YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A Youngstown lawn care company built from scratch has taken home two statewide honors, as Buzz Bros LLC won both the Top Minority Business Enterprise and Top Family Business titles in the 2026 OhioMBE People’s Choice Awards, the Business Journal Daily reported on Monday, November 2.
The awards were presented at the 2026 OhioMBE Awards celebration held October 22 at Huntington Park in Columbus, where entrepreneurs, business advocates and community partners gathered for a statewide celebration of small-business excellence, according to the Ohio Business Development Center, which presents the awards.
The People’s Choice titles were decided by the public: readers cast 13,176 votes across four categories, the Ohio Business Development Center said. Buzz Bros earned the voters’ support in two of them — Top Minority Business Enterprise and Top Family Business — a double win no other company matched this year.
For the company’s owners, the hardest part of the whole run was not the work or the voting. “We’ve had nightmares on the news,” co-owner Alexi Psaras told the Business Journal Daily of the owners’ experiences fielding interviews.
The Youngstown company headlined a winners’ list that stretched across Ohio. Purdie Cleaning LLC of Cincinnati and Fairfield won Top Female Business Enterprise, Village Capital Corporation of Cleveland took Top Nonprofit, and Next Step Recovery Center LLC received Top Family Business recognition in the judged categories alongside an Ohio Women’s Chamber of Commerce certification, according to the Ohio Business Development Center.
The OhioMBE Awards are presented by the Ohio Business Development Center and built around a theme of “Cash, Contracts, Connections,” bringing business owners together with financial institutions, procurement professionals, construction companies and business-resource organizations, the center said.
The Ohio Business Development Center said the awards support its year-round work providing training, technical assistance and business-development resources to Ohio companies, with presenting partners including the Franklin County Office of Economic Engagement and Community Development and Wright-Patt Credit Union.
The Business Journal Daily first profiled Buzz Bros in October, when the company earned its statewide award nominations. Monday’s report confirmed the nominations turned into two trophies — and a statewide spotlight for a Mahoning Valley family business that started, as its owners put it, from scratch.