SALT LAKE CITY -- For more than a year, the lunch choices for downtown workers such as Jenny Punzo were so slim that eating out seemed more like a chore than a treat.

"There seemed to be way more sandwich places than necessary," said Punzo, a paralegal for Suitter Axland PLLC on 300 South near Main Street.

It's not practical for workers like Punzo, who parks adjacent to the Wells Fargo tower, to walk to the parking structure and navigate traffic through the city for better food.

But in recent months, a handful of new restaurants, cafes and bars have taken up residence on or near Salt Lake City's Main Street.

The new businesses may signal that Main Street has begun to revitalize, after almost a decade of downturn, in anticipation of completion of parts of the City Creek Center retail-office-residential complex in the blocks formerly occupied by Crossroads and ZCMI malls.

The businesses also may signal that the recession has turned a corner.

"It's a good time to sign a lease downtown because it's inexpensive," said Jason Mathis, executive director of the Downtown Alliance. "The time to get your foot in the door is now."

City Creek will begin to have residents during the first quarter of 2010 at Richards Court, a 90-unit condominium community on South Temple between Main Street and West Temple, said Dale Bills, a City Creek spokesman.

Around the corner and down the street at the 222 S. Main high rise, which is in the final stages of construction, lessees are scheduled to move into the office building in December.

Business owners and managers said business has been good. They wanted a presence downtown to tap into the urban atmosphere. They also wanted to tap into the lunch crowd. Some 60,000 people work downtown.

In addition to restaurant space east of Main Street on 300 South, Danny Clark, owner of Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches, deploys a small army of cyclists and motorists to deliver food to offices. "A lot of the big companies order delivery," he said.

Chain restaurants may have financial backing of their national owners and can think strategically about City Creek and 222 S. Main, noted Charlie Perry, owner of Eva, which serves tapas, or small-plate dishes, and has a late-night happy hour. Perry said he needed to be on Main Street for a "big-city feel," he said.

"The buildings are neat," he said. "I felt like Salt Lake needed this kind of restaurant."

The Main Street area of downtown has seen its share of businesses flee the area. Curry in a Hurry and Mikado, for instance, opened locations in Bountiful after closing restaurants downtown in the past couple of years.

But because The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is developing City Creek in partnership with Taubman Centers Inc., based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., is betting on Main Street, Del Vance took a second look at the area and opened the Beer Hive Pub, the first in Utah with an icy rail spanning the length of the bar, on which patrons can keep their glasses frosty.

"If the church is willing to spend a couple of billion dollars on it, obviously they know something's up and we want to make sure we're in on it," Vance said. "Main Street has been kind of floundering for the last couple of decades. If they're willing to spend that much money, they have confidence in the rebounding of downtown, and I see it, too."

City Creek Center will not have bars, so Vance hopes to cash in on patrons looking for Utah and American craft beers.

"If [City Creek's] like The Gateway, it'll be 99.9 percent national chains, like Applebee's," he said. "We'll be one of the closest bars to the development. Unlike the old Crossroads and ZCMI, where it was boxed in, this one's supposed to get people out onto the streets."

• Laura Hancock writes for the Deseret News.