In the city of Taipei where I used to live, there have been many One-Day-Big-Sale, filling up the vacant retail spaces temporarily before finding new tenants. This kind of temporary shops used to offer inexpensive products with informal shop interior. In 2004, COMME des GARÇONS, the high-end fashion brand launched a temporary shop in Berlin. Since then, pop-up retailing has gradually become a marketing strategy. These shops opened only temporarily, thus the interior were usually left barely designed, creating an exclusive experience.
Another recent example is REC03, is an initiative in a village near Barcelona where a whole neighborhood was turned into 3-days pop-up shops.
Biking through the city of Amsterdam, you’ll notice that there are more and more shops and galleries that just opened for one day and closed again. Today artists, designers and retailers are taking the old retailing concept One-Day-Big-Sale seriously, challenging new ways of using shop spaces. Different from the One-Day-Big-Sale, today the pop-up initiatives know that it’s more about making an event than just selling products.
One interesting example in Amsterdam is Store Without A Home, offering exclusive collection of products. It’s located in Ijburg and temporarily filling up the vacant store…the space is literally COOL (no heating)...
Nest Project 
Its a great idea, it reminds me a little of the Sarah Lucas / Tracy Emin Shop in London ,which also popped up in a resession. Fantastic way to use left over space in the city. Food plus art , for me is always a winner..that and a damn good cup of tea, look forward to the next event.