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🍽️ Introduction

🎯 What Is Gentrification? ****

Gentrification is when a previously disinvested area sees rapid changes due to renewed interest and investment. Since 2000, 20% of neighborhoods in major U.S. cities have been impacted by gentrification. While gentrification promises positive change, not everyone benefits: businesses and residents in these neighborhoods the longest are often the first to lose.

🚧 Read More: How We Define Gentrification

❓Why This Matters

Gentrification has and continues to destabilize hospitality businesses.

With the pace of gentrification, rent is likely to outpace profit margins; long-time, loyal customers may be forced to move further away, and big-box retailers overtake independently-owned businesses.

Food and beverage establishments are among the first to change in gentrifying communities and are a key “sign” for real estate developers to take over that area. This correlation has created tensions with the surrounding neighborhood. But it doesn’t have to stay this way.

Key Finding: 94% of residents we surveyed across 33+ U.S. cities believe hospitality businesses have a responsibility to maintain neighborhood well-being.

📣 How We Can Help

This toolkit of strategies offers hospitality owners detailed guidance to operate with gentrification in mind.

Hospitality owners and workers have been ill-equipped to proactively address community concerns. By incorporating the community’s long-term interests into responsible business practices, you can ease tensions while improving the profitability and sustainability of your business.