New York has 12,154 restaurants, cafes and fast food places serving 8,053,639 residents, which is about 663 people for every place that is already open.
How Much Can a Restaurant Make in New York?
What you expect from them
Each customer comes back about times a year and spends about a visit.
Free estimate
Your revenue per year
about $9,387 a month
An even split of the local dining market across all 12,155 places, the 12,154 already open plus yours. Gross revenue, not profit: no rent, food, wages or fit-out is deducted.
Demographics and competition decide most of this number, and both change street by street. An average across New York is not enough to pick a site.
Check Restaurant Feasibility at Your Location
The full tool runs this same funnel on one address instead of a whole area. Three things change when it does.
10-minute drive area
Instead of a county or city line, the tool maps everywhere a car can reach your door in 10 minutes along real roads at real traffic speeds, then counts only the people who live inside that shape.
Why it matters: two sites a mile apart can have completely different reach. One beside a highway ramp pulls from far more people than one behind a residential grid, and no administrative boundary will ever show you that difference.
Local customer demographics
Census age, sex and income are read for that drive-time shape rather than for the whole of New York, so the customer profile you set above is applied to the people who could actually walk in.
Why it matters: a neighbourhood can run a decade younger or half again richer than the area around it. That mix is what decides your menu, your price point and whether lunch or dinner carries the week.
Fine-tuned competition
Every restaurant, cafe and fast food place inside the same drive-time shape is mapped and listed by name, and you can drop the ones that are not really competing with your concept.
Why it matters: this page splits the market evenly across 12,155 places, which assumes they all chase the same customer. A drive-through and a wine bar do not, and removing the ones that do not compete changes the number a lot.
Restaurant Gross Revenue, Considering Demographics and Competition
| Residents | 8,053,639 |
|---|---|
| Match your customer profile | 8,053,639 |
| Of those, eat out at all (85% industry assumption) | 6,845,593 |
| Restaurants, cafes and fast food already open | 12,154 |
| Diners per existing place | 563 |
| Your share of them (one place in every restaurant here, yours included) | 1 in 12,155 |
| Customers that works out to | 563 |
| Your gross revenue per year | $113,000 |
New York has 8,053,639 residents. With the customer profile set above, 8,053,639 of them are potential diners, and 85% of those, or 6,845,593 people, eat out at all. There are already 12,154 restaurants, cafes and fast food places trading here, so an even split of those diners gives a new restaurant one share in 12,155, or 563 customers a year. At 8 visits a year and a $25 average bill, that works out at $113,000 of gross revenue a year, or roughly $9,387 a month. Nothing is taken off for rent, food, wages, licences or fit-out: this is money through the till, not profit.
Gross revenue means money through the till. No costs are deducted anywhere in this model, which is exactly how the full tool reports it too.
How Many Restaurants Are in New York?
That works out to about 663 residents per restaurant, compared to 969 across New York. New York has more places competing for each diner, so the market is more crowded than the wider New York market.
City limits cut through real dining markets in a way county lines usually do not. If New York sits inside a larger built-up area, plenty of its diners live just outside these boundaries and plenty of the competition does too, neither of which the count above can see.
Restaurant Market Size in New York
| Metric | New York | New York | United States |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residents | 8,053,639 | 19,009,591 | 334,821,731 |
| Adults who eat out | 6,845,593 | 16,158,152 | 284,598,471 |
| Restaurants, cafes and fast food | 12,154 | 19,624 | 360,596 |
| Residents per restaurant | 663 | 969 | 929 |
| Estimated annual restaurant spend | $1,369,119,000 | $3,231,630,000 | $56,919,694,000 |
| Average revenue per restaurant | $113,000 | $165,000 | $158,000 |
Roughly 6,845,593 people in New York eat out at all, and together they put an estimated $1,369,118,630 through local tills every year. That is gross restaurant spend across the whole area, not profit, and no costs are deducted anywhere in this estimate. Split evenly across the 12,154 places already open, that is about $112,648 of annual revenue each. Each place here serves about 663 residents against 969 across New York, so the average restaurant in New York has 32% fewer potential diners to itself than the New York average.
Is New York a Good Place to Open a Restaurant?
On the numbers alone New York looks well covered: each restaurant here serves about 663 residents against 969 across New York, so a new place has to take share from somebody. An area-wide average cannot tell you whether one particular block works, though. It counts everyone who lives inside an administrative boundary, and it sees no passing traffic, no highway exit, and no downtown lunch crowd.
