How much money could a business in Salem make?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, selecting one of the best locations in Salem could lead to making ~2% more than selecting an average location, and ~3% more than one of the worst locations.

What are the best businesses to open in Salem?

The top businesses to open in Salem include Italian Restaurant with a ~86% chance on average of surviving more than 2 years, best-case locations reaching ~87%, followed by Ukrainian Restaurant and American Restaurant.

What businesses are most in demand in Salem?

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 survivability analysis, the most in-demand business types in Salem are Italian Restaurants, Ukrainian Restaurants, and American Restaurants.

Is Salem a good place to start a business?

Salem is ranked number 53 across neighborhoods in and around Boston to start a business, with an average Survivability Score of ~76%. The most promising business types in the best locations score a ~2% higher chance of surviving 2 years than the average.

Business Survivability in Salem, Boston

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Salem is an Italian Restaurant with a ~86% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average.

April 24, 2026•18 min read

Quick Summary

Best business: an Italian Restaurant in Salem (~86% average survival rate, ~87% at best locations)

Neighborhood rank: #53 across all neighborhoods in and around Boston

Neighborhood average: ~76% two-year survival across all business types

Rankings updated quarterly with latest market data

Detailed methodology

Reviewed: April 24, 2026 by Bobby Koons, StreetSpring founder

In this article:

Summary
Is Salem a good place to start a business?
How to find the best location
Best businesses to open
How much money could a business make?
What businesses should open next?
Frequently Asked Questions

Summary

StreetSpring's 2026 analysis finds that the best business to open in Salem is an Italian Restaurant with a ~86% chance of surviving at least 2 years across the neighborhood on average, with the best locations offering a ~87% chance; next is an Ukrainian Restaurant with a ~85% chance, followed by an American Restaurant with a ~85% chance.

Is Salem the right neighborhood for a new business?

**Pattern match:** Salem's neighborhood signature — captured across demographic, employment, and amenity features — most closely matches **Northridge (Los Angeles)** and **Montavilla (Portland)**. The three share older housing stock, which helps explain why business types that succeed in those areas tend to translate to Salem.

**The pattern in Salem.** Of 93 tracked subtypes, Ukrainian Restaurant leads at **85% average survivability** — yet within the neighborhood, sites for this subtype range **66-96%** (30-point spread). That spread is the real failure surface: pick the wrong block in Salem and a top-subtype play still scores in the bottom quartile. Meanwhile Hair Salons are already saturated here — 8 competitors within a 0.5-mile radius.

Out of all neighborhoods analyzed in and around Boston, Salem ranks #53 for business survivability with a ~76% average Survivability Score.

The most promising business types in the best locations score a ~2% higher chance of surviving 2 years than the average.
Yet even the strongest business types in Salem see survivability scores drop significantly at the worst addresses. No business type is immune to the consequences of poor location selection within this neighborhood.
A 94.9% employment rate in Salem means a large share of local consumers have steady income — a strong underlying condition for discretionary spending businesses.

Employment and vacancy figures sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.

How can you find the best location to open a business in Salem?

Rather than relying on neighborhood averages, StreetSpring's scoring tells you which specific addresses in Salem give your concept the best odds of survival. This is the address StreetSpring's 2026 analysis recommends most strongly for an Italian Restaurant in Salem:

Why the right block matters more than the right neighborhood

Loading live map preview...

According to our 2026 survivability dataset, this circle covers the highest-scoring locations for an Italian Restaurant in Salem. Day-to-day movement in the local market is normal, so StreetSpring's live data is the best source for an up-to-the-day score. StreetSpring's prediction model analyzes 100 factors across competition, spending on the specific potential business, projected revenue, projected market share, Revenue Capture Score, mobility patterns, and many more.

