History
Three generations of the Vallee family welcome you to the Village Inn restaurant. This landmark building started out in the 1950’s as a small drive-in-diner.
1955 Normand returned home from the Navy and shortly thereafter decided that the business world would be his chosen field. His first entrepreneurial endeavor started with the purchase “Veteran’s Potato Chips” of Greene, Maine.
1963 At the recommendation of Norm’s father-in-law; Mr. Poulin, Norm and his brother Bob purchased “Eddie’s Drive-In Diner”. At the time, the diner served primarily the textile/shoe industry workers along with the general public. The brothers enjoyed a number of successful years in the business until they decided to close the diner in 1974. Through the intervening years, they leased out the building under such names as “The Captain’s Table”, “Sir Richard’s” and “Ye Village Inn”, but finally closed in 1978.
1979 At the urging of Norm’s son Don, they decided to reopen the restaurant under it’s current name and later became sole owner of the business known as “The Village Inn”.
1989 Having continually made the State of Maine’s Top Ten List, The Village Inn was named “L/A Areas Top Grossing Restaurant”.
1997 – 2007 Voted L/A Areas “Best Seafood Restaurant” ten years running.
2001 February 10th, Don Vallee passed away unexpectedly.
2002 His former apartment was renovated as “Captain Don’s Loft”, a new banquet facility in honor of his memory.
2004 – 2007 At the local Chili and Chowder Challenge Event our seafood chowder won first place awards each year.
Through the years we have supported many independent fisherman by buying our seafood from the ocean daily. Ninety percent of our dishes are made from scratch with all natural ingredients and we always use care in the preparation of all of our menu items. We believe our achievements have been attained from our commitment to quality along with our commitment to our family, staff and community. We have a genuine desire to give back to the people and communities that have supported us and contributed to our success over the years.
2007 April 26, the building sustained a fire that destroyed the storage area and most of the kitchen. A second alarm was called into fight a fire that kindled in a crawl space, which destroyed “The Loft”. The front areas had remained intact so we couldn’t bring ourselves to tear this building down completely. Instead we chose to salvage this landmark building with wonderful memories by rebuilding the kitchen storage areas and gutting the front to remove any smoke damage. We encountered numerous setbacks due to the age of this structure and current code issues. What we hoped would be a six-month project turned into a two plus year undertaking. Due to extensive and costly upgrades, we were unable to complete “The Loft” during the initial stages of reconstruction.
We hope you enjoy our new look as we continue to build memories and that favorite long awaited Village Dish is even better than you remember.
