Geospatial analytics · 106 U.S. retail & restaurant chains

Saturation.
Whitespace.
Cannibalization.

Trade-area, demographic, and weather-sensitivity analysis on every public U.S. retail and restaurant chain — delivered as a branded PDF in three minutes. The consumer-analytics work a buy-side equity research desk, a private-equity diligence team, or a corporate real-estate lead would otherwise spend two weeks on.

Saturation curve · McDonald's · U.S.
McDonald's U.S. saturation curve — population reached vs. units deployed Saturation curve showing McDonald's 13,478 U.S. restaurants reach 309M Americans (92.6%) at 30-minute drive radius. Geographic ceiling is approximately 14,200 units. The chart visualizes diminishing population reach per incremental store, demonstrating that U.S. unit growth is structurally over and the next decade of revenue growth must come from intensification rather than expansion. 320M 240M 160M 0 CEILING · 14,200 UNITS TODAY · 13,478 309M REACHED (92.6%) 0 5,000 10,000 14,000 U.S. UNITS DEPLOYED

McDonald's reaches 309M Americans (92.6%) at a 30-min drive radius today. The next 720 units close less than 4M incremental reach. U.S. unit growth is structurally over — the next decade is intensification, not expansion.

See it in action

A 30-second tour of the platform.

Trade-area · whitespace · cannibalization · expansion potential — live, on a dozen U.S. retail chains.

1.08B
Drive-time pairs
Every store-to-neighborhood drive-time connection across the contiguous United States — pre-computed, refreshed quarterly, ready for instant trade-area queries.
12.86M
Geographic cells
Neighborhood-grain spatial coverage across CONUS. Every block-level question — consumer demographics, household income, employment density, weather exposure — answered without re-computation.
106
Retail & restaurant chains
Pre-loaded geospatial coverage on every major public U.S. retail and restaurant chain — from Walmart and Costco to Chipotle, Starbucks, and Domino's. Custom chain ingestion available on Custom contracts.
~3 min
PDF delivery
Branded, board-ready PDF in your inbox. Re-runs in seconds when drive-time bands, demographic filters, or peer sets change. Replaces 2-3 weeks of consulting deliverables per analysis.
How it works

From ticker to PDF in three minutes.

A self-serve geospatial analytics workflow for U.S. retail and restaurant chains. Pick the chain, pick the analysis, get the branded deliverable. No vendor onboarding, no integration project, no data-engineering ticket.

  1. Pick the chain

    Choose from 106 pre-loaded U.S. retail and restaurant chains — Walmart, Costco, McDonald's, Starbucks, Chipotle, Cava, Tractor Supply, Sprouts, Ulta, Domino's, and the rest of the public coverage universe.

    106 chains · refreshed quarterly
  2. Pick the analysis

    Saturation curve, whitespace MSAs, cannibalization overlay vs. a peer, customer demographic profile, drive-time catchment, weather-sensitivity decomposition — or all of them combined.

    6 analysis types · stack-able
  3. Get the branded PDF

    Board-ready PDF in your inbox in ~3 minutes. Cross-checked against management-disclosed unit counts. Defensible enough to take to an IC, a board, or a partner without writing a single footnote.

    white-label co-branding · Custom tier
What you get

Three questions, answered cleanly.

Every analysis is a dropdown, not a project. The platform answers the three trade-area questions that move equity research debates, drive PE diligence memos, and shape new-store proposals at the corporate board level.

/ 01

Where's the saturation ceiling?

Model-implied unit count at geographic ceiling, with the demographic mix that bounds it. Surfaces the gap between management's stated unit guidance and what the trade-area math actually supports.

CMG mgmt target: 7,000 U.S. units
Model-implied ceiling: 5,100
Variance: 1,900 must come from non-traditional formats
/ 02

Where's the whitespace?

Top 50 candidate MSAs ranked by a demographic-similarity score against the chain's existing best-performing markets. With population, median HH income, and the implied opportunity size per cell.