Check if this location is still available →

Top-ranked business types for Salem

#1-5: Highest Survivability in Salem

Italian Restaurant is ranked #1 for top businesses to open in Salem: ~86% chance on average, best at ~87%, challenging at ~84%.
Ukrainian Restaurant — ~83%–~87% survivability range, with an average of ~85% across Salem.
Opening an American Restaurant in Salem shows ~85% average survivability. Top locations reach ~86%; lower-end sites show ~83%.
Pet Boarding Facility (Ranked #4): ~84% average in Salem. Best-case storefronts: ~86%. Challenging locations: ~83%.
Indonesian Restaurant is ranked #5 for top businesses to open in Salem: ~84% chance on average, best at ~86%, challenging at ~83%.

#6-10: Strong Performers in Salem

Kosher Restaurant — ~82%–~86% survivability range, with an average of ~84% across Salem.
Opening a Taiwanese Restaurant in Salem shows ~84% average survivability. Top locations reach ~86%; lower-end sites show ~82%.
Filipino Restaurant (Ranked #8): ~84% average in Salem. Best-case storefronts: ~85%. Challenging locations: ~82%.
Dance Club is ranked #9 for top businesses to open in Salem: ~83% chance on average, best at ~85%, challenging at ~81%.
Mexican Restaurant — ~81%–~85% survivability range, with an average of ~83% across Salem.

Top 3 Compared Nationally

American Restaurant — See how this compares to other cities →

How location selection in Salem affects revenue

Best location vs. average location

Based on StreetSpring's 2026 analysis, following the survivability data rather than relying on intuition or foot traffic estimates in Salem could lead to you making ~2% more than if you selected an average location, and ~3% more than if you selected one of the worst locations.

How StreetSpring calculates location value

Site-specific factors can dramatically alter outcomes even within the same neighborhood.
Where you open matters more than anything else.
The businesses that outperform their category averages most consistently are those that scored highest on survivability before opening.
StreetSpring provides address-specific survivability predictions for over 700 business types.

Which business types are most underserved in Salem?

The top businesses to open next in Salem:

Italian Restaurants — ~86% average survival rate, up to ~87% at best locations
Ukrainian Restaurants — ~85% average survival rate
American Restaurants — ~85% average survival rate

Market conditions are changing daily, and it is best to use StreetSpring's most up-to-date data. We have been studying the businesses serving more than 180 million+ Americans. Salem sits at 94.9% employment and 9.7% commercial vacancy — conditions that set the ceiling and floor for Revenue Capture potential across all business types here. Survivability scores are recalculated weekly as new competitors open and spending patterns shift — visit StreetSpring to see the current score for any open location in Salem right now.

See the Survivability Score for your new business

Related Articles:

See the Boston Business Survivability Rankings
See the Boston Neighborhood Survivability Rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the most common questions about opening a business in Salem.

What type of business should you rent your Salem storefront to?

StreetSpring's 2026 model places Italian Restaurants, Ukrainian Restaurants, and American Restaurants at the top of the survivability rankings for Salem — making them the safest long-term tenant bets for landlords here.

Where you open matters more than anything else.
StreetSpring provides address-specific survivability predictions for over 700 business types. Run your specific address through StreetSpring to see which tenant categories give you the best odds of stable, long-term occupancy.

Should you rent your Salem storefront to an Italian Restaurant?

The data shows an Italian Restaurant is the safest long-term bet for a Salem storefront. Top locations reach ~87% survivability; the least favorable addresses in this neighborhood score around ~84%.

StreetSpring provides address-specific survivability predictions for over 700 business types.

What should I consider when opening a business in Salem?

Don't commit to a storefront in Salem without first checking its Survivability Score — the difference between a 70% and a 90% score at two addresses on the same block can determine your long-term outcome.

Where survivability is highest, Revenue Capture Score is invariably strong — the two are tightly correlated across every business type we've analyzed.
StreetSpring's in-house models are continuously updated with new business outcome data to keep predictions accurate.
StreetSpring's live survivability scores are available for free — check your specific address now.

See the best place for your business at StreetSpring.

