Downtown Renton is back in business — mostly. It’s been barely a week since a five-alarm fire lit up a 90-year-old building on Wells Avenue South, but most of the damaged businesses are now back to business as usual, or getting there.

With help from loyal customers, most of the five businesses hit hardest by last Thursday night’s fire were either open for business Wednesday or had plans to open soon, either in their original shops or in new locations.

The two businesses most heavily devastated by the flames, smoke and water used to douse the fire were the shops just below one of the 10 boarding rooms where the fire started.

Those two businesses are The Comic Den and A-1 Vacuum and Locksmith.

The building was uninsured.

“We lost everything,” Comic Den owner Howard Wheatley said. “Hundreds of titles … Batman, Flash, Superman … also personal memento type stuff.”

Wheatley and his wife Tonya own The Comic Den.

Most of the lost comics were in the two back rooms of the shop. Just one of those rooms held more than 50,000 comics.

Fortunately, the newer comics for sale in the front of the shop were better protected, as were a lot of the shop’s vintage reads, from the 1950s through the ‘70s.

Many of these books are now for sale in the new Comic Den on South Third Street, just steps away from the burned-out Wells building.

The South Third Street building had been vacant for about 12 years. Both buildings are owned by Robert Delancey.

The Comic Den reopened in its new digs Wednesday with a fresh shipment of comics.

Locksmith Tom Swanson of A-1 Vacuum and Locksmith hopes to follow his former neighbor’s example and reopen in a storefront farther down South Third Street.

But transforming that South Third Street storefront from storage space for Naan -N- Curry into a new shop for A-1 Vacuum and Locksmith will require electrical work, building permits and money.

And money is something Swanson doesn’t have a lot of, especially after the fire. Aside from his key blanks, which help him make keys for customers, and his truck, another vital part of his business, Tom lost everything in the flames and water.

His brother Bud, who runs the vacuum side of things, also lost everything, aside from a couple bags and belts.

Still, Tom is hoping money from a U.S. Bank fund one of his customers set up will help him get back to business in that South Third Street shop with his locks and his brother’s vacuums.

Aside from CK Nails, the three businesses just around the corner from the burned-out Wells Avenue building have fared better than their neighbors.

“Yes! We’re open!” Those words are spelled out in bubbly letters on a window at Common Ground Coffee & Cupcakes. The store suffered smoke damage in the fire, but still managed to fill a wedding order for 120 cupcakes by the next afternoon. The bride was so happy she cried.

The bride’s cupcakes were baked and decorated with help from friendly neighbors on South Third Street.

Cafe Lure donated its kitchen and the law firm Green & Rousso donated its conference room.

“So, they saved the wedding,” Common Ground owner Lange Woon says. “That was pretty cool. Neighbors came out and helped each other.”

Lange and his wife Heng own Common Ground.

During the last week, the Woons have been visited by several customers wanting to help get their favorite cupcake shop back up and baking.

Smoke damage meant the Woons had to throw out most of their baking supplies. Immediately after the fire, Common Ground was also filled with water about 3 inches deep and 6 to 10 feet wide.

Tukwila-based Venturi Technologies sucked that water out.

That puddle was nothing compared to the water gushing out the front door of CK Nails after the fire. The gallons and gallons of water that spurted from the fire hoses pushed through much of the salon’s roof.

It will likely take a month to restore the shop, says Chad Neilson, Venturi base manager. CK Nails will likely reopen in the restored shop, the building manager said.

Venturi was still removing water from the back room of Renton Laptop Wednesday, but the neighbor of CK Nails had partially opened for business, and expected to be fully open by Monday.

Renton Laptop has a roof in need of patching and about four destroyed computers, but luckily only one of those computers is a customer’s. The shelves holding the 20-some other customer computers weren’t damaged. And for that, Renton Laptop owner Hakim Belloulid is grateful.

He had to padlock his shop shut the morning after the fire. He didn’t go home until 3:30 a.m.

The Comic Den owner Howard Wheatley was also at his shop the night of the fire, along with his business owner neighbors and their weeping customers.

Fortunately, for most of the block, business is coming back from what Comic Den owner Tonya Wheatley calls “the horror of Thursday night.”

“We’re looking forward to moving forward,” she said earlier this week. “We can’t do anything about yesterday, but we’re definitely looking forward.”