Philly Plain Dealer

The Pet Mechanic, a local Philadelphia veterinarian office and hospital on South Street abruptly closed its doors in July. The closing of this location came as a surprise to the employees and local pet owners in the area. This now leaves receptionists, vet technicians, veterinarians and other workers at the location without employment or scrambling for new job opportunities. 

There were two locations of the Pet Mechanic, South Street and Fishtown. The South Street location was crucial as it served hundreds of pet owners from the Washington Square West, South Street, Bella Vista and Passyunk neighborhoods. According to employees at the South Street location, the main issue that led to the closing of this location was the mishandling of operations and mistreatment of staff by the Pet Mechanics Corporate office. 

“If you’re looking at both locations, initially Fishtown was having issues. About a year or two ago the corporation decided to send another one of our doctors over there. Since then that location started to pick up and has been doing great. But since this, we at the south street location have had a revolving door of doctors and technicians along with a lack of communication by management. It’s like they completely forgot about us,” Donna Santiago, Veterinary Receptionist

Donna continued by explaining that less attention focused on the South Street location led to the higher ups of Pet Mechanics not treating employees in a proper way which also led to almost more than half of the staff leaving. For those who stayed, they were told for weeks by the corporate office that they “had plans’ ‘ to fix the issues they created, and that the corporate office was in the process of hiring more staff, so there was nothing for current employees to worry about. Then, the following week they found out that the Pet Mechanic higher ups were planning to close their location.  

“The corporate office basically told us they were going to keep us open and hire more people.  Then at the very last minute gave us about a weeks notice saying that this location is closing indefinitely,” Melissa Anderson, Veterinarian Receptionist

When speaking with Melissa she emphasized how there were only 3 employees left at the South Street location. They were all working to accommodate the hundreds of pet owners who had no knowledge of the location closing. Others employees either put in their two weeks or were let go because they couldn’t handle how the corporate management were treating the situation. 

“I’ve been here the longest, and now here I am without a job after tomorrow, ” Said Melissa

Other additional problems that clients will face with this location closing is scheduling for appointments. It could take weeks or months to get their pets in since there’s only one other location now, and not every pet is comfortable with changing veterinarians.

“It’s overwhelming and very upsetting. This is difficult for a lot of our clients. A lot of them never wanted to go to Fishtown because of the distance.They are calling non stop, saying they don’t know what to do, and that they aren’t going to be able to find another veterinarians office who met their pets needs like we did,” Said Melissa