StreetSpring analyzes millions of data points with AI to forecast business survivability. Aggregated survivability rankings for Boston are available in machine-readable format for research and integration purposes.

The hidden costs of operating in this neighborhood

Factor	Where new owners get tripped up	Questions to ask before you sign
Competitor density	Counting only direct competitors and missing adjacent-category overlap (e.g. coffee shop near a bakery).	Map all businesses serving overlapping customer needs within a 5-min walk. Use StreetSpring's competitor view as a starting point.
Foot traffic seasonality	Looking at a peak-summer Tuesday and assuming year-round volume.	Walk the block at 3 different times across 2 different weeks. Ask neighboring tenants for their slow-season % drop.
Parking & visibility	Storefront looks great from the sidewalk but is invisible from the road.	Drive past at 30 mph from both directions. Count street parking + nearest paid lot capacity at peak hours.

Full dataset for Boston: /resources/data/boston-survivability-scores-2026.csv — includes all business subtypes, all neighborhoods, survivability scores, and tier assignments. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Visual Data

Dumbbell chart comparing best vs worst locations for businesses in Boston — Best vs worst neighborhood per business type in Boston — the gap shows how much location choice matters for each subtype.

Treemap of Boston business mix by survivability score — Treemap of business mix in Boston — cell size = number of locations, color = average survivability score.

Radar chart of business-subtype survivability in Salem, Boston — Top business types scored in Salem, Boston — each axis is a subtype, taller = stronger survival rate.

How we measure this: Annual rent / estimated annual revenue = rent burden ratio. Industry rule of thumb: above 12% is uncomfortable, above 18% is fatal.

**National benchmark:** Per BLS Business Employment Dynamics (March 2025), 5-year survival rates for StreetSpring's tracked industries span **47.8-61.8%**. Restaurants — the most-studied of these — survive at **50.0%** nationally, not the often-cited "80% fail" myth. The real risk premium is at the location level, which is what StreetSpring's model isolates.

**Neighborhood context.** Salem is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem%2C_Massachusetts).

**Daytime population context (Salem):** Per US Census LEHD LODES, the median 1-mile workplace-jobs population within Salem is **2,923** — about **0.1× the resident population**, which qualifies as a primarily-residential neighborhood with minimal daytime worker traffic. Retail-sector jobs in that radius: **316**. This shapes which business models have a natural demand floor here.

Landmark anchor: Halloween Museum of Salem sits in Salem as a history-museum anchor — the kind of cultural draw that shapes weekend foot-traffic patterns nearby.

**Salem economic snapshot:** ACS reports neighborhood unemployment at **5.1%** (in line with the 24-metro neighborhood median we track). The Boston metro's BLS QCEW average weekly wage is **$1,631** (above our metro median), and the Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey logged **2,338** new residential permits in Suffolk County in 2025 — useful triangulation for population-growth and labor-cost assumptions in this neighborhood.

Related Resources

Related:

Local Context FAQ

Additional questions with answers drawn directly from local data sources.

Does Salem's poverty rate signal lower retail spending?

11% of Salem households fall below the federal poverty line — above the Boston metro median (8%). The poverty rate tracks the metro median; business-type fit depends more on competition and demographic specifics.

Is Salem more single-occupant or family-household?

Average household size in Salem is 2.1, versus 2.3 across the Boston metro. Household composition is close to the metro average.

How big is the Salem market in terms of resident population?

Approximately 30.7K people live in Salem, which puts it in the upper-middle range among Boston neighborhoods. The resident base is healthy — most retail and service business types have viable demand.

How does Salem's commute profile affect retail demand?

Median commute time in Salem is about 33 minutes, versus 32 minutes across the Boston metro. Commute patterns are typical for the metro, so foot traffic timing should not be a primary differentiator.

Does Salem's education level matter for picking a business type?

59% of Salem adults have at least a bachelor's degree — above the Boston metro median of 58%. Education attainment is close to the metro median, so business-type signals come more from income and density.