Betty Burgers, Vim Dining & Desserts, and Cantine Winepub have each been selected to receive grants of $5,000 from PG&E to help support women and minority-owned local businesses across the Central Coast.
This is the fifth year that the California Restaurant Foundation, a nonprofit organization providing resources and programs to support California restaurants, has partnered with PG&E’s corporate foundation to offer the Resilience Fund grant to restaurants in the region.
Restaurant owners can use the money to pay for equipment and technology upgrades, employee retention bonuses and training, or to help support themselves after unforeseen hardships — like slow business or equipment breakdowns.
Each year, these selections are made by Restaurants Care, the nonprofit program of the California Restaurant Foundation, based on applications submitted in April from locally owned restaurants across California. Restaurants were selected for the grant if they had fewer than five locations and made less than $3 million in yearly revenue. Priority was further given to women- and minority-owned businesses, as well as restaurants that had not received the grant in past years. The three Santa Cruz restaurants were among 26 chosen to receive the grant from across the Central Coast.
The grant was established in 2021 as a response to the hardships that accompanied the pandemic, said PG&E spokesperson Stephanie Magallon.
Past grant winners from Santa Cruz County have included Capitola Wine Bar & Merchants, Copal and Cork And Fork.
Local restaurants can apply for the 2026 round of grants in late spring next year by using the Restaurants Care website, and they can sign up for reminders on the website.
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