Guide
How to check foot traffic before you sign a lease
Count it yourself. Stand across the street at the hours you'd trade, on three different days. Count who walks past and who stops. Popular times on Google Maps only covers places already open, so it can't tell you about an empty shop.
What Google Maps can and can't tell you
Search a place nearby on Google Maps and scroll down. Many busy places show "Popular times": a bar chart of how busy it usually is, hour by hour.
- It can show the street's rhythm. Check the cafe next door, the supermarket and a busy rival. If all three peak at 8am and go quiet after 2pm, your doorway probably will too.
- It can't show your shop. An empty shop has no busy times. Neither do many small places.
- It can't show who. A crowd of commuters and a crowd of families look the same on the chart. For a food business, who matters as much as how many.
- It shows busy, not numbers. The bars compare a place with its own busiest hour, not with other places.
Paid foot-traffic data exists, built from phone locations. It's priced for chains. Three short visits get you most of the answer for free.
The three-day count
Do three sessions, at the hours you plan to trade. If you're not sure of your hours, use these:
| Session | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1: weekday lunch | 11:30 to 13:30 | Workers, shoppers and the lunch rush |
| Day 2: weekday evening | 17:00 to 19:00 | Commuters heading home, early dinners |
| Day 3: weekend midday | 11:00 to 14:00 | Locals, families and visitors |
A breakfast cafe should swap day 2 for a weekday 7:00 to 9:00. A bar should count Friday and Saturday nights.
How to count
- Stand where you can see the door you'd use, ideally across the street. Bring the sheet below and a pen, or a tally app.
- Count in 15-minute slots. Mark everyone who walks past on your side of the street.
- Guess the age band by eye. It doesn't need to be exact. You're looking for the mix.
- Mark who stops or looks in at the shop, or at the shops beside it. Stopping matters more than walking past.
- Talk to ten people after each session. Ask where they're heading, and what they'd come back for on this street. Write their words down.
- Note the weather. Rain cuts foot traffic. If one day was wet, count again on a dry one.
The count sheet
Print one sheet for every two hours you count. Give each person one stroke under their age, plus one in any other column that fits.
| Time | Under 25 | 25–44 | 45–64 | 65+ | With children | Looks like a worker | Stopped or looked in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :00 to :15 | |||||||
| :15 to :30 | |||||||
| :30 to :45 | |||||||
| :45 to :00 | |||||||
| :00 to :15 | |||||||
| :15 to :30 | |||||||
| :30 to :45 | |||||||
| :45 to :00 | |||||||
| Total |
How to read your counts
- Compare the mix with who lives there. If your counts are mostly 25 to 44 but the residents are mostly over 55, the people walking past come from elsewhere. That's fine on a busy street. It means you're paying for the street, not the suburb. Our food area pages show the residents' ages for busy streets in several cities.
- Compare with your break-even. Let's say you need 120 customers a day, and 40 people an hour stop or look in at your busiest time. That's a hard ask. The free check works out that number when you add your rent and average spend.
- Compare the three days. A street that's busy at lunch and dead at night suits a lunch place, not a dinner one.
- Count a busy rival too. Spend ten minutes outside the busiest place like yours at the same hour. That shows what a good doorway looks like on this street.
What a count won't tell you
It's a snapshot of three days, not a year. School holidays, events, roadworks and the season all move it. It also can't tell you if people will pay your prices. The ten conversations help with that.
For the whole check in order, see how to check a restaurant location before you sign. Our full report includes a street test kit set up for your own site: the sessions, the age bands to watch for, and the questions to ask.