White Dog Cafe Coming Soon To Restored Chester County Farmhouse

CHESTER SPRINGS, PA —Sydney Grims recalled as a little girl driving to Lancaster County with her father, Marty Grims, to pick up swans for a pond near her father’s then-restaurant, Passerelle, in Radnor Township.

“The swans are beautiful, and they are still there,” Grims said during an interview with Patch at the White Dog Cafe, in Wayne.

Sydney Grims grew up in her family’s restaurant business, running around and working with her father, Marty, as he opened and bought more and more restaurants in the Philadelphia region and the Jersey shore.

Just as Sydney Grims has grown up in the business, her family’s restaurant holdings have expanded to 10 restaurants, with a new White Dog Cafe slated to open in the Chester Springs section of Uwchlan Township in April.

Sydney Grims began working at the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia while in junior and senior high school.

Like her father, Grims graduated from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. Following graduation, she worked at Hillstone Restaurant Group, which is unrelated to her family, in Manhattan.

In 2017, she returned home to the Main Line to work in the family restaurant business.

As the director of business development for Fearless Restaurants, Grims oversees the restaurants, including the four White Dog Cafes.

The Chester Springs location will be the fifth White Dog Cafe. Sydney Grims heard from a friend that the restaurant location was for sale and decided to take a look at it.

“I fell in love with it,” she said.

The goal is to open in April 2024.

The location was home to Vickers Restaurant, a fine dining restaurant that opened in the 1820s in a refurbished farmhouse that was once the home of abolitionist John Vickers, who used the location as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Sydney Grims is in the process of collecting antiques and other items to decorate the restaurant with an authentic Chester County motif.

Among the renovations to the property, Fearless Restaurants is refurbishing the roof and entryway and reconfiguring the kitchen, while maintaining the site’s historical integrity as an important piece of Black history.

The restaurant on the corner of East Welsh Pool Road and Gordon Drive spans upwards of 7,500 square feet and will accommodate about 300 guests. There will be two bars.

History of the White Dog Cafe

In 2009, Marty Grims purchased the White Dog Cafe in West Philadelphia from Judy Wicks. Marty Grims kept the same theme, offering meals with local produce and meats from farms, including Green Meadow Farms in Lancaster County.

In 2010, Grims opened a second White Dog Cafe in the Wayne section of Radnor Township. A third location opened in Haverford in 2015. In 2020, a fourth location opened in Glen Mills in the Shoppes of Brinton Lake.

Each restaurant has dog-themed decor, including paintings and sculptures that create a warm and playful atmosphere.