$50K grant helps ‘rejuvenate’ Dublin restaurant

The grant was awarded to 50 small restaurants around the country.

DUBLIN, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Miller’s soul food in downtown Dublin received a $50,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The grant was awarded to 50 small restaurants around the country to “rejuvenate or expand.” Co-owner Shenita Hunt-Brown says the money was used to renovate the exterior of the building, and that it was crucial for the future of the nearly 70-year-old business.

“We’re trying to make this a third generation ownership by me being here,” Hunt-Brown said. “And with that, we’re trying to keep the food the same. We’re trying to keep the traditions of the food and hospitality the same. And keep people coming in here for generations and generations to come.”

Hunt-Brown’s grandmother, Ardessa Wright Miller, opened Miller’s Soul Food Restaurant in 1955. The business is a landmark in Dublin, as it was the city’s only integrated restaurant prior to and during the Civil Rights Movement. It’s now Dublin’s oldest restaurant and the city’s only Black-owned restaurant.

Hunt-Brown and her cousins grew up helping their grandparents around the restaurant in her teenage years. She lived in Florida for more than 35 years and is an active singer and songwriter. The appreciation she gained for her family’s business over the years brought her back home to help her mother maintain it.

“I started to value it once I realized that you couldn’t get this kind of food everywhere, and you couldn’t have a traditional soul food restaurant in every city you went to,” Hunt-Brown said. “It really made me learn to appreciate the value of this place.”

For more information about the National Trust for Historic Preservation, click here.