Kyaw “Joe” Myint, owner of Silver Spring’s longtime Burmese restaurant Mandalay Restaurant & Café, says the $5,000 small business grant he was awarded by the state in May to offset losses from construction of the Purple Line felt like a “joke.”
“Yes, $5,000 will come in and it might help this month a little bit, but in the long run it’s just one little dent,” Myint told Bethesda Today in mid-June.
Myint is one of several recipients of the state’s first round of Purple Line small business grants who say they are disappointed by the amounts they were awarded, saying the money is too little and too late after nearly 8 years of construction on the 16-mile light-rail line.
In May, the Maryland Department of Transportation announced that more than 100 businesses in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties that have been impacted by construction were awarded grants ranging from $1,000 to $40,000 — for a total of $1 million in funds distributed. More than 450 businesses applied for the grants, according to the department.
Among the 46 Montgomery County businesses that were awarded grants are El Golfo Restaurant in Silver Spring; the Barking Dog and Puree Artisan Juice Bar in Bethesda; and Norman’s Farm Market in Chevy Chase.
“Maryland’s investment in the Purple Line represents a tremendous economic growth opportunity that will connect communities from Bethesda to New Carrollton,” Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul J. Wiedefeld said in a press release announcing the grant recipients. “These grants will support small businesses whose operations are impacted by construction to ensure they are ready to thrive once the Purple Line opens.”
Myint’s restaurant has been at 930 Bonifant St. in downtown Silver Spring since 2004. It was previously owned by his parents and briefly closed from 2021 to 2022, but reopened after overwhelming support from loyal customers. While Myint is grateful to receive a state grant, he said the money will do little to cover the restaurant’s operating costs and other bills.
Facing financial pressure as the construction continues to impact the eatery’s foot traffic and revenue, Myint took to social media this month to ask for support from the community.
“We have come to a fork in the road,” he wrote. “This summer, your patronage is crucial for Mandalay to remain open and serve you as we have for nearly 30 years.”
Mandalay is among a number of businesses and restaurants near and along the Purple Line corridor that have been struggling financially as the years of ongoing construction – included blocked streets and impassable sidewalks — have decreased customer foot traffic and sales.
Construction on the light rail line began in 2017, and state officials expect the Purple Line to be complete and open for service in late 2027.
In downtown Silver Spring, local businesses are facing another blow with the 2-month-long temporary closure of a busy intersection at Wayne Avenue and Fenton Street in the heart of downtown. That intersection is expected to be closed to traffic until Aug. 21 to allow Purple Line crews to install tracks and perform other construction-related activities.
Myint said he was grateful to be awarded the state grant, though he’s yet to receive the money. When he does, Myint said it won’t cover the rising cost of food, employee wages, on top of the restaurant’s rent and utility bills.
“Money is money. Does it help? Maybe. But is it helping every restaurant or every business on this road survive? No, everybody dying,” Myint said.
Kefa Café co-owner Abeba Tsegaye, whose eatery is on the same block as Mandalay, told Bethesda Today recently her business has never been as “hurt” as it is right now in the nearly three decades the café has been at 963 Bonifant St.
“The past two and a half years, we’ve gotten hit so badly,” Tsegaye said, looking out the café’s windows at a recently completed sidewalk and newly installed light-rail tracks. That’s why news that the café would receive a $2,500 state grant felt like an “insult,” she said.
“I felt like they did not think about it,” she said, noting the money would not cover the café’s biggest expenses, such as rent and utilities. “They did not come and see how much we got hurt, because this [construction] didn’t start last year or three months ago.”
Kefa Café has been at its spot on Bonifant Street for 29 years. Photo credit: Elia Griffin 
Decades-worth of photos of customers as children and their children are taped to the neighborhood cafe’s walls. Photo credit: Elia Griffin 
Kefa Café at 963 Bonifant St. offers coffee, teas, baked goods and quiet space to work or meet with friends. Photo credit: Elia Griffin
Jackie Greenbaum, owner of downtown Silver Spring’s Quarry House Tavern at 8401 Georgia Ave., also was disappointed by the amount of the state grant awarded to her business. Greenbaum told Bethesda Today in mid-June that while the construction had been a “disaster” for the business, the possibility of receiving a substantial state grant offered a glimmer of hope.
Due to the long-term financial impacts, Greenbaum said she believed the bar would qualify for the maximum grant — $50,000 – that the state could award.
“Lo and behold, they gave us a $10,000 grant,” Greenbaum said. “Ten lousy thousand dollars. It barely pays — it’s a fraction of — I mean, it’s laughable.”
In downtown Bethesda, John McManus, owner of The Barking Dog, told Bethesda Today he sympathizes with the businesses facing challenges from the Purple Line construction.
“I truly feel bad for the people in Silver Spring and parts of Prince George’s County where the road in front of their business have been torn up. At least in front of my business I’ve got a road, and I’ve got access,” McManus said, whose bar and grill at 4723 Elm St. has been a staple of the downtown Bethesda community for 25 years. “I can’t imagine what those people are dealing with.”
According to McManus, The Barking Dog was awarded a $40,000 Purple Line grant. McManus said the grant would help pay operating expenses and wages, ensuring the bar’s 25 employees can continue to “earn a living wage.”
“This grant, for what it’s worth, is going to be very helpful to mitigate some of the gnashing of teeth that I’ve had for the last eight years, tolerating all this madness. And believe me, it is madness,” McManus said, referring to the construction.
In response to the disappointment expressed by some businesses, Purple Line spokesperson Ken Forsythe did not directly address the concerns, but said in a mid-June email to Bethesda Today said “there is tremendous construction progress being made across the Purple Line alignment and we recognize the impacts that construction has on the community.”
Slated for late 2027 completion
When completed, the Purple Line will run from Bethesda to New Carrollton and connect riders to the Metro’s Red, Green and Orange lines as well as to MARC and Amtrak trains and bus services. Construction of the line and its 21 stations by a public-private partnership has faced numerous delays and cost increases since the project’s inception in 2016.
State transportation officials expect the Purple Line will be open for service in late 2027. Last summer, the first Purple Line railcars arrived in Prince George’s County. As of June, the project is more than 78% complete, and more than 50% of track has been installed, according to Forsythe.
One of the latest cost increases involves construction of a mezzanine at the Bethesda Metro station that would connect a Purple Line station to the existing Metro Red Line station. The project’s cost has increased 20-fold from an initial estimate of $2.4 million, The Washington Post reported Dec. 30. In December, a $52 million contract to build the mezzanine was announced.
County and state grants for businesses
In an effort to support the businesses along the Purple Line construction corridor, the county and state have offered various grant programs to businesses that apply. In 2023, Montgomery County offered three rounds of $5,000 grants targeting small, independently owned and operated businesses along the Purple Line construction route. Applications for the last round of those grants closed in September 2023 and it is unclear how many grants were awarded during that time.
In addition, 40 businesses along Bonifant Street and Piney Branch Road in Silver Spring received monthly stipends of up to $1,800 during fiscal year 2025, which ends Monday. The stipend came from a $900,000 allocation in the county’s fiscal year 2025 operating budget, according to Gene Smith, manager of the Montgomery County Business Center. Fiscal year 2025 ends June 30.
Naddia Clute, a manager at the county business center, told Bethesda Today on Thursday that the county won’t be offering a grant program for businesses in fiscal year 2026, which starts Tuesday. But the business center will be “leveraging” the state-run grant program and making sure businesses are aware of it.
The awarding of state grants in May is part of the state transportation department’s $4 million small business grant program, which will distribute funds to selected applicants in several rounds of grants until 2028, Forsythe told Bethesda Today in an email.
The MDOT grant program was created using funding received through a contract re-negotiation with Purple Line Transit Partners, which was approved by Maryland’s Board of Public Works in March 2024, according to an MDOT news release announcing the program. Purple Line Transit Partners is the MDOT’s private-sector partner in the construction, operation and maintenance of the Purple Line and is run by project majority partners Meridiam and Star America.
In order to be eligible for the grant program, applicants must operate a customer-facing business within one-quarter of a mile of the Purple Line route in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. In addition, businesses must have been open since Jan. 1, 2022, and qualify under the state’s definition of a small business by having 50 or fewer employees and gross sales averaging $2 million or less, or certification in the state’s Small Business Reserve Program.
Eligible businesses could receive up to $50,000 each, depending on their location and construction impacts, according to MDOT. The second round of applications is due by July 11 and business owners can apply online.
According to Forsythe, a third round of grants will be available starting in October. The application period for the third round opens Oct. 6 and closes Nov. 14. Recipients will be announced on or about Dec. 16, Forsythe said.
Not all businesses impacted by the construction are eligible to apply for the grant program. One such business is Café Via Roma, which opened in September at 911 Bonifant St. and is now temporarily closed due to Purple Line construction, the Source of the Spring reported Saturday.
Negussie did not respond to Bethesda Today’s email request for comment this week about the reason for the café’s temporary closure. The café was not eligible to apply for a state grant because the grants were open only to businesses open since January 2022.
The café, at the foot of the Silver Spring library and a future Purple Line station, is now feet away from the construction, impacting the intersection at Wayne Avenue and Fenton Street.
In January, café owner Eden Negussie told Bethesda Today the construction had been “very hard” on her business and wondered, “How are we going to survive?”
Waiting for the money
As of this week, none of the businesses to whom Bethesda Today spoke to have received their state grants. When asked why, Forsythe apologized for the delays in a June 17 email to Bethesda Today, stating that there were “delays in processing” the grants.
“Businesses who elected to receive payments electronically should receive payment this week,” Forsythe said. “Payments sent by mail may extend into next week depending on mail delivery. Questions from grant recipients that have not yet received payment can be sent to: purplelinebusinessgrants@mdot.maryland.gov.”
Meanwhile, businesses continue to be impacted by the Purple Line construction.
McManus said The Barking Dog, which is between Woodmont and Wisconsin avenues in Bethesda, has for years struggled with lower customer traffic since the construction started. The eatery’s portion of Elm Street is blocked off from Wisconsin Avenue, turning the street into a dead end.
“Every single truck that delivers here has to turn around and do a U-turn on the street,” McManus said. “The street is an abomination.”
Greenbaum echoed McManus’s sentiment about the impact of Purple Line construction, describing the construction site outside of the bar’s steps as “post-apocalyptic,” with the work obstructing deliveries and making it difficult for bands booked to play to find parking so they can unload their instruments.
“It looks like Thunder Dome from Mad Max or something,” Greenbaum told Bethesda Today. “The construction, the barriers, the disruption, the tearing up of the street. It’s been horrible and then, of course, it has dragged on and on.”
Forsythe said the Purple Line team recognizes the “impacts that construction has of the community,” and encouraged residents and businesses to “stay informed” about construction updates through the Purple Line website, monthly newsletter, emailed alerts and community meetings.
Though disappointed by the amount awarded to the Quarry House Tavern, Greenbaum did note the money would help pay the bar’s general operational expenses, especially in the slower summer months.
“It will help in a small way toward alleviating that sort of imbalance, the pressures on the business during the summer,” said Greenbaum, who expects to apply for the next round of state grants.
Despite the disappointment, Tsegaye of Kefa Café also said she and her co-owner still plan to apply for the next round of the state’s small business Purple Line grants.
“We’re going to try to hang in there, but we need a lot of support to be open here. We don’t want to close after 29 years,” Tsegaye said, noting the business celebrated its 29th anniversary on Bonifant Street on June 10.
Bethesda Today reporter Ginny Bixby contributed to this report.
