Preston — When someone told Mystic restaurant owner Gary Hobert over a year ago that a pizza restaurant in Preston was for sale, he almost dismissed the idea.

“I said, ‘I don’t know. The only thing I know about Preston is that I get my Christmas trees at Maple Lane farm,’” the Noank resident said last week.

But he and his wife, Amy Hobert, co-owners of Friar Tuck’s Tavern in Mystic, drove through Preston and were intrigued. They met with Denise Mortimer, owner of popular Village Pizza at 353 Route 165 in Fleming’s Shopping Center.

Tragedy had struck the Mortimer family, and more was to come. Denise’s husband, Thomas Mortimer, had died several months earlier, and a few weeks after the Hoberts met with her in March 2021, Denise also died April 28, 2021, after a brief battle with cancer.

Village Pizza closed, and the Hoberts kept talking with the Mortimer family to buy the restaurant and reopen.

“We were going to just reopen, but by the time probate was done, we ended up purchasing it in September,” Gary Hobert said.

The Hoberts decided to renovate before reopening. Amy liked the traditional country décor with rooster motifs, but they decided on a "modern country” look, with walls of rustic red and gray wood panels, a pattern called “tomato paste," Amy said. Plants sit on high black shelves. Amy enlisted her cousin, who works at Holdridge Home & Garden in Ledyard, to help decorate.

The most notable change is evident upon opening the front door. The Hoberts removed the narrow walled-off center aisle that had isolated the entrance from seating areas on either side. They replaced tile and carpet with laminate floor, put square tables in the center dining room and booths along the walls.

A second door is the take-out entrance with a counter and register just inside the entrance.

The barroom to the right also has a new look, with lattice panels removed and a new bar top. The wall dividing the bar area from the center smaller dining room, often used as a party room, will be replaced with folding “barn doors.” Amy Hobert said that will allow family parties and banquets for youth groups, such as Little League or Scout troops to be segregated from the bar.

“Some people said, ‘change the name,’” but people know it,” Gary Hobert said of Village Pizza. “It’s the same name, but a different restaurant.”

The couple will keep Friar Tuck’s, which opened five years ago, as well.

Village Pizza reopened quietly with a limited menu Feb. 1. Several familiar faces, including 34-year employee Darlene Majewski and a handful of wait staff from the previous restaurant among the 37 mostly part-time staff. Two of the Hoberts’ five children, sons Gary Jr., an undergraduate senior at the University of Connecticut, and Nicholas, a student at Fitch High School in Groton, work there part time.

“It’s different, but it’s a good thing,” Majewski, 59, said. “I’m glad it’s open again. It’s nice again. It was a tough thing for (the Mortimers). Within a year, both passed away.”

Gary and Amy Hobert pledged that Village Pizza will have affordable, fresh food from local sources, an expanding menu as the region and supply chains recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and a welcoming atmosphere.

“When you come in, we want you to feel at home, whether you come in wearing a three-piece suit or pajamas,” Amy Hobert said. Friar Tuck's gets both at the same time, she said.

Gary Hobert said there are similarities between the Mystic and Preston eateries. In Mystic, it’s fishermen and summer boaters, he said. In Preston, it will be farmers and summer campers. Both will attract locals and visitors. “Of course, Mystic has the tourists,” he said.

For years, Gary Hobert tried to entice family friend and chef Jacki Darigan to work at Friar Tuck’s, but the Gales Ferry resident declined. A graduate of Johnson & Wales University culinary school in Rhode Island, Darigan had been running employee food services at the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford since 2012.

When the Hoberts asked her to come to Village Pizza as executive chef, she agreed. She brought along a veteran restaurateur familiar to Norwich diners, Joy Chalifoux, former owner of Joy’s Restaurant on West Thames Street. Chalifoux, a Preston resident, sold the restaurant in 2010 to join Darigan at Millstone.

The new Village Pizza will have Italian American fare, with thin crust pizza, pasta specialties — “her meatballs are incredible, and the sauce,” Gary Hobert said of Chalifoux — chicken parmesan and seafood. The menu started expanding last week, with appetizer and dinner specials, soup of the day and seafood specials for Lent, Darigan said. Shrimp marsala, fish tacos and fresh mussels are coming, Darigan said.

“We’ll keep it fun,” she said.

And with breakfast specialist Chalifoux aboard, expanding to breakfast hours also is under consideration.

For now, the restaurant opens at 11:30 for lunch and dinner. Most of the lunch traffic has been takeout so far, Majewski said. There's live music Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon, everything from rock and classic rock to country, folk and jazz, Gary Hobert said.

“People have been very, very accepting, and very patient,” Amy Hobert said. “The first few days, we opened with no publicity. We were so busy. Everyone was just anticipating the restaurant reopening.”

c.bessette@theday.com