The Little Village - Downtown

Few restaurants can claim they started with a raid. However, back in 1945, a young entrepreneur named Vince Distefano was running a card game called Georgia Skin out of a leased building on Florida Boulevard. The men played for horses and Vince's wife, Stephanie, made good tips cooking for the crowd. After a surprise morning visit from a local sheriff, the entire inhabitants, including the Distefanos were hauled off to jail. The sheriff, not above the occasional "unofficial" visit the Distefano establishment, offered some sage advice: Get out of town - at least outside the city limits. So the family bought a wooded seven-acre fishing camp on Airline Highway from the Catholic Church and built a new place beyond the long arm of the law. As the games' participants grew and the cars parked out front increased, travelers frequently mistook the building for a restaurant. Eventually, the Distefanos decided they might as well feed all those hungry motorists and The Village was born.