Covid-19 harms many small businesses. For some entrepreneurs, it opened doors.

But the difficulties of some companies present opportunities for new ventures. Homeowners reluctant to leave storefronts empty are offering cheaper rents, and increased stress in the past year has increased demand for services like facials and guided meditation, business owners said. Some entrepreneurs, fired at the start of the pandemic, decided to pursue long-standing dreams of owning their own businesses.

These are the stories of five new businesses – one in each district – that opened during the pandemic:

A spa in Brooklyn

Registered sisters and nurses Carla Nelson, 36, and Wendy Jules, 39, opened the doors of Fleur De Lis Beauty & Esthetics on Flatbush Avenue last July. The spa, which offers services like chemical peels, intravenous hydration, facials and botox, was quickly flooded with customers. They are now booked until June.

Ms. Nelson and her sister attribute to their rapid success the strong support of the Midwood community and social media marketing. They also opened a few months after the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, and said customers were eager to support black-owned businesses.

Still, they struggled to access capital when they started and now that they are looking to expand. The big banks refused, and the only loan they managed to secure was $ 3,000 from a local black-owned bank. The sisters invested their life savings in the business and turned to friends and family, including Mrs. Nelson’s husband, who emptied his 401 (k).

“We have the skills, we just don’t have the funding,” said Ms. Nelson. “This is our number one challenge, and our only challenge.”

A barber shop in Queens

José Campos, 39, was fired from a retail store in Manhattan at the beginning of the pandemic. For a few months, he cooked and sold traditional Salvadoran food in his apartment. It was a skill he learned as a child when he accompanied his mother on the rounds selling tamales from a grocery cart on the streets of Maryland, where the family lived after emigrating from El Salvador.

Mr. Campos has long wanted to have his own company and decided to open a business with his barber. The partners quickly found an accessible spot on Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside and opened the Bibi & JD barbershop last September.

Six months later, the company is paying its bills, but not making a profit. Attracting customers is a big challenge, said Campos.

“There is still a lot of fear in the Covid community,” he said.

Campos, who is preparing to receive a barber’s license, recently sold part of his stake to the partner and opened a small clothing store inside the barbershop, which he hopes will yield more. He has his apartment rent late and says stress has made him lose sleep and weight.

He is thinking of selling food in his apartment to earn extra income. His mother, feeling that he needed support, flew a month ago from his home in Houston and is on standby, ready to start making big batches of tamales.

A Thai restaurant in Manhattan

Sommy Putthida, 35, moved to New York City to live with his family last spring after he was fired from his job at a tech startup in San Francisco. Her cousin took her to a Pro Thai restaurant on Lexington Avenue, and she learned from a local Thai Facebook group that the owners wanted to sell.

“I saw this as an opportunity,” she said.

She bought the business for $ 100,000 using her savings and money borrowed from her family. It reopened under the new ownership in late May, and Putthida focused on digital marketing and strengthening Pro Thai’s online ordering platform. It built outdoor seating with the help of a New York City Economic Development program, which works with partners to provide pro-bono design services to small businesses.

She has managed to keep all employees of the previous owner’s East Harlem restaurant on the payroll, but not everyone is working full-time. She hasn’t paid her rent in four months, and she may have to take out a loan to keep the business going, she said.

Business Services in the Bronx

Alicia Corso, 36, spent four years earning her accounting degree while working as a tax associate at a tax preparation company and as an office manager at a personal accident law firm. She realized that in working class communities, especially where many people speak English as a second language, there was a need for ad hoc business and tax services.

“Not everyone can afford to have an accountant,” said Corso.

She saw an opportunity in the real estate market when she learned that the owner of her daughter’s beauty parlor in Morris Park was closing the doors. The owner did not want the space to be empty and Mrs. Corso and her three partners got a good lease.

In January, Ms. Corso opened AYAM Multiservices on White Plains Road. The company offers services such as tax preparation, signature recognition and translation – Ms. Corso is fluent in Spanish and her partners speak Arabic. His main focus now is to attract customers.

“Gradually, it’s starting to get better,” she said.

A wellness center on Staten Island

Cheryl Lafer, 40, was considering opening a holistic wellness center in 2019 and even designed the logo, but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit and she saw so many people suffering from stress and anxiety that she decided to pull the trigger. She found a basement on Lamberts Lane, in the Mid-Island neighborhood, and opened Heal & Prosper Holistic Wellness NYC last July.

The company’s services include reiki, guided meditation, yoga, sound baths and wellness coaching. The business is profitable and Ms. Lafer is looking for a bigger space and plans to add services, including facials and halotherapy, which is a salt room that, according to Lafer, offers respiratory benefits.

“We are in growing pains,” she said.

She credits her success in part to social media marketing and a strong demand for pampering after a difficult year.

“The root cause of our customers’ arrival is stress,” said Ms. Lafer. “We offer help with healing, self-care and self-love, and that is what people need now.”

Write to Kate King at [email protected]