AUBURN – Ask Normand Vallee if the Village Inn will be back and he barely draws a breath before answering.

“Oh, for sure,” he said. “We’ve got a great future. Tomorrow, we start cleaning up and rebuilding. We should be back in 30 to 60 days.”

Vallee, one of the owners of the famed seafood restaurant, spoke of an early-morning blaze that ripped through the back of the High Street building. It was disappointing, he said, and an obvious setback.

But Vallee also recalls nearly 50 years of success with the restaurant and a customer base that has made the Village Inn consistently one of the top-grossing restaurants in the state.

“We have a lot of loyal customers. We are involved with a lot of organizations and kids groups,” he said. “They need us, and we need them. We’re a people restaurant.”

The fire was reported about 12:30 a.m. Thursday. By the time fire crews had subdued the flames hours later, damage to the insured building was estimated at $800,000.

As Vallee points out, it could have been worse. The fire was limited to the kitchen and storage rooms while other parts of the building were damaged by heat and smoke.

The dining room, the photos hanging on walls, historic documents and other memorabilia survived the heat, flames and smoke. That was due in large part to the decision of firefighters to try to save the front of the building as the back of it burned.

“While the rear of the building was burning, the firefighters were inside pushing the flames right out the back,” said Fire Prevention and Investigating Officer Gary Simard. “The tactics and strategies they employed were excellent. The firefighters saved a lot.”

Simard said the fire started around the kitchen in the back of the building. The cause remained under investigation while local and state fire officials tried to narrow a list of three possibilities – smoking, electrical malfunction or faulty equipment in the kitchen.

The fire, Simard said, was almost surely accidental.

Meanwhile, Vallee said the approximately 60 employees at the Village Inn would remain on the payroll while the cleanup and rebuilding effort got under way.

“They’ll get paid,” he said.

Famed for its seafood and chowder, the restaurant began as a pizza shop in 1963. Owned by the Vallee family, it later became a drive-in restaurant and was sold in 1974. In 1979, the family reopened the restaurant under its current name.

For the Vallee family, Thursday was about surveying the damage, planning for the future and answering the same questions over and over.

“We’ve been on the phone all day. People want to know if we’ll rebuild, if we’ll open again,” Vallee said. “They’re wonderful.”