POCATELLO — A local eatery known for an initiative to provide a free hot meal to high school students, homeless people or anyone struggling to make ends meet is being sold and is looking for a new home.

From its North Main Street location in Historic Downtown Pocatello, Villano’s Italian built a loyal customer base and developed a dedicated crew of employees that helped the restaurant’s owners, Lisa and Aaron Villano, weather several unforeseen circumstances over the past eight years.

Lisa experienced a massive heart attack in the late spring of 2019 and just a few months later the restaurant had to adjust its business model on the fly to withstand the restrictions put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

No matter the setback, Villano’s found a way to push through but after learning their lease will not be renewed for 2022, Lisa and Aaron made the difficult decision to sell the business and help the new owners find a new permanent location.

“There is no question that this is a bittersweet moment for us,” Aaron said. “We started this business from scratch and over the years created a business that was a massive success. This little old restaurant was a big deal in our customer’s eyes. We grew this business from nothing and could not have done it without the support of our customers, employees and the entire community.”

Villano’s will remain open on North Main Street until Dec. 23 and the new owners will take over on Jan. 1, Aaron said. Because the restaurant will need to find a new location, the new ownership will announce when Villano’s will open again, but the community can expect that to happen sometime in 2022, Aaron added.

“Our current building’s new landlords aren’t renewing the lease and have their own ideas for the building, but all of the guts from Villano’s will go with the new owners,” Aaron said. “All they need is an open space to put the kitchen equipment, which may require a little transitory period with some remodeling that may need to happen.”

Villano’s Pizza Forward Initiative is another aspect of the restaurant that will transfer over to the new owners and building. A program that began with Villano’s offering free meals to high school students who didn’t have money to purchase lunch grew to include a free hot meal for any person experiencing homelessness, and ultimately, to anyone who came in and asked for a meal, no questions asked, Aaron said. It allows customers to purchase a $2 slice of pizza for somebody who is homeless or doesn’t otherwise have the means to pay for a hot meal.

“Our Pizza Forward Initiative started eight years ago when we decided that high school kids who didn’t have money for lunch could come in for a hot meal,” Aaron said. “We expanded it to include the homeless and those in need of our community and eventually set up a system where customers or community members could come in and buy a slice of pizza and we would put a heart on the wall with their name on it so they could take care of other people that needed to eat.”

Aaron continued, “We gave away a countless number of hot meals and we are pushing for that program to continue under the new ownership.”

In addition to their customer base and employees, the Villano’s owners want to extend a huge thank you to Stephanie Palagi, the president and chief executive officer of Historic Downtown Pocatello, and to their many downtown neighbors.

Palagi reverberated the thanks and said she is working with the new ownership to keep Villano’s in the downtown area.

“My office is working with the new owners to keep Villano’s in the Downtown area at a new location,” Palagi said. “We wish Aaron and Lisa all the best in their retirement and next adventures. They have been an amazing, caring, generous part of our neighborhood and they will be missed.”