Next to the Harvard Shop, at 54 John F. Kennedy St., a bubble tea and Mochi ice cream store will open in mid-May.

“The real draw is the tapioca pearls,” said Ying Ying Ma, the co-owner of the Lollicup Tea franchise, referring to the tapioca starch that comes from yuca plants and will be added to the tea.

“Once you get used to it it’s almost addictive,” she added.

In addition to over 80 varieties of tea, Lollicup will also serve a Japanese ice cream called Mochi.

“It’s basically ice cream filled with thin dough,” Ma said.

Tomorrow, a DVD rental store called Quick-Flix will open at 8 Bow Street, near St. Paul’s Church.

“We’ll primarily rent DVDs...we’ll have all the big releases and take requests,” said owner Michael Bradley, who said the new shop would be more “organized” than is its present location in the back of Tommy’s Value.

“This is our first stand-alone store,” he said last night while unpacking boxes of candy for Quick-Flix, which will hold 600 DVDs. “We’re going to try to focus on local artists too. We’ll [carry] feature films by film students.”

Broker Annette Born of Urban Born Associates, who negotiated the agreement that allowed Abercrombie & Fitch to move into the Square, said that this spring’s upsurge could not just be attributed to the season.

“Stores don’t like to open in the holidays or the dead of winter but a lot open for the fall season—for the holidays,” she said.

Born pointed to last weekend’s opening of the Adidas Originals Store on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton Street and the opening of Second Time Around in the One Brattle Square building three weeks ago as an indication that the Square real estate market was improving.

But despite the flurry of store openings, several high profile storefronts remain vacant near the Square. For example, at One Brattle Square, the former HMV Records store is empty.

Jonathan P. Dutch, a broker at the Dartmouth Company, which leases the building, would not say whether a new tenant had been found.

However, he said that it had been difficult to find a tenant for the storefront that is now occupied by Second Time Around, a used furniture shop.

But Jennifer Martinelli, the assistant director of the Harvard Square Business Association, said that the group had heard from its members that business was improving.

“We’re getting feedback that there is more of a shopping vibe going on,” she said.

Tamarind Bay, an Indian bistro and bar, is also set to open across the street from Pinocchio’s, where Casa Mexico used to be. The owners could not be reached for comment yesterday.

According to Getz and DiGiovanni, tenants have been identified for two stores that have closed or are closing this year, including Rock Bottom Brewery, which shut its doors last June, and Brine’s Sporting Goods, which had planned to close by the end of March but remained open as of yesterday.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.