The Northeast Steakhouse Chain That Served Over 200,000 Customers Per Week By 1969

Bigger isn't always better — such was the case with Valle's Steak House, the Northeast restaurant chain known for its gargantuan dining rooms. Over its run from 1933 to 2000, the Maine-based steakhouse chain seated hundreds to thousands of patrons per location before becoming one of the seven steakhouse chains that have permanently closed their doors. Nowadays, foodies of the '60s and '70s likely remember it by its short name, "Valle's," best.

The first Valle's Steak House was a seven-stool cafe, opened at 551 Congress Street in Portland, Maine in 1933. Its founder was the eponymous Donald D. Valle, who immigrated to Maine from Italy in 1912. Apparently, the dining concept was a slow-but-steady success. Valle's expanded to multiple locations across Maine before finally going multi-state with three Boston locations in the mid-1960s. After that, Valle's U.S. presence suddenly boomed.

In 1969, just one year after the company went public, the steakhouse saw regular weekly crowds of 200,000 — served by 1,300 Valle's employees at 30 restaurants. Proportionately, Valle's dining rooms were built with volume in mind, designed to seat 800 to 1,400 customers – a far cry from its tiny cafeteria origin. Specializing in prime steaks and lobsters and rounded out by other New England fare, the food menu was physically large to match at 16 by 30 inches.

Grandeur was the name of the game at Valle's. Local news outlet The Patriot Ledger recounted a Massachusetts Valle's location, stating, "With 1,000 seats between its dining and banquet rooms and oversized sign facing Route 3, Valle's Steak House overlooking the Union Street Rotary in Braintree was one of the largest, if not the largest, restaurants on the South Shore." That was in its heyday, in the mid-1960's. But, the steakhouse chain retained a strong presence across the Northeast from Maine to New York during the 1970s. 

In 1977, Valle's founder Donald D. Valle passed, and due to complications with paying off the inheritance taxes, the Valle family decided to liquidate the business. The issue was further compounded by adverse external factors of the time, including the infamous gas crisis of the 1970s. This led to tighter discretionary spending and fewer customers, all backdropped by skyrocketing inflation rates. U.S. inflation spiked in 1974 and remained high until 1982, peaking at 9.5% in 1981 – not exactly an ideal backdrop for a change of estate on such a massive scale.

Reports from 1982 indicate that the Valle family sold the business to a private investment group, acquiring all public shares at $7 each – the equivalent of $23.50 in 2025. Despite stepping away from active management, Donald D. Valle's children, Richard D. Valle and Judith Valle, served as consultants and Arthur W. Hanson, who became a manager in 1959, stayed on as president. Ultimately, the once giant steakhouse chain was one that couldn't overcome its declining business, and it ultimately sold off its final property less than a decade later, in 1991.

Perhaps the Valle's Steak House's larger-than-life concept wasn't built to last. One Valle's location in Worcester, Massachusetts, for instance, opened in 1979 and spanned a four-acre block with 400 seats, costing $1.7 million to build, and closed just five years later. But, poetically, Valle's final frontier happened where its empire first began. Donald's daughter bought the first Valle's location on Brighton Avenue in Portland, Maine, and ran it as a standalone Valle's Steak House until  it, too, shuttered in August 2000.