New Glarus is not standing still. Wisconsin Department of Administration estimates put the village at 2,361 residents in 2025, up 4.2% from the 2020 Census, while the Town of New Glarus also added residents during that span. The broader New Glarus School District area approaches 4,900 people and has a median household income above $108,000.

Growth alone, however, does not mean every missing business would succeed here. New Glarus has a small permanent population, strong tourism, a relatively affluent surrounding area and an unusually developed commercial district for a community its size. Any new concept has to work through winter as well as Oktoberfest weekend.

So New Glarus 360 created a 10-part test: unmet local demand, existing competition, spending leakage, distance to alternatives, market size, tourism potential, frequency of use, evidence from comparable communities, community or downtown value, and overall business viability. Each potential business could be scored from 1 to 5 in each category.

We then gave the same criteria to ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Grok, asked each to research and rank possibilities, and combined the results. After the rankings were assembled, the models were shown the broader list and asked to reconsider it — and to suggest one additional business that sounded unconventional but might actually fit New Glarus.