A Bay Area organization is helping small businesses by connecting them with veteran restaurateurs.

Inside the Tokachi Musubi food truck, it's a grind for Erika Yokoyama and a staff of two. 

"We start work at 7 a.m. and finish about 9 or 10 p.m.," said Yokoyama. 

She's a single mom selling Musubi, rice wrapped with dried seaweed and a choice of shrimp, chicken, Spam, or vegetables.  Yokoyama launched her food truck nearly three years ago, constantly pivoting to better manage her growing business. 

"How to run a business, manage inventory for example, and calculate costs," said Yokoyama. 

Food truck owners like Yokoyama, were recently invited to a food entrepreneur workshop. Matt Cohen is the founder of Off the Grid, which hosted the event inside its newly opened Union Square pop-up in coordination with Vacant to Vibrant, SF New Deal's program to revitalize downtown. 

"We have all these connections to hundreds of food businesses that we work with every week. We wanted to help facilitate more knowledge, more awareness of how to run their businesses better, and what opportunities will exist in the future," said Cohen. 

Off the Grid will run a six-week activation featuring events and art, including a free three-week workshop, pairing veteran restaurateurs with aspiring brick-and-mortar owners.

"Downtown is changing, and there are opportunities for small businesses to be involved in working downtown," said Cohen. 

Back at the Musubi truck, Peter Tobias, an artist and Uber Driver on the side, believes his boss has the drive to take the next step, whatever that will be. 

"One thing I'm really impressed about is how fearlessly she went into this," said Tobias. 

Yokoyama has dreams of opening a brick-and-mortar one day. She explains Musubi can also mean something else in Japanese. 

"The meaning is connection, so I want to connect with people," said Yokoyama. 

She's bringing a taste of her homeland to the Bay Area and finding helping hands along the way. Yokoyama says Tokashi Musubi has been invited to open a pop-up store at One Market Plaza in January.