Then and Now

The Village Inn has long been a popular Gambier restaurant and gathering place. The photo at top right shows students at the bar in the restaurant's paneled front room in 1949, two years after the inn was built. Fast forward to April 2007 (below right), when a handsomely refurbished "VI" opened its doors after lying vacant for five years--the former proprietors had moved their operation to Mount Vernon in 2002. Much is familiar: paneling, window arches, friendly barroom booths. The bar is where it always was, although it's now clad in classy copper. The menu is more contemporary, too. Margaret Lewis and Joel Gunderson, who also run the Middle Ground Café, operate the new restaurant, along with Jerry Kelly '96. The original restaurant was owned by Jim Hayes, the celebrated "Grocer of Gambier."

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