from “le détroit” · the strait
The City of Detroit and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation handed out $310,000 to 30 businesses that have each served Detroit for at least 30 years, with the single largest grant, $50,000, going to JAM Enterprises 3, a silk screening and signage shop on E. Warren Avenue.
Detroit just put $310,000 behind 30 businesses that have each stayed open in the city for at least 30 years.
Mayor Mary Sheffield, the City of Detroit and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation announced the recipients on March 26, 2026, at a reception at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, the third round of the Detroit Legacy Business Project. To qualify, a business has to have served Detroit neighborhoods for three decades or more.
The biggest single grant, $50,000, went to JAM Enterprises 3, a silk screening and signage shop on E. Warren Avenue that J. Mike Antwine founded. Antwine told WXYZ the business has stayed close to its neighborhood over the years: "A lot of work with the youths in the community as far as summer camps."
Among the other honorees is M & D Pharmacy Inc., an independent community pharmacy on Mack Avenue that has served Detroit's east side neighborhoods for decades.
The rest of the list reads like a drive across the city. American Coney Island has been open since 1917. Henry The Hatter was established in 1893. Baker's Keyboard Lounge, the jazz room, has run since 1934. The downtown club Cliff Bell's, founded in 1935 and restored in 2005, also made the cut, and owner Paul Howard told WXYZ, "That building had been empty for 20 years."
"Walk through this list and you are reading Detroit history," said Kevin Johnson, DEGC's president and CEO.
Mayor Sheffield put it plainly in the announcement: "Thirty years in Detroit is not an accident."
The money is only part of it. Honorees also get technical assistance, educational programming, and visibility through a legacy business registry and a public digital map. Justin Onwenu, director of the City of Detroit's Office of Small Business Affairs, framed the stakes: "Too many legacy businesses close not because they failed, but because they never got the support they needed."
The program plans to relaunch its online registry platform later this year, so residents can discover and connect with legacy businesses across the city's neighborhoods.
One dispatch a week. No tracking, no filler. Free, always.