What Does Brick-and-Mortar Mean?

By Kristi Waterworth – Updated Feb 25, 2025 at 11:26 PM

Key Points

Brick-and-mortar businesses include any physical location like banks, restaurants, and shops.
They focus on customer service, offering a tangible experience for items like clothing.
Investors analyze them using metrics like same-store sales to gauge performance.

Retail businesses are changing dramatically. Some companies operate solely online, others only in brick-and-mortar locations, and many combine the two. As an investor, it's important to understand why brick-and-mortar retailing matters and what makes it different from e-commerce.

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About the Author

Kristi Waterworth has been a contributing real estate and financial expert at The Motley Fool, covering real estate, investing, and personal finance topics, since 2020. Kristi has been interviewed by various TV media outlets and podcasts for her real estate investing expertise – from residential real estate to digital real estate and everything in between. Kristi’s journalist career spans over 25 years, and she has written about real estate investing, homeownership, and home construction specifically for the last decade. She was also previously a licensed Realtor and general building contractor before the Great Recession and housing market collapse. She holds a bachelor’s degree in American history from Columbia College in Missouri.

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What types of businesses are brick-and-mortar?

Any business can be a brick-and-mortar business if it's in a physical location. Although we often think of commercial retailers when we think of brick-and-mortar businesses, really anything from banks to restaurants can be considered brick-and-mortar these days. Here are a few examples of brick-and-mortar operations:

Banks: We don't generally think of retail banks as brick-and-mortar businesses, but since they have a digital opposite, it's pretty safe to say that in-person banking is a brick-and-mortar business. You might get a loan, apply for a checking account, or buy a certificate of deposit to help increase your savings yield at a brick-and-mortar bank.

Pharmacies: The rise of online pharmacies has driven home the idea that pharmacies are also members of the brick-and-mortar squad. Like other brick-and-mortar retailers, pharmacies provide very customized services that are difficult to duplicate online.

Retailers: E-commerce was where the phrase brick-and-mortar really originated, meant as a way to distinguish physical shops from purely online businesses. Brick-and-mortar retailers are still a great place to see items in person, especially items that require trying out before you take them home, like sofas, clothing, or shoes.

Restaurants: As ghost kitchens continue to catch on, it's important to differentiate restaurants that serve diners from places that operate on a delivery-only basis. Their business models are very different, and aside from both serving food, ghost kitchens have little in common with brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Veterinary clinics: Medical care is increasingly going online, but you can still get an old-fashioned hands-on assessment at a brick-and-mortar vet clinic. Although it's often faster to get your pet's issues dealt with online, an online vet can't always see the whole picture.

What Does Brick-and-Mortar Mean?

Key Points

How AI Is Changing the Retail Industry

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What does brick-and-mortar mean?

What types of businesses are brick-and-mortar?

Why does brick-and-mortar matter to me as an investor?

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