2009 Restaurant Neighbor Award Winners
The National Restaurant Association and American Express salute restaurateurs who go above and beyond in giving back to their communities through the Restaurant Neighbor Award. Each year four national winners receive $5,000 each to continue their charitable works.
Scroll down to view the 2009 national winners and state finalists.
CORNERSTONE HUMANITARIAN
Alex Ray
The Common Man Family of Restaurants
Ashland, NH
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Alex Ray doesn't consider himself a philanthropist. His "doing good" philosophy is a matter of good business, he says. In the past 38 years, Ray's Common Man Family of Restaurants and its 800 employees have been involved in hundreds of fundraisers and company-wide community-service events. and economic empowerment programs.
NATIONAL LARGE BUSINESS WINNER
BJ's Restaurants, Inc
Locations nationwide
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BJ's Restaurants team members increasingly are on the lookout for ways to help their communities. When one of the Huntington Beach, Calif.-based company's 90 restaurants finds a suitable activity, its staff goes into TASC Force mode, or Team Action to Support Communities.
NATIONAL MID-SIZE BUSINESS WINNER
& Seafood Grille
Morristown, NJ
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When the Keller siblings took over their parents' restaurant in 1972, they inherited a sense of community service. "It was a natural progression from the example set by our parents. They were always involved in something."
NATIONAL SMALL BUSINESS WINNER
Washington, DC
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Bill Duggan was driving home from his beach house 13 years ago when he passed children playing on a run-down, inner-city playground. Duggan, who owns Madam's Organ, a Washington, D.C., restaurant and bar, wanted to give the children a chance to be kids
