Village Inn is a casual-dining restaurant chain in the United States. Its restaurants are known for their breakfast menu items. Also, they feature a variety of salads, sandwiches, burgers, melts, and dinner items. Their

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...

s have won numerous awards from the

American Pie Council The American Pie Council (APC) is an organization committed to "preserving America's pie heritage and promoting America's love affair with pies." As America's only purely pie-focused national organization, the APC combines aspects of a Club (organi ...

. As of January 2023, the company operates 121 locations in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico,

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. In September 2015, Village Inn operated 212 restaurants. This was reduced in bankruptcy proceedings, leading to sale of the chain in July 2021 to Village Inn's new parent company, BBQ Holdings, Inc., based in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

History

Village Inn was founded by James Mola and Merton Anderson, who opened the first Village Inn Pancake House in Denver in 1958 at 8855 East Colfax Avenue. They incorporated as Village Inn Pancake House, Inc., in December 1959, and began

franchising Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its busine ...

in 1961, with Dow Sherwood opening the first franchised locations in

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

. In 1982, Village Inn became the publicly traded Vicorp Restaurants, Inc. Vicorp acquired the Poppin' Fresh Pies chain from Pillsbury in May 1983, renaming it Bakers Square. In 1984, VICORP acquired 71 restaurants from Ralston Purina's Continental Restaurant Systems division and 175 former Sambo's restaurants in California, Florida, and Arizona. The California locations were converted to Bakers Square restaurants, while the Florida and Arizona locations were converted to Village Inns, but the conversions led to a decline in profits for the company and 15 of the converted Florida locations closed by 1989.

By the end of the 1980s, "Pancake House" was dropped from the name of the chain as Village Inn began offering lunch and dinner menus in addition to breakfast. During the early 1990s, all Village Inn restaurants underwent a large-scale renovation that featured new green

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

s and neon signage. In May 2001, the investment firms of Goldner, Hawn, Johnson, and Morrison, Inc., and BancBoston Capital acquired VICORP, and the company has been privately held ever since. In late 1993, Vicorp acquired the rights to a small Florida chain called Angel's Diner from founder Eric A. Holm. Unfortunately, he had also sold the rights to Golden Corral and Vicorp was forced to pay Golden Corral $1 million to secure the exclusive rights. The intent was to convert underperforming Village Inn and Bakers Square units to this new concept. After building seven units, Vicorp realized that the concept was not economically viable and wrote off $11 million on the venture. During this time frame, Eric Holm filed for personal bankruptcy. On April 3, 2008, Vicorp filed for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code, and closed 56 company-owned restaurants as a result of the move, leaving a total of 343 Village Inn and Bakers Square locations. In 2009, American Blue Ribbon Holdings, a company owned by Fidelity National Financial and Newport Global Advisors, acquired the assets of Vicorp, including Village Inn and Bakers Square. In 2010, Village Inn locations started updating to the new corporate logo, with several locations implementing it. On January 24, 2020, Village Inn closed 24 locations suddenly, with employees showing up for their shifts met by locked doors. Locations closed in Arizona include Chandler (Alma School Rd), Gilbert, Mesa (Dobson Rd and McKellips Rd), and Phoenix (Bell Rd at 3rd). Aurora (Colfax Ave), Broomfield, Littleton (Ken Caryl Ave), Castle Rock, Monument, and Wheat Ridge locations closed in Colorado, while Lakeland, Tampa (N Dale Mabry Hwy), and Winter Garden locations closed in Florida. Iowa lost locations in Clinton, Coralville, and Des Moines. Locations closed in North Salt Lake City, Orem, Roy, Sandy, and West Jordan, Utah, along with Omaha, Nebraska (Dodge St) and Albuquerque, New Mexico (La Orilla). On January 27, 2020, American Blue Ribbon Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after closing a total of 33 locations across both brands. On September 14, 2020, Village Inn emerged from bankruptcy protection with 140 locations as a subsidiary of restructured parent company, VIBSQ Holdings LLC. In July 2021, VIBSQ Holdings was sold to BBQ Holdings, parent of Famous Dave's chain of barbecue restaurants.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Village Inn website
Fidelity National Financial Restaurants in Denver Economy of the Midwestern United States Economy of the Western United States Regional restaurant chains in the United States Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020 Restaurants established in 1958 Restaurant franchises Pancake houses 1958 establishments in Colorado

History

See also

References

External links