The food court rising above San Francisco’s ‘doom loop’: ‘We’re breaking down stereotypes’

While stores like Whole Foods and Nordstrom are closing, La Cocina's entrepreneurs are building community in a neighborhood facing homelessness and addiction

From her coffee counter in La Cocina Municipal Marketplace, Santana Tapia has a clear line of sight into every gloomy prediction that has hit San Francisco since the rise of the Covid pandemic.

From the marketplace's windows in the heart of the city's troubled Tenderloin District, she notices the decline of foot traffic that has come from employees choosing to work at home rather than travel to their downtown offices, spawning some dire predictions of an economic doom loop". And she can see the ravages of the fentanyl epidemic happening all around her, with its record numbers of overdose deaths and scenes of homeless desperation.