AP Business Writer

NEW YORK — In many downtown areas where companies closed their offices and commuting ground to a halt, sandwich shops, bakeries and other small businesses are waiting with guarded optimism for their customers to return.

Teresa Ging could count on a steady stream of office workers coming to Sugar Bliss Bakery for muffins and cupcakes before COVID-19. They all but disappeared when the Loop, Chicago’s downtown area, became deserted amid government stay-at-home orders.

In March, a local business group, the Chicago Loop Alliance, found in a survey that a year into the pandemic the number of people coming downtown for work was still below 20% of normal. But Ging is optimistic; some of her regular customers have returned to their office one or two days a week.

“I definitely think the Loop will return back to normal at some point,” she says, although she doesn’t expect that to happen before 2022.

The next few months will be an uneasy time in business districts across the country. With cities reopening and more people vaccinated, office workers are expected to return — especially with big companies like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America notifying staffers that they’ll need to return to work. But many businesses are expected to give their employees the flexibility to work from home. And some companies have permanently closed their offices and gone fully remote.

That will keep small business owners waiting and wondering, with varying degrees of optimism. When people began working at home, early-morning and lunchtime crowds turned into a trickle. Many restaurants and stores went out of business, and those that survived relied on government help, concessions from landlords and, when possible, selling online to shore up their revenue.

The downtown Philadelphia bakery owned by Edna Cruz and Michael Caro has just a fraction of its usual customers. Before the pandemic, office workers accounted for about 70% of their business. Now, Cruz worries that Nook Bakery & Coffee Bar’s customers may never return in force.

The couple have kept going thanks to a Paycheck Protection Program loan, leniency from their landlord and sales of their roasted coffee and custom cakes. But they still see a lot of juggling ahead.

“If the rent stays the same and the foot traffic declines, it’s going to be very, very difficult for us,” Cruz says.

But Cruz will likely see more people on the streets — Philadelphia officials announced last week that all restrictions on office capacity would be lifted starting this Friday.

Downtown Atlanta is filled with office towers and businesses typically expect to get a boost from visitors to Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the city’s convention center and tourist attractions. There is just a fraction of that traffic nowadays and city officials have yet to say when Atlanta will fully reopen.

Kwan’s Deli lost about 80% of its business, reduced its hours and laid off its two full-time employees as well as its handful of part-timers. But co-owner Andrew Song is optimistic — even if the number of office workers doesn’t return to pre-pandemic levels, the deli will be able to survive as hotel guests, convention goers and tourists come back.