New York City’s thousands of empty storefronts, a symbol of the lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic, are filling up faster than many predicted.

Thank your local taqueria.

A surge of food and drink businesses, led by Mexican, Japanese and Caribbean kitchens, most of them outside Manhattan, have played an outsize role in the city’s storefront revival, according to a study released Friday by the Department of City Planning.

About 16,000 of the city’s 143,000 storefronts were empty in the third quarter of this year, for a vacancy rate of just above 11 percent. The share of empty stores has fallen citywide for four straight quarters.

Storefront vacancy rates in Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx specifically are already below 10 percent, which is widely considered a healthy level, the report showed.

“It’s remarkable how few storefronts are vacant today,” said Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy think tank that reviewed the study. “And so much of it is about food coming to the rescue.”

New York has long been a culinary destination, but after four years of stark job losses in other forms of retail, as apparel and electronics sellers have closed, the city is now — perhaps more than ever — relying on dining to brighten its darkened storefronts and bolster the economy.