Vet, furry patients settle into roomy new Chester digs

By Jasmin Gomez
©2021 Telegraph Publishing LLC

The Rockingham Veterinarian Clinic has found a new and more spacious home in a rehabbed pizza restaurant on Main Street in Chester, which it settled into in early March.

When you arrive at the clinic, you are met with a large parking lot featuring designated parking spots for pet owners to drop off and pick up their pets.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the clinic had to adapt to prevent the spread of the virus. But this also means that only pets and the clinic staff can enjoy the new space on Main Street.

On a tour Wednesday, the new space revealed a variety of rooms for pet care, a place to hold animals and areas for surgery.

In early 2020, Butch Roeder purchased the building that once was the home to Zachary’s Pizza House. At the same time, Dr. Jerilyn Jacobs and her five veterinarian partners purchased Rockingham Veterinarian Clinic on Lower Bartonsville Road and were looking to expand.

Roeder then leased them the new space on Main Street.

Before renovation, the space was a typical pizza restaurant with vinyl booths, a counter, and a kitchen in the back. But it had sat empty for years and accumulated the problems from that situation.

“They had to pretty much gut the whole thing, replace the heating and cooling, rework all of the plumbing,” Jacobs said.

The renovations took about a year to complete.

With a new space to treat pets of all kinds, the office opened its doors on March 3. Jacobs said clients seem to be pleased with the new office, despite not experiencing its entirety.

“So far, everyone seems to be happy with the location and the parking lot. Unfortunately, with the coronavirus, we’re still not letting humans into the office, so the pets get to come in, and they all seem to think it’s pretty good. But the human clients have not been able to come in and see it, other than what they can see when they peek through the big windows,” she said.

Outside the clinic,  Janice Wyman of Windham was waiting for her dog, Vinny.

Wyman has been a client of Rockingham Veterinarian Clinic all of her life. She said her father brought all of their animals to the other “Vinny” — Dr. Vincent DiBernardo, who opened the original office in 1982. Now, she is continuing that tradition.

Wyman likes the new location of the office and says it is easier to get to. The former office meant either a trip down Green Mountain Turnpike, a dirt road, or down Route 103 south.

For Dr. Jacobs, who has been practicing small animal and equine medicine in Vermont since 1994, this new office also offers a new experience.

“I’ve never worked in a building that’s actually built for this purpose. Our other clinic in Dummerston is a renovated, big old farmhouse that slowly since the 1950s has been renovated into a veterinarian clinic. And then the previous Rockingham location was the same thing. It was an addition onto a house. So, this was built to be a hospital … it’s a much more institutional type building than a house converted into a business,” she said.

The expansion of the vet clinic also provides more services for their pet patients.

“We will be able to see more patients because we will be able to have more doctors here … we now have a dedicated dental suite with dental x-rays, and that was not available at the previous clinic,” Jacobs said.

She said that the two weeks since opening have been going well, and they like the new location.

“We are excited to be in town,” she said. “Hopefully, in the future, we’ll get to invite people in so they can see our beautiful building.”

Jasmin Gomez is senior at Castleton University majoring in Studio Art and Media and Communications, while minoring in Graphic Design. She lives in Mt. Holly.