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Strafford County, NH — Bars Saturation

How many bars exist per person present — residents plus daytime workers — by ZIP code, compared with the U.S. average. Establishment data: Census ZBP 2023. Population: ACS 2024 5-year. 17 ZIP codes analyzed.

Includes: Bars & taverns · Pubs & brewpubs (drinking-focused) · Cocktail & wine bars · Taprooms. Counted together because official statistics use one 722410 code.

Not enough published data to rank this market: 17 of 17 ZIP cells are withheld (each 0–2 businesses). The county total is somewhere between 0 and 34.

Why a range: Census does not publish a ZIP-by-industry count when that ZIP has 0–2 businesses. 17 ZIP cells in this county are withheld, 15 of them with residents. Each could hold 0, 1, or 2 businesses: counting them all as 0 gives the low end, counting them all as 2 gives the high end — the data cannot say where the truth sits. The density range uses only the populated cells, since ZIPs without residents are excluded from per-person rates. How ranges work

Range spans the U.S. rate   Strafford County bars — 0–198% of the U.S. rate

0 bars are counted in Strafford County — 0.0 per 10,000 people present (residents + daytime workers), 0% of the U.S. rate of 1.0.

Measured density: Strafford County sits at 0% of the U.S. rate for bars. 15 ZIPs with population have no published count (each 0–2 businesses), so the true per-capita rate is between 0% and 198% of the U.S. rate. Why.

This is a supply-side read: it counts existing bars and the people present, not foot traffic, income, rent, or whether locals want more. Treat low density as a question to check, not an answer.

Bars
0–34
published count; upper bound counts each withheld ZIP cell as 2 (17 cells) (2023)
Per 10,000 present
0.0
residents + daytime workers
U.S. average
1.0
per 10,000 present
County index
0.00×
vs. U.S.
Residents
130,989
15 ZIPs with data
Workers
39,158
jobs located in county

Is the area growing?

Population
134,202
Census PEP, July 1 2024
Change since 2020
+2.4%
+3,128 people
Net migration 2024
+803
international +260, domestic +543
Jobs located here
49,353
LODES 2022, −3.4% since 2019

Strafford County had an estimated 134,202 residents on July 1, 2024 — 2.4% more than in 2020 (+3,128). In the latest year it gained 594 people: births minus deaths −222, international migration +260, domestic migration +543. Components are published separately and may not sum exactly.

49,353 jobs were located in the county in 2022 (−3.4% since 2019), and 63,471 employed residents lived there (+0.7% since 2019). LODES counts wage and salary jobs covered by unemployment insurance plus federal jobs; it excludes the self-employed and military, and counts jobs rather than unique people. 2019→2022 spans the pandemic, so read it as one change, not a trend.

Population and migration say whether the customer base is growing. They do not say whether people want another business of this type. Definitions and limits →  ·  Full county detail →

ZIP gaining residents
2015–19 → 2020–24
Change
03820 Dover
+5.7%
03861 Lee
+2.0%
03878 Somersworth
+2.0%
ZIP losing residents
2015–19 → 2020–24
Change
03824 Durham
−8.5%
03835 Farmington
−1.8%

ACS 5-year estimates for 2015–2019 and 2020–2024. Only ZIPs with at least 2,000 residents in both windows and a change larger than the survey margin of error (90%) are listed — small ZIPs move a lot on paper without a real signal.

Saturation map

Each ZIP area is shaded by its density of this business type per person present (residents + workers) vs. the U.S. average. Click any ZIP to zoom to its boundary, see its numbers, and switch to aerial imagery. Individual mapped shops appear as dots at street level — Show locations zooms you in to them (scroll or double-click to zoom).

Basemap:
Under 50% 50–100% 100–150% 150–250% 250%+ 0–2 (not published) / no data ZIP total (dot size) Mapped shop (OpenStreetMap, street level)

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, tiles by OpenFreeMap.

White dots are ZIP totals from the official Census count — the bigger the dot, the more bars in that ZIP. They are aggregated, not individual shops. Turquoise dots are individual locations mapped in OpenStreetMap, shown only at street level; they are crowd-sourced and indicative, may be incomplete, and do not equal the official counts. Only the official ZIP totals feed the saturation index.

