Louisville’s Metropolitan Business Development Corporation (METCO) announced yesterday that four local businesses would be receiving loans from Louisville Metro Government.  The recipients include a new restaurant and brew pub, a self-serve yogurt bar, a book store that carries rare books and an expanded massage clinic that will create new jobs.

A total of $200,000 in loans was approved by the Louisville Metropolitan Business Development Corporation, with an overall potential investment of $1,020,000.

Projects include:

• $40,000 loan to Choices Yogurt Bar, LLC located 2214 Holiday Manor Court. The loan will allow owner William Cohen to open a self-serve yogurt bar that offers a variety of healthy toppings customers pick out themselves.

• $30,000 loan to A Reader’s Corner, LLC. The loan will allow owners Tim and Judy Fout to move their book store, which sells used, new, rare and out of print books, to 2044 Frankfort Avenue. The location will provide a better work space and more walk-in traffic.

• $30,000 loan to Kentucky Massage Clinics, LLC. The loan will allow owner Laurance Levine to move his business, a Massage Envy franchise location, from a 3200 square-foot space to a 3700 square-foot location within the Shelbyville Road Plaza. The expansion will create five new jobs.

• $100,000 loan to Against the Grain, LLC. The loan will allow owners Adam Watson, Jerry Gnagy and Samuel J. Cruz to purchase Browning’s restaurant from Paula Barmore and open a new restaurant and brew pub, located at Slugger Field.

METCO is dedicated to the notion that small businesses are the backbone of our Louisville economy.  And when they thrive and expand, they bring needed services and shops to neighborhoods across the city.

The Metropolitan Business Development Corporation (METCO) governs metro government's small business loans, which include facade, retail forgivable and gap financing loans. For more information about the city’s small-business loan program, visit http://www.louisvilleky.gov/economicdevelopment/METCO.htm.