The latest White Dog Cafe, a classic American bistro, is done up to the canines

Sydney Grims can’t stop bringing home dogs.

Louie and Pippie, her two cavalier King Charles spaniels, need not worry about additional canine company. Grims scours flea markets and consignment shops for dog paintings, statues, figurines, and the like, filling her garage. When that gets to bursting, she and her father, Marty, use her finds — plus plenty of locally commissioned pieces of pooch-theme art — to decorate their latest White Dog Cafe.

The fifth White Dog will open Friday at 181 Gordon Drive, near Exton, capping a nearly three-year renovation of the sprawling former Vickers Restaurant, a 19th-century farmhouse and Chester County landmark that was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Quaker potter and abolitionist John Vicker hid slaves in his woodpiles, and there’s a door in front of a now-sealed-off staircase that led to a hiding place. All told, four generations of Vickers worked there as potters.

With two bars, about 250 seats spread across seven rooms, and 150 more outdoors, this is one of the larger branches of the White Dog, which founder Judy Wicks set up four decades ago on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. Wicks’ ethos remains: cuisine made from locally sourced, seasonal, and sustainably raised ingredients. In tribute to the original Vickers Restaurant, this location will serve a Monday prime rib special, said culinary director Albert Alvarado.

No aspect of the Vickers property was left untouched by the 2½-year project — “all done to honor the culture of Vickers,” Sydney Grims said. Four skylights were punched through the roofs to brighten the place, and reclaimed woodwork was added from a barn on the five-acre property, as well as from local churches. The rear of a huge fireplace was removed to make it two-sided. You may remember the sconces and a chandelier from the Vickers’ main bar.

Stokes Architecture + Design of Philadelphia designed each room with different identities. Original to the circa-1823 building are the dining room and the drawing-room, where many elements were maintained, including original brick flooring. If you look down near the host’s stand, you’ll see, embedded amid the bricks, a gravestone etched with “Faithful friend, 1882-1896″: another dog. In a whimsical flourish, Hillary Eickoff of Stokes added small hinged portraits of dogs to one wall; when you open them, they reveal a sketch of a cat.

In the 1990s, the building was expanded to add a banquet hall; this is now the primary bar area. Stokes created a semi-open floor plan around the main bar, which is illuminated by six hexagonal lanterns salvaged from an old church. A retractable awning and a fireplace were added to the existing patio out front, while a second patio with a roof was added to the side of the building. The antique furniture inside and outside was sourced from flea markets and thrift shops.

At each White Dog, the Grimses invite customers to immortalize their dogs as commissioned portraits drawn by local artists; a portion of proceeds benefits Alpha Bravo Canine, a nonprofit that donates service dogs to combat veterans suffering from medical and psychological problems.

The building’s days as a restaurant date to 1972, when Arturo Burigatto opened it as Vickers Tavern. Then-Inquirer critic John V.R. Bull described it as a charming, special-occasion restaurant whose attributes included “French cuisine of good quality, prices as high as the Alps, and haughty, arrogant service in the grand French style.” (Bull described two appetizers on the 1982 menu, priced at $6.50 — or about $21 in 2024 dollars — as “no more than five forkfuls. For that, you should get white truffles, and the pig that found them.”)

Longtime customers included President Richard M. Nixon, accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law, Julie and David Eisenhower, who lived in the area.

Burigatto sold Vickers in 1999. When he learned in early 2008 that it would be sold again and transformed into a funeral home, he repurchased it. He closed it again in fall 2021, setting the stage for its latest transformation.

Judy Wicks, a noted social activist and passionate environmentalist, founded the White Dog in University City in 1983, and sold it in 2009 to Marty Grims, who owned the Moshulu on Penn’s Landing.

This new White Dog, dubbed Chester Springs after this part of Uwchlan Township (it’s also locally known as Lionville), is the 11th restaurant for the Fearless Restaurants group.

Besides the Moshulu and the White Dogs in University City, Wayne, Haverford, Glen Mills, and Chester Springs, Marty and Sydney Grims own Louie Louie in University City, Autograph Brasserie and Rosalie in Wayne, and Daddy O Restaurant & Hotel and Tuckers Tavern on Long Beach Island. Next, they’re building two locations of an Italian restaurant called Testa Rossa in Glen Mills and Wayne.

Fearless now employs about 1,200 people. Marty Grims, who has owned numerous restaurants over the years, including Taquet and Central Bar & Grille, said there was no “grand plan” to expand the company since he bought the first White Dog. “It’s just been a very organic thing,” he said. “There was never a plan for 11 restaurants, 10 restaurants, five restaurants. What is important, though, is that we want to be near our infrastructure. We don’t have plans on growing where our people have to live in a hotel room and not see their kids, or where we don’t know who our employees are.”