Worked example, October 2026

Three Dallas blocks for a coffee shop.

The question a worked example can answer is not “which block wins.” It is: what do the records establish about each block, what do they leave open, and what would you go and check before signing? Three blocks, one business, the same six questions.

The three blocks

• Lower Greenville, 1917 Greenville Ave, 75206. A bar and restaurant strip north of downtown with apartments behind it.
• Bishop Arts, 408 W 8th St, 75208. A walkable district of small shops and cafes in north Oak Cliff.
• West Lovers Lane, 5600 W Lovers Ln, 75209. A retail center on a busy road beside the Dallas North Tollway, in a high-income part of the city.

1. Who lives and works nearby?

Residents and households come from the Census American Community Survey, 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates, for the ZIP. Jobs come from Census workplace records (LEHD LODES, 2023), counted within a quarter mile and half a mile of the door. Households within a mile come from the 2020 Census blocks around the address.

Read across and the blocks are different animals. Greenville has the most people living within a mile. Bishop Arts has the most jobs within half a mile, mostly food service, transportation and health care, but the fewest high incomes. Lovers Lane has the fewest households of the three by a wide margin and the highest income, half again Greenville’s. The ZIP figures carry a sampling margin: income in 75209 is $134,707 give or take $12,786; in 75206 it is $91,023 give or take $3,623.

2. Who is already selling coffee?

Competitors are coffee shops and cafes in the Overture Maps places data (release of September 23, 2026), counted by ring, and sorted into chains, local multi-location businesses and independents.

Bishop Arts is the crowded one: 13 coffee places within half a mile, eight of them independent, and the nearest one is in the same building as the address we checked. That matters for the reading. A rival 110 feet away is not a vacancy next door; it means this block is already a place people go for coffee, and a new shop would be the fourteenth. On Greenville the nearest rival is a Starbucks a block south. Lovers Lane has the thinnest field within half a mile, though the mile ring fills in to 15.

3. What does the road carry?

Traffic counts are annual average daily traffic from the Texas Department of Transportation roadway inventory. The year is the count year, and it varies by road.

Lovers Lane is the only block with a busy road at the door, and its count is from 2019; the tollway beside it carries 92,391 vehicles a day but nobody stops on a tollway. Greenville and Bishop Arts are pedestrian streets with modest counts on the side roads. One figure needs a flag: Prospect Ave reads 628 vehicles a day for 2024, against 3,065 in 2022 and 2,738 in 2019, and the 2024 value was carried to this segment from a count station 1,362 meters away. We would not trust it either way without looking at the street.

4. Will the rules let you open here?

DoorWorthy reads the City of Dallas zoning map for an address and names the district and its overlays. It does not decide whether a coffee shop is a permitted use; that is a question for the city’s planning office, with the district name in hand.

• Lower Greenville: PD-842, the Lower Greenville Avenue Special Provision District (ordinance 32049), inside MD-1, the Greenville Avenue Modified Delta Overlay (tract 3), and DDO-4, the Oak Lawn and East Dallas Demolition Delay Overlay.
• Bishop Arts: CD-7, the Bishop Eighth Conservation District (ordinance 27946), inside DDO-1, the Oak Cliff Demolition Delay Overlay.
• West Lovers Lane: CR, Community Retail (ordinance 19455), with recorded deed restrictions on nearby parcels.

Two of the three sit in districts with their own rulebooks. A planned development district (Greenville) and a conservation district (Bishop Arts) each replace the standard use and parking rules with ones written for that street, so the ordinance number is the document to read, not the general code. A demolition delay overlay affects anyone planning to tear down or substantially alter a building. Lovers Lane is a standard community retail district, the simplest of the three to read, with deed restrictions recorded on nearby parcels that a lease lawyer would want to see.

5. Does the math work?

DoorWorthy estimates the sales a block’s spending can support for a coffee shop from three pools: what residents within a mile spend on coffee and snacks (Census households by income with Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer spending, 2024, at August 2026 prices), what workers within half a mile spend on workdays, and what visitors bring when a district draws people from outside it. That spending is shared among the coffee places already there, and the result is a low, middle and high case. The rent figure is the base rent the middle case supports at a usual rent-to-sales share for the trade. None of it is a forecast for any one shop.