Who Eats Out in New York: Target Audience Demographics
The revenue figures above start from everyone who lives in New York and then narrow to whoever your concept actually serves. These are the numbers that decide how far that narrowing can go.
The age and sex sliders in the calculator run on the Census age-sex distribution for New York, so narrowing to, say, 25 to 45 year olds changes the audience by the share those ages actually make up here rather than by a national average. That distribution comes from a different survey vintage than the headline population count, so it sets the share only: every headcount on this page is that share applied to the population figure above.
Traffic Passing Through New York
Residents are only half the story. A restaurant also sells to people driving past it, and how many drive past depends entirely on what kind of road it sits on. These are the average daily vehicle counts across New York.
| Road type | Vehicles per day | New York average | Customers a day at 0.8% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary streets and main roads | 4,272 | 1,586 | 34 |
| Highways and motorways | 20,603 | 9,257 | 165 |
Ordinary roads in New York carry about 4,272 vehicles a day against 1,586 across New York, so passing trade here is roughly 169% heavier than the New York average. That is an area-wide figure: the road outside any one address can be many times busier or quieter.
The last column applies a single industry rule of thumb: on an average day a roadside business turns about 0.8% of passing vehicles into customers. Treat it as the roughest number on this page. Real capture swings enormously with which side of the road you are on, whether drivers can turn in easily, how visible the sign is, and whether those cars are commuting or out looking for lunch. Two units in the same building can differ by several times over.
Traffic counts come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data. For a capture estimate on one specific site rather than an area average, see the Ticon sales projection report.
Where This Data Comes From
Population, median age, household counts and the age-sex distribution come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Restaurant, cafe and fast food counts come from OpenStreetMap contributors. Visit frequency and average bill are restaurant industry benchmarks, not measurements of this area, which is why they are yours to change in the calculator.
Average daily vehicle counts come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom road data.
What is not here matters too. There is no drive-time trade area: an administrative boundary is treated as the market, and everyone inside it is counted equally regardless of how far they would really travel to eat. The traffic figures are area averages, not counts past any particular door. Nothing on this page accounts for rent, build-out, licences, payroll or food cost.
Restaurant Location FAQ for New York, New York
Common questions about opening a restaurant in New York, New York.
How many restaurants are in New York, New York?
OpenStreetMap records 12,154 restaurants, fast food outlets and cafes in New York, New York. With 8,053,639 residents that is about 663 people per place.
How much can a restaurant make in New York, New York?
If a new restaurant took an even share of the local dining market, one of 12,155 places including itself, and each customer visited 8 times a year spending $25 a visit, it would take about $112,638 a year. That is gross revenue through the till, before rent, food, wages or any other cost.
How big is the restaurant market in New York, New York?
About 6,845,593 of the 8,053,639 residents of New York, New York eat out at all, which at 8 visits a year and a $25 average bill is roughly $1,369,118,630 of annual restaurant spend across the area.
Are there too many restaurants in New York, New York?
New York, New York has about 663 residents per restaurant, compared to 969 across New York, which makes it more crowded than New York. A higher number means each place has more potential diners to itself.
Who eats out in New York, New York?
New York, New York has 8,053,639 residents with a median age of 36.0 and a median household income of $79,999. The calculator on this page lets you narrow that base to the age range and the women/men balance your concept actually serves.
How much passing traffic is there in New York, New York?
Ordinary streets and main roads in New York, New York carry about 4,272 vehicles a day on average, and highways about 20,603. As a rough industry rule, a roadside business turns roughly 0.8% of passing vehicles into customers, which would be about 34 people a day. That is an area average and a very rough one: capture depends on which side of the road you are on, how easy it is to turn in, how visible your sign is, and whether those drivers are commuting or looking for somewhere to eat. Traffic counts come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.
Does this estimate include passing traffic?
No. This page counts only the people who live in New York, New York, because an administrative boundary is all it has to work with. A site next to a highway exit or in a busy downtown will beat this estimate, and a site tucked behind a residential street will fall short of it. Map AI's address-level restaurant check adds road traffic and a 10-minute drive-time trade area around one specific location.
How do I open a restaurant in New York, New York?
Site selection comes first, because the lease is the hardest decision to undo. Start from how many diners live within reach, how many places already compete for them, and what an even share of that market would be worth. The numbers on this page cover the whole area; check a specific address before you sign anything.
What does it cost to open a restaurant in New York, New York?
Out of scope for this tool. Map AI estimates demand and competition, not build-out costs, commercial rent, licences or payroll, and it would rather say so than invent a number.
Ready to test one specific site? Run the address-level restaurant check.