LEXINGTON, Ky. — Restaurants in Lexington have been serving up Pride this past week, with portions of proceeds benefiting the city’s PrideFest later this month.

Ellie Harman, has owned High On Art and Coffee for nearly a decade. She’s been supporting the Lexington Pride Center and PrideFest ever since. She said she wears her beliefs on her chest.

“We want it to feel like you’re coming into grandma’s house; I even have grandma on my nametag. We have a lot of college kids, high school kids. We just want you to know this is a safe place to be,” Harman said.

High on Art and Coffee is part art shop, part café and is covered in pride decor. It’s one of 18 businesses participating in Lexington’s Pride Restaurant Week.

“It’s a great opportunity to give back to the community; we have wonderful customers that are part of the LGBT community. Not only customers but employees too,” Harman said.

A percentage of the proceeds from participating businesses help support Lexington Pride Fest and the Lexington Pride Center.

“Lexington Pride Center provides a lot of resources and information and outreach to the LGBTQIA community here in the Bluegrass area and surrounding area,” said PrideFest chair, Jeremy Ellis.

Ellis said it’s the fifth Pride Restaurant Week and every year it brings acceptance and awareness to the community.

“It’s grown exponentially, since we’ve started, we always get more and more participating businesses so it really does increase the profits we get every year and gets us awareness for the center and festival,” Ellis said.

Harman said seeing more and more businesses take part shows Kentuckians are becoming more accepting.

“In my opinion, with all the hate in the world, all we have to do is keep spreading love; we need to accept everybody for who we are and love everybody,” Harman said.

Pride Restaurant Week is June 7-June 15 and Lexington PrideFest is Saturday June 29.