TSCO whitespace · top 3:
Yakima, WA · score 0.62 · 18.4K pop
Bismarck, ND · score 0.58 · 14.2K pop
Rapid City, SD · score 0.54 · 12.6K pop
/ 03

Where's the cannibalization?

Pairwise overlap of two chains' trade areas — overlap percentage, A-only and B-only populations, MSA-level decomposition. The mathematical version of "how zero-sum is this competitive set."

DPZ vs. Pizza Hut:
89.4% overlap · 30M DPZ-only
Read: U.S. unit growth is zero-sum,
not greenfield demographic expansion.
What you can analyze

Six geospatial analyses on every chain.

Each analysis ships as a section in the branded PDF — with chart, table, and commentary. Combine them in one report, or pull just the slice that matters for the thesis you're working on.

Saturation analysis

Where's the geographic ceiling?

Model-implied U.S. unit count at saturation, with the demographic mix that bounds it. Surfaces the gap between management's stated long-term unit guidance and what the trade-area math actually supports — the same chart that re-rates consumer staples and restaurant equities every quarter.

Whitespace analysis

Where's the next 500 stores?

Top 50 candidate MSAs ranked by a demographic-similarity score against the chain's existing best-performing markets. Population, median household income, age mix, and opportunity-size estimate per cell. Built for site-selection committees, expansion teams, and analysts pressure-testing unit-growth narratives.

Cannibalization analysis

How zero-sum is the competitive set?

Pairwise overlap of two chains' trade areas — overlap percentage, A-only and B-only reached population, MSA-level decomposition. The mathematical version of "is this growth greenfield, or is it taking share?" Useful for Domino's vs. Pizza Hut, Five Below vs. Dollar Tree, and every other consumer-discretionary cage match.

Demographic profile

Who is in the chain's trade area?

Population, household income brackets, age mix, employment density, education, and household composition for every reached cell. Compare against national baselines. Identify whether a chain's customer base is structurally tailwinded or headwinded by the underlying consumer demographic shifts.

Drive-time catchment

Where do the customers actually come from?

5-, 10-, 15-, 30-, and 60-minute drive-time bands around every store in a chain's footprint. Catchment population, household composition, and overlap with peer chains' catchments. The trade-area primitive every other analysis sits on top of.

Weather sensitivity

How exposed is the chain to weather?

Decomposition of comp-sales sensitivity to weather variables across the chain's footprint — temperature, precipitation, seasonality. Tells you which chains are more weather-exposed than the market gives them credit for, and which are more insulated. Quarter-end-of-the-quarter analytics for consumer-discretionary research desks.

Coverage

106 U.S. retail and restaurant chains.

Pre-loaded geospatial analytics on every major public U.S. retail and restaurant chain. From mass-market to natural-grocery, from QSR to off-price. Custom chain ingestion for private companies and international footprints is available on the Custom tier.

Mass-market & big-box

  • Walmart WMT
  • Costco Wholesale COST
  • Target TGT
  • BJ's Wholesale Club BJ
  • Best Buy BBY
  • Dick's Sporting Goods DKS

Home improvement & hard lines

  • Home Depot HD
  • Lowe's LOW
  • Tractor Supply TSCO
  • Floor & Decor FND
  • Ace Hardware
  • AutoZone AZO
  • Advance Auto Parts AAP

Off-price & discount

  • TJ Maxx TJX
  • Ross Stores ROST
  • Burlington BURL
  • Dollar General DG
  • Dollar Tree DLTR
  • Family Dollar
  • Five Below FIVE
  • Ollie's Bargain Outlet OLLI

Grocery & food retail

  • Kroger KR
  • Sprouts Farmers Market SFM
  • Trader Joe's
  • Aldi
  • Casey's General Stores CASY

Quick-service restaurants (QSR)

  • McDonald's MCD
  • Starbucks SBUX
  • Chipotle CMG
  • Cava CAVA
  • Chick-fil-A
  • Burger King
  • Dunkin'
  • Domino's Pizza DPZ
  • Pizza Hut
  • Marco's Pizza
  • Dutch Bros Coffee BROS
  • Baskin-Robbins

