Understanding retail volume

Natasha Calzatti for The New York Times.

You don't really understand retail consumption until you visit a shopping center like The Grove in Los Angeles. (See "Only Your Money Is Not Pretend," from the New York Times for a description.) I thought that it had one of the country's biggest parking garages, but at only about 3,500 spaces, it's much smaller than any of the top ten (in the 9,000 to 10,000 car range).

According to The Slatin Report, The Grove has an average of 18 million customers/year, each spending $169 on average.

THAT'S over $3 Billion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It puts finding the volume of customers necessary to support a restaurant in a neighborhood commercial district in DC in perspective.