date visitation trends pacing just behind the year ago period with just a few days left in the quarter.
We mentioned that a membership-based approach has helped to drive visitation growth for the category and led to more predictable results, and we see that when we look at visitor loyalty data for Mister Car Wash. According to the company’s most recent annual report, it increased overall Unlimited Car Wash (UWC) monthly subscription penetration to 71% of total wash sales in 2023, up from 68% the year prior. When we look at visits from “casual” (1 visit per month) versus “loyal” (2+ visits per month) customers, we’ve seen a meaningful shift toward more loyal customers the past several years, particularly during peak visitation months in the summer.
Despite a slower start to 2024 due to aforementioned factors, the U.S. car wash industry appears well positioned for continued growth and consolidation due to the continued aging of the auto fleet, population migration trends, the continued shift toward membership-based revenue models, attractive unit economics, and new technological advances.
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.