The spread is the finding. Greenville’s middle case is three times Bishop Arts’ and nearly five times Lovers Lane’s, and the reason is in the draw. Bars and restaurants within a mile of the Greenville address reported $85.7 million in mixed-beverage sales in the twelve months to September 2026 across 81 venues (Texas Comptroller), about 3.7 times what the residents of that mile would be expected to spend, so most of the trade on that strip comes from outside the neighborhood. Bishop Arts draws just as strongly ($43.2 million, 77 venues, 4.0 times) but shares it among more coffee shops and fewer households. Lovers Lane does not draw: $23.1 million across 18 venues, 1.5 times resident spending, which is a neighborhood serving itself.

Each ZIP’s figures were also ranked against every Texas ZIP that has at least one coffee shop. Greenville has more households than 9 in 10 texas zips with a coffee shop (typical 11,675); income higher than 7 in 10 (typical $75,827); 25 coffee shops in the zip against a typical 8. Bishop Arts has more households than 6 in 10 texas zips with a coffee shop; income higher than 5 in 10; 19 coffee shops in the zip against a typical 8. Lovers Lane has fewer households than 8 in 10 texas zips with a coffee shop; income higher than 9 in 10; 8 coffee shops in the zip, the typical count.

6. What do the records miss?

This is the part a worked example owes you, because the records left real questions open on every block.

• Availability. The free check does not look for a listing or a tenant. At Bishop Arts the nearest rival is in the building we checked, so there is a working cafe at that address today. We did not check the other two.
• Rent. We have the rent each block’s spending supports, not the rent anyone is asking. A Greenville space can support $9,600 a month on paper; whether one is offered at that figure, or at twice it, is a listing question.
• Draws nearby. The check names anchors that bring people past a door (a hospital, a campus, a transit stop) when it finds them within a quarter mile. It found none at any of the three, which says more about the anchor list than about the streets.
• Hours. Job counts say a daytime workforce exists on paper. They do not say how many of those people walk past at 7 a.m., or whether the street is alive on a Tuesday evening. The mixed-beverage receipts are the only evening signal in the data.
• Old counts. The Lovers Lane traffic count is from 2019 and the Prospect Ave count looks wrong. Count years are shown so you can decide what to believe.
• Permitted use. The district names are read from the city’s map. Whether a coffee shop is allowed by right, needs a specific use permit, or trips a parking requirement in PD-842 or CD-7 is a question for the Dallas planning office, with the ordinance number in hand.

What we would do next, by block

• Lower Greenville. Visit at 7 a.m. and at 9 p.m. on a weekday; the data says the strip is an evening destination, and the question is whether it has a morning. Read ordinance 32049. Ask the broker for the asking rent and test it against the $9,600 the middle case supports.
• Bishop Arts. Count the thirteen. Walk the half mile, note which coffee places are full at 8 a.m. and which are empty, and decide what a fourteenth would do that they do not. Read ordinance 27946 for the conservation district’s storefront and signage rules.
• West Lovers Lane. Stand at the door at 8 a.m. and watch whether anyone on Lovers Lane turns in. The income is the highest of the three and the field the thinnest, but the sales the block supports are the smallest because it draws no one from outside; a shop here lives on its neighbors and the retail workers next door. Ask for the deed restrictions.

None of this says which block a coffee shop would succeed on. It says what is known, what is not, and where to look. That is what the research is for.

Run the same check on your address, free

Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates: ZIP households, median household income, residents, with margins of error.
• U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES8), workplace area characteristics, jobs as of 2023.
• 2020 Census blocks with ACS households by income and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, at August 2026 prices: resident and worker spending.
• Overture Maps Foundation, Places, release 2026-09-23.1: coffee shops and cafes by ring.
• Texas Department of Transportation roadway inventory: annual average daily traffic, count years 2019 to 2025 as shown.
• Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, mixed beverage gross receipts, twelve months to September 2026.
• City of Dallas zoning map, read October 27, 2026: base zoning, overlays and deed restriction layers.
• DoorWorthy free location check, run October 27, 2026. The method is described on the methodology page.

Read the six questions in full in How to research a location for a small business, or the version for a coffee shop.

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