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It's been about 5 1/2 years since a fire destroyed the Kimball Hill building where he and his wife Marianna have their store.
It took about a year to get the business back up and running.
On Saturday, he stood within sight of Offerings and watched as another Putney landmark burned when the Putney General Store suffered significant damage in a weekend blaze.
Jacobs has been offering tips to the general store owner on how to deal with insurance people, cleaning up, and piecing back together a business after a fire.
"Psychologically and spiritually it is really hard to watch something you've worked so hard on destroyed," Jacobs said Thursday as construction crews and cleaners continued their work on the general store. "The most important thing is that no one was hurt. It's just stuff. But the business that is lost is lost and you just hope you can survive it."
Offerings Jewelry is holding its 14th annual Mother's Day sale this weekend.
It is the biggest sale of the year for the small, independent store, which suffered some water
And as the Offerings staff worked Thursday to prepare for what they hope is a busy weekend, merchants up and down Kimball Hill wondered how the general store fire was going to affect what they all say have been some challenging economic times in downtown Putney.
"This is always a slow time of year, but this has been the slowest spring I've seen," said Penelope Wurr, who owns a store just up the street from the general store. "What we need is local traffic."
The downturn in the American economy has spread from housing to transportation to construction and, according to Wurr, it has trickled down to Main Street.
Tourists are not traveling as much with gas approaching $4 a gallon, and with food prices and everything else getting more expensive, Wurr said, people don't have that extra money to spend on gifts.
Wurr plans to hold a special sale this weekend on her glasswork to get people back into downtown Putney.
"It's the Vermont way to help each other and we're all trying really hard," she said. "We're going to keep on going. I'm not going anywhere."
Jan Ori has worked at Silver Forest, a jewelry and clothing store in Putney, for 18 years.
And on every day of work during those almost two decades, she visited the Putney General Store at least once daily.
It's where she got her morning coffee and her lunch, and where she would stop in before going home to pick up supplies for dinner.
Ori said she did not know about the fire when she drove into town early Sunday morning, and when she saw the charred remains of the general store, it drove her to tears.
"I feel like I lost a friend," Ori said, struggling to find the words to explain what it feels like to consider downtown Putney without the general store. "I feel lost."
Silver Forest owner Neil Maddow had big plans for this weekend, even before the fire.
Maddow imported a trailer full of Indonesian furniture and sculpture and he changed the second floor of the building into a showroom.
Like the rest of the business owners along Kimball Hill, Maddow is looking forward to getting the construction equipment out of the parking spots near his store, finishing the cleanup and trying to get some activity going downtown.
"It's hard to believe there won't be a general store there one way or another," Maddow said. "They'll get it open. It is really the heart of town."
Putney General Store owner Erhan Oge said there was not much more to report Thursday as he stood outside and watched workers toss burnt refuse out of the windows of his business.
The roof and basement suffered significant damage in Saturday's fire. The second floor ceiling is a total loss and only the ground floor may be able to be saved.
Preliminary estimates to rebuild exceed what Oge had for insurance coverage, he said. But he still vowed to do everything possible to make sure a general store returns to the corner.
He said the cleanup will be largely completed on Friday and from there it will be a long, slow period of rebuilding.
At Offerings, Jacobs did what he could to get ready for the weekend.
He lost some back stock in the storage room that was next door to the general store.
Along with preparing for the weekend, he was also getting ready to attend the largest wholesale show of the year in Las Vegas.
"We're scrambling now," he said.
The storage room is still covered in gray insulation that was exposed during the fire and there are holes in