Small businesses fill a vacant downtown in pop-up programs

Downtowns matter — representing economic engines, centers of tourism and places for communities to convene. This is how they're bouncing back.

The space where Hilary Passman runs Devil's Teeth Bakery used to be a restaurant.

Ben Trefny produces radio events in an old Ricoh Copy Center.

And at the bottom-floor restaurant named Teranga, cheffed by Nafy Flatley — it used to be a Mrs. Fields Cookies.

Last summer, the restaurant, the radio station, and the bakery all held nothing.

Passman, Trefny, and Flatley operate in downtown San Francisco. They run small businesses that could never have afforded their new spaces until the plight and blight catalyzed by COVID-19.