Village Inn becomes second Lindale eatery to close in four months

CEDAR RAPIDS - Village Inn, a chain of casual dining restaurants, closed its Lindale Mall location on Monday without any advance notice to customers or employees.

It was the second restaurant to close on the perimeter of the northeast Cedar Rapids retail center in the last four months. Burger King, another long time tenant, shut down on Jan. 3.

In a statement, Village Inn President Jeff Guido said the decision to close the restaurant at 229 Collins Rd. NE was the 'result of factors involving our lease.” Guido said all of the restaurant's employees have been offered the opportunity to work at the chain's Coralville or Iowa City restaurants.

The 38,000-square-foot Village Inn building was constructed in 1985, according to the Cedar Rapids City Assessor's office. American Ribbon Holdings of Nashville, Tenn., the Village Inn franchisee, leases the building from Pan Style Pizza Partnership.

The building originally housed a Rocky Rococo Pizza & Pasta restaurant. Village Inn remodeled it to provide a dining room and kitchen.

When Perry Beaton of Beaton Inc., the owner of the Burger King at Lindale, announced plans in December to close the fast-food restaurant, he cited a proposed rent increase and an inability to negotiate purchase of the property from the mall owner.

'The lease came up and our rates went up,” Beaton said. 'We wanted to do a scrape (demolish) and rebuild, but we just couldn't do it economically on a leased piece of ground. It just doesn't make sense.”

Beaton said the impending widening of a third of a mile of Collins Road NE by Lindale Mall to six lanes over the next two years also influenced his decision.

Beaton said he hopes to find a new location for a Burger King in northeast Cedar Rapids. He indicated that it could take as much as a year before the new location would open for business.