BILLINGS — Earlier this week, Village Inn was forced to take down its sign in front of its building on Central Avenue due to a Billings city code violation.
The sign is from the original location, which was on Grand Avenue since 1968 before it was demolished in March of 2023.
Watch this video to see the Village Inn's owners' reaction to losing the sign:
Before the building was taken down, new co-owner Britt Smith and her family salvaged all they could from the inside, with plans of moving the business to its new location. That new spot opened up to happy Billings residents in November of 2023.
"We've worked really hard to truly not change anything," Smith said on Friday afternoon. "The idea was to keep it the same, so when you sit down and you're at the same table that you were at 30 years ago, you know, we want it to bring you back."
And you can see the effort put into that goal when you walk inside the doors. Practically everything has been kept from the original building.
"Right when they order, they see the old front door," Smith said, listing the familiarity in their new shop. "They look up at the lights, they look at the table and chairs, and they love that they get their soda out of the famous red plastic cup."
Perhaps most important, the same oven and some of the original staff are also at the new spot — much to the enjoyment of customers such as Shawn Murray.
"I think it's a little nostalgic that, yeah, the old Village Inn is still around," Murray said. "We used to go down there all the time for lunch."
Murray said he appreciates Smith's effort to try and make the new location's atmosphere the same.
"We want to keep that pizza going around," Murray said. "I mean, my son loves the pizza here. It's kind of an iconic pizza place in Billings."
That history existed all the way out to the curb, where Smith had also rescued the original shield-shaped sign from in front of the old building and proudly displayed it for drivers to see on Central Avenue.
"That sign, you know, just as iconic as the A-frame building," Smith said. "It was really important to us to save it and find somewhere to put it."
But this week, that sign was taken down by City Code Enforcement due to a violation.
"We were going to be issued quite a hefty fine and a possible small jail sentence," Smith said. "That seemed a little extreme for the situation."
According to Planning and Community Services Director Wyeth Friday, the sign was "too close to neighboring property line" and the city "had received complaints when the sign was being installed."
Friday said the city alerted the business of the violation immediately, but the sign was installed anyway.
Smith said they weren't going out of their way to be non-compliant, but rather focused on bringing an additional piece of history with them.
"We never intentionally did anything to not respect or abide by permit requirements," Smith said. "The last thing we want is to have issues with our city."
Smith said that they are determined to find a new location for the sign that is up to code.
"It's in safe, safe keeping," Smith said with a smile. "We just have to find a new home for it. It's going to take a little brainstorming, but we're going to make sure we use it."
