American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation today announced the 2024 recipients of the Backing Historic Small Restaurants grant program. 50 small restaurants in the U.S. will receive a $50,000 grant each to help them upgrade, renovate, and grow their businesses. The grant program significantly expanded its reach this year, doubling the number of grantees, including in 13 new states, and increasing the total grant funding to $2.5 million, up from $1 million in prior years.

In its fourth year, the program now has reached 125 historic small restaurants in every U.S. state, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. American Express launched the Backing Historic Small Restaurants program in 2021 in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to support historic and culturally significant restaurants during the pandemic. The program has since expanded in its scale and financial support to continue helping independently owned small restaurants serve their local communities.

In addition to financial support, Resy, American Express’s restaurant reservation platform, will offer each grantee a year of complimentary access to Resy OS restaurant management software, to help streamline their costs and boost operations.

“Small restaurants are vital to our communities, and their impact perseveres, as they continue to innovate and make their neighborhoods more vibrant and connected,” said Madge Thomas, Head of Corporate Sustainability at American Express. “This year’s grantees represent the rich traditions and iconic stories of communities across the U.S. I’m so proud that we’re able to help them grow and continue to build their legacy.”

“Over the course of four years, our partnership with American Express has supported more than one hundred small, independent restaurants across the country, each with a distinctive history, representing a wide array of cuisines,” said Carol Quillen, CEO of the National Trust. “Equally important is what these restaurants share. They are beloved gathering places in their neighborhoods. In many cases, they have been run for generations by the same family. Empowering small businesses that hold decades of stories is one powerful way that preservation strengthens local economies as it serves local communities.”

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which administers the Backing Historic Small Restaurants grant program, selected this year’s grantees from a group of restaurants that operate in historic buildings or neighborhoods and provide cultural significance to their communities through their history, cuisine, and locations. Many of the 2024 grant recipients include establishments that are family owned or have been operating for generations.

One of the 2024 grantees and owner of Bernice’s Bakery in Missoula, MT, Missy Kelleher said: “Many Missoulians have grown up with Bernice’s in their lives. While riding their bikes home from elementary school, kids love to stop in for a treat. When on a lunch break from the nearby high school, students walk over for our salad sampler and a cupcake. As adults, they’ve ordered their wedding cakes. The generational traditions have been going strong for over 45 years. This grant will allow us to increase seating capacity and improve curb appeal and thus support our mission of being a community gathering place for locals and visitors alike. Bernice’s is truly a neighborhood bakery.”

Another grant recipient, Stephen Reeve, owner of New York Café in Ketchikan, AK, said: “The New York Cafe is Alaska's longest operating restaurant. It began over 120 years ago when a Japanese adventurer, Tony Ohashi, built the pioneer restaurant on the water side of Front Street in downtown Ketchikan. The grant will help us restore some key elements of the building façade and better document the café’s history in the form of historic signage. We want to honor the Japanese families that created the New York Café and much more of the surrounding historic Stedman-Thomas neighborhood.”

To see the full list and learn more about this year’s Backing Historic Small Restaurants grantees, please visit savingplaces.org/historicrestaurants.

Backing Historic Small Restaurants is part of American Express’ “Backing Small” initiative, focused on providing financial support and resources to help small businesses address critical needs. Following the success of Backing Historic Small Restaurants, American Express extended the program globally in 2022 with the launch of “Backing International Small Restaurants”, which has reached nine cities in five countries around the world to date.

American Express has a long history of supporting small businesses, including through its Shop Small movement and Small Business Saturday, which will celebrate its fifteenth year this fall.

Learn more about the valuable ways American Express helps restaurant owners run and grow their businesses, here.

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ABOUT THE NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded nonprofit organization, works to save America’s historic sites, tell the full American story, build stronger communities, and invest in preservation's future.. SavingPlaces.org | @savingplaces