Market trend

Number of bars in Strafford County across 2015–2023, on a consistent set of ZIP codes present in every year — so changes are real, not ZIP-boundary artifacts. 2015/2018 are pre-pandemic baselines; 2020/2021 are COVID-distorted.

0
2015
0
2018
0
2020
0
2021
0
2022
0
2023

Highest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index

Lowest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index
Low measured density is not evidence of opportunity. A ZIP with few bars may simply lack foot traffic, retail space, or demand. We rank only residential and mixed ZIPs here; employment hubs and visitor destinations are listed separately below. ZIPs where Census did not publish a count (0–2 businesses) are not ranked: they may be the least served of all, but the data cannot tell 0 from 1 or 2. Verify those locally.

All ZIP codes

Click a column header to sort. Index = bars per 10,000 people present (residents + 0.5×workers) ÷ the U.S. average. 100% = exactly average.

ZIPNeighborhood ResidentsWorkersBars Per 10kIndexStatus
03820Dover 33,44016,911 0–2 — — Not published
03821Dover —151 0–2 — — Not published
03823Madbury 2,203217 0–2 — — Not published
03824Durham 15,0802,138 0–2 — — Not published
03825Barrington 9,4891,928 0–2 — — Not published
03835Farmington 6,804629 0–2 — — Not published
03839Rochester 4,2791,058 0–2 — — Not published
03851Milton 4,333339 0–2 — — Not published
03852Milton Mills 20531 0–2 — — Not published
03855New Durham 2,748146 0–2 — — Not published
03861Lee 4,576746 0–2 — — Not published
03866Rochester —38 0–2 — — Not published
03867Rochester 22,7328,224 0–2 — — Not published
03868Rochester 6,133736 0–2 — — Not published
03869Rollinsford 2,456611 0–2 — — Not published
03878Somersworth 12,2055,139 0–2 — — Not published
03884Strafford 4,306305 0–2 — — Not published

Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.

Find an actual space in Dover

The numbers above tell you how the market looks. To find a specific storefront, these marketplaces list available retail space for lease.

LoopNet
Largest commercial marketplace
Browse Dover retail space →
Crexi
Free listings + market data
Browse Dover retail space →
CityFeet
Retail space for lease
Browse Dover retail space →

Open vacancy data (actual empty units) is only published by some cities; where it exists we show it directly. Listings above are third-party.

Census withholds some ZIP-by-industry cells to protect small businesses. 0–2 means the cell was not published (Census publishes industry counts only at 3+ per ZIP), so the ZIP is left unranked rather than counted as zero. ~ means the count is estimated from the broader industry group and can be off by a business or two.

Follow Strafford County and bars

When a data vintage changes or a section of this report is revised, we post it to a public update feed. No email address, no account, no tracking — and nothing is sent unless something actually changed.

Subscribe to updates (RSS) How these numbers are built →

Methodology & sources

Establishments. U.S. Census ZIP Code Business Patterns (ZBP 2023), NAICS 722410 — drinking places (alcoholic beverages). Counts establishments with paid employees. ZBP is published annually with a ~2-year lag.

Fresh county signal. No quarterly or annual county update was available for this industry. It cannot be broken down by ZIP.

Population. U.S. Census American Community Survey 2024 5-year ZCTA population (table B01003). Workers are the ZIP's total employment from the same 2023 ZBP file.

Demand ("people present"). Demand comes from residents and daytime workers: residents + 0.5 × workers. This is the single documented assumption in the model and can be tuned.

Index. index = (ZIP establishments ÷ ZIP demand × 10,000) ÷ the U.S. average for this industry (1.01 per 10,000 present). It is a supply-side density measure; it does not capture income, rent, tourism, or whether locals actually want more.

Read the full methodology →  ·  Data sources & vintages →

BizGapMap — free, no-login small-business saturation reports for major U.S. counties. Built entirely from public U.S. Census, BLS, and IRS data (ZBP 2023, ACS 2024 5-year, PEP 2024, LODES, QCEW, IRS SOI). No forecasts, no revenue guesses — withheld cells are marked, and the few derived counts are labelled as estimates.