Casual dining & full-service

  • Texas Roadhouse TXRH
  • Cracker Barrel CBRL
  • Dairy Queen
  • Sweetgreen SG

Beauty & specialty retail

  • Ulta Beauty ULTA
  • Bath & Body Works BBWI
  • American Eagle AEO
  • Abercrombie & Fitch ANF
  • Aritzia ATZ
  • Alo Yoga
  • Boot Barn BOOT
  • Carter's CRI
  • Buckle BKE
  • Coach TPR
  • Crocs CROX

Health, fitness & convenience

  • CVS CVS
  • Anytime Fitness
  • Buc-ee's
  • Dillard's DDS

Don't see a chain you'd want? Custom chain ingestion (private companies, regional footprints, international parents) is included on the Custom tier with a 5-business-day SLA. Email us with the ticker.

The output

Defensible, repeatable, fast.

Every PDF is one click from your inbox. The platform took eighteen months to build — and the result is something a buy-side analyst, a PE diligence lead, or a corporate strategist can hand to an IC, a board, or a partner without writing a single footnote.

Defensible
Every analysis is cited in the delivered PDF. Cross-checked against management-disclosed unit counts. The numbers hold up to a CIO question.
Repeatable
Re-pull the same chain with different drive-time, demographic, or peer-set assumptions in three minutes. Useful for scenario work, IC pushback, and re-rating debates.
Refreshed
Store footprints and demographics refresh on a quarterly cadence. Same PDF, re-run after a chain announces new openings, surfaces the saturation curve shift.
Branded
Output ships as a polished, board-ready PDF. White-label co-branding available on Custom contracts — for sell-side desks, PE firms, and IR teams.
Built for

Built for analysts who used to spend two weeks on this.

Three buyer profiles. Three workflows we've already replaced. Every analysis the platform produces is defensible — the methodology section of every PDF cites every input.

Buy-Side · Consumer / Retail

Pre-earnings variant view in a single afternoon.

You're long Chipotle and the bull case lives on the 7,000-unit number. Our model says 5,100. The PDF in your IC memo is a third-party trade-area read — not a sell-side regurgitation.

PE / Growth · Diligence

Replace the $50K Bain or Buxton deliverable.

Same trade-area + saturation + cannibalization work, branded PDF for the IC memo, 5-day SLA on custom requests. Pricing built for diligence teams running 30+ deals a year, not for one-off retainers.

Corporate · Real Estate / Strategy

Defensible third-party validator for the board.

Your team has the operating model and the market expertise. What you need from us is a neutral, citable trade-area read — for board materials, investor day prep, and proposed new-store packs.

Pricing

Three tiers. Monthly. No seat counts you'll regret.

First five customers get 50% off Year 1 in exchange for a public logo and a one-line quote.

Basic
$9.99
Per month

Self-serve access to the live web platform. Explore trade-area, saturation, whitespace, and cannibalization views on 106 pre-loaded U.S. retail and restaurant chains. Email support.

Pro
$1,999
Per month

Branded PDF deliverables on demand. Unlimited custom builds across all 106 pre-loaded chains. 48-hour turn on bespoke analyses. Email-priority support. Best fit for buy-side analysts, PE diligence teams, and corporate strategy.

Custom
Talk to us
Annual contract

For corporate real estate, investment banks, or PE firms running 50+ diligence cycles. Custom chain ingestion (private companies, regional concepts, international parents). White-label co-branding. API access. Named-account support.

Frequently asked

Common questions.

Eight answers to the questions buy-side analysts, PE diligence leads, and corporate strategy heads ask in the first meeting.

