Locals Food Hub & Pizza Pub, located in Louisville, Kentucky, is a special place in its own right. It’s both an artisanal wood-fired pizzeria and a grocery store that feeds residents of the city’s low-income Smoketown neighborhood, a certified food desert. And it specializes in products grown mostly in Kentucky.
But the building it’s housed in is special, too: It dates back to 1863, making it a historic landmark in Louisville. That has qualified Locals for free money in the form of a recent $50,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) and the American Express 2025 Backing Historic Small Restaurants Program.
Importantly, that’s not the first grant Locals has received for doing good in underserved neighborhoods. The company, which also has a location in Frankfort, Kentucky, has racked up more than $600,000 in grant funds over the past several years.
The NTHP/American Express grant, awarded this month, has a goal of “investing in small, independent restaurants that serve as cultural and culinary landmarks across the U.S.,” according to a news release. Locals’ Louisville location was one of 50 restaurants nationwide that received $50,000 grants to help renovate and grow their businesses.
“These restaurants demonstrate the power that places hold,” Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the NTHP, said. “For generations, neighbors have gathered here, shared stories, made new connections, and enjoyed regional cuisine that often reflects our nation’s global roots.”
Birch and Michelle Bragg, with partners Joseph Fiala and Taylor Marshall, opened Locals Food Hub & Pizza Hub in Louisville last October as a follow-up to their success with the concept in Frankfort.
One section of the 6,000-square-foot Louisville hub serves up a full menu of specialty pizzas, baked in a wood-burning oven, along with a build-your-own option, appetizers, salads and desserts.
In the market section, meanwhile, the Braggs stock the shelves with regional products, like milk, cheese, eggs, fruit, produce and pantry items. At both locations, Kentucky-grown foods are prioritized, and the stores’ membership in the Kentucky Double Dollars program means low-income customers can spend $20 using their SNAP/EBT cards and get a $20 match to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
Additionally, thanks to Locals’ in-house Triple Dollar Program, supported by local sponsors, those same customers get an additional $20 for an EBT/SNAP purchase, bringing their total grocery buying power to $60 for just $20 out of pocket.
The Braggs and their partners founded the first Locals pizzeria/market in Frankfort in 2021. “It was born of a need to participate in the strengthening of our local food system,” Birch Bragg told Frank. Magazine in June 2023. “During COVID, we all experienced the empty grocery shelves. We saw the fragility in the global supply chains….Our biggest goal in opening this [Frankfort] store is to help impact Kentucky farmers, to create a place where we can buy more of their products, and [to ensure] the community has easier access to local food. We really want to showcase the amazing food that’s being produced right here.”
That mission has the backing of the U.S. government. Locals Food Hub & Pizza Hub also received two sizeable USDA grants in 2022. A $400,000 disbursement came through the federal agency’s Local Food Promotion program and was spread over three years for building out infrastructure in the Frankfort store. A second grant, for $200,000, helped fund the opening of the Louisville location.
The NTHP/American Express grant now brings the total to $650,000 raised for the concept in three years. And it’s safe to say that every pie, such as the Pineapple Express (pictured below) sold in the pizzeria helps support the cause, too.
In a neighborhood like Smoketown, where many residents have to spend money they don’t have just to drive longer distances to a grocery store, Locals Food Hub & Pizza Pub makes it easier—and more affordable—to stock their home kitchens with good-for-you foods. And everyone benefits from the transaction.
”When [customers] spend a dollar here, that’s supporting a local farmer, that’s supporting a family in need to be able to afford more groceries, and that’s what we offer,” Bragg told Wave 3 last year.
“The old paradigm is that we [merchants sell] cheap processed food,” Bragg added. “We put [out] a 99-cent menu. We [open] a gas station that accepts SNAP for chips and Coke, and we put that in neighborhoods who need food the most. Why is that? We’re going to change that paradigm.”
He continued: “We’re putting…the most nutrient-rich foods on earth in the middle of the communities that need it the most, and then [coming] together as a community through programs like this and Double Dollars and grant programs and [finding] a way to get that food to the people that need it the most. That’s our call to action. That’s what we need help with.”
