Choosing a 213 number for your business

Start with where callers see the number

Before comparing patterns, list the places your number will appear. On a storefront or a van it has to work at a glance. Read out by a receptionist all day, it has to be easy to say. On a menu or a flyer it can spell a word. Pick the pattern that suits the place most customers meet it.

By type of business

• Law and finance on Bunker Hill and in the Financial District: a round-thousand or round-hundred main line (213-XXX-2100) reads as settled on letterhead and is easy for a receptionist to give out.
• Garment, fashion and jewelry businesses: buyers and suppliers often take the number down over the phone, so choose repeating digits or a round hundred that is hard to mishear. Lucky 8s suit a business whose customers value the digit.
• Wholesale and import: a short, repeating ending is easy for partners overseas, who dial +1 and the full ten digits.
• Restaurants and bars: a vanity word (TACO, RAMEN or the name of a dish) or a run of repeating digits stands out on a menu, a food-ordering app or a window.
• Arts District studios, galleries and agencies: palindromes, alternating digits or a word give the number some character.
• Koreatown and other bilingual businesses: choose digits over a word, because a vanity word only reads in one language. Alternating pairs and repeats are easy to say in Korean, Spanish or English.
• Real estate and loft leasing: numbers on signs and listings must stick at a glance, so look at repeats, sequences or a word such as LOFT.
• Medical and dental offices: patients copy the number from appointment cards and voicemail, so a round hundred or a short sequence cuts down on misdials.

Try the number on someone first

Read the number once to someone who has not seen it, and ask them to write it down ten minutes later. If they get it right, your callers will too. Then print it at the size it will appear on your sign or card and look at it from across the room.