What is Narrative Geo?
Narrative Geo is a geospatial analytics platform for U.S. retail and restaurant chains. It produces trade-area, saturation, whitespace, cannibalization, demographic, drive-time-catchment, and weather-sensitivity analysis on 106 public chains — delivered as a branded, board-ready PDF in three minutes.
Which retail and restaurant chains do you cover?
106 U.S. chains across mass-market (Walmart, Costco, Target), big-box (Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy), off-price (TJ Maxx, Ross, Burlington), discount (Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Five Below, Ollie's), grocery (Kroger, Sprouts, Trader Joe's, Aldi), QSR (McDonald's, Starbucks, Chipotle, Cava, Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Dunkin', Domino's), casual dining (Texas Roadhouse, Cracker Barrel), beauty (Ulta, Bath & Body Works), apparel (American Eagle, Abercrombie, Aritzia), and more. Full coverage list →
Who is the platform built for?
Three buyer profiles. Hedge-fund consumer/retail equity analysts running pre-earnings variant views and re-rating debates. Private-equity diligence teams replacing $50K Bain/Buxton/Intalytics deliverables with a 3-minute branded PDF. Corporate real-estate and strategy teams who need a defensible third-party trade-area read for the board, investor day, or new-store proposal.
What types of analysis can I run?
Six core analyses: (1) Saturation curves (model-implied unit ceiling and inflection point); (2) Whitespace (top 50 candidate MSAs ranked by demographic similarity); (3) Cannibalization (pairwise trade-area overlap with any peer); (4) Demographic profile (consumer mix by income, age, employment); (5) Drive-time catchment (5 / 10 / 15 / 30 / 60-minute bands per store); (6) Weather sensitivity (comp-sales decomposition vs. temperature and precipitation). Combine them in one report or pull just the slice you need.
How fast is delivery?
Three minutes from request to branded PDF in your inbox for any of the 106 pre-loaded chains. Custom-chain ingestion (private companies, international parents) on a Custom contract takes a 5-business-day SLA. Re-runs on different assumptions (different drive-time band, different peer set, different demographic filter) finish in seconds.
How is this different from Placer.ai or foot-traffic tools?
Complementary, not competitive. Foot-traffic tools measure observed visits to existing stores — the demand side. Narrative Geo answers the trade-area question: where do you have geographic coverage today, where could you go next, and where do you overlap a competitor — the supply and structural side. The two layers stack. Many of our buy-side customers run both.
Is the data defensible for IC, board, or investor-day use?
Yes. Every PDF cites its data sources and methodology in the appendix. Store counts are cross-verified against management-disclosed 10-K and shareholder-letter figures. The analysis holds up under chief-investment-officer questioning, board scrutiny, and adversarial sell-side cross-examination. White-label co-branding (your firm's logo on the PDF) is available on Custom contracts.
What does it cost?
Three tiers, billed monthly. Basic $9.99/month — self-serve access to the live platform on 106 pre-loaded U.S. retail and restaurant chains. Pro $1,999/month — unlimited branded PDF deliverables and custom builds across all 106 chains, 48-hour turn on bespoke analyses. Custom — annual contract for custom chain ingestion (private companies, regional concepts, international parents), white-label PDFs, API access, and named-account support. First five customers get 50% off Year 1 in exchange for a public logo and a one-line quote.
Can I see a sample PDF before I commit?
Yes. Email us with any ticker from the 106 covered chains and a sample PDF for that chain ships to your inbox by end of next business day — free, no commitment. Or book a 15-min live demo and watch a custom PDF generate in real time.
What data sources do you use?
Public-domain inputs — openly available U.S. road network data, the U.S. Census American Community Survey, and chain footprint data sourced from first-party store locators (refreshed quarterly). Full source citations ship in the appendix of every delivered PDF. The data is open; the assembly is the product.
Do you cover international chains or private companies?
Pre-loaded coverage is U.S. public chains only. Custom-chain ingestion (private U.S. companies, international parents with U.S. footprints, regional concepts) is included on the Custom tier. Send the chain name or ticker, and we'll quote an ingestion timeline (typically 5 business days).
How is sensitive client analysis handled?
All PDF generation runs on infrastructure under our control. We don't sell or aggregate your query history. Custom-chain requests and PDF outputs are not shared with other customers. Custom contracts include explicit data-handling addenda for regulated buy-side and PE clients.
The next step

Reply with a ticker. Get the PDF.

Fifteen minutes on the calendar. Or just send the ticker and we'll have the custom PDF in your inbox by end of next business day — free, no commitment.