The 716 Has Stories Worth Telling.
We're Telling Them.

The Short Version

I grew up on Grand Island in the '70s. I spent 40 years in the restaurant industry. My first decade, I started as a pizza delivery driver for Domino's, worked my way up to manager, and eventually to corporate area supervisor overseeing 9 locations in Columbia, SC. Then I moved back home to Grand Island and spent the next 30 years with a local family restaurant chain, working my way from manager to Director of Operations and Business Systems. I've been in and out of more local businesses than I can count. I know what it takes to keep one alive.

When I left the restaurant business, I wanted to find a way to help locally owned small businesses that didn't require them to spend a fortune on advertising. So I created a co-op postcard — a big oversized mailer that rotates through every neighborhood on Grand Island, zone by zone, every month. Locally owned small businesses share the cost, and thousands of households get it in their mailbox. Simple.

But something else happened along the way.

The Stories

I started digging into the stories behind locally owned small businesses — not just the ones on the card, but businesses all over the 716 that stood out as something special. Not just what they do, but how they got here. Who started them. How long they've been around. And I kept finding the same thing: families that have been doing this for three, four, even five generations. Some of these stories have been written down before. Many haven't. Either way, they deserve to be kept alive for the next generation to find.

A 12-year-old dishwasher who grew up to buy the restaurant. A family that's been cooking in the same kitchen for eighty years. These are the kinds of stories we're uncovering across the 716 — and we're just getting started.

What 716 Spotlight Is Now

It started as a postcard. It's become something bigger. 716 Spotlight is a growing community of people across Western New York who care about where they live — the businesses, the families, the history, and the stories that connect us.

We tell those stories on Facebook, on our blog, and through the postcard that hits thousands of mailboxes every month. We're expanding from Grand Island into Kenmore, Tonawanda, North Tonawanda, and beyond. Every community in the 716 has stories worth telling.

If you're a business owner who wants to reach your neighbors, we can help. If you're someone who grew up in the 716 and wants to remember what made it special, you're in the right place. And if you know a story that needs to be told — tell us.

One Thing Worth Saying Plainly

A business doesn't have to advertise with us for us to tell its story. Some of the businesses we've written about are co-op partners. Plenty aren't, and never have been. We've never asked a business to buy anything before covering it, and we never will.

The co-op isn't a money-maker. It's a group of local businesses splitting the cost of printing and postage so a postcard can reach thousands of mailboxes that none of them could afford to reach alone. It pays for the card. It doesn't buy anybody a story.

If a story is worth telling, we'll tell it. That's the whole point.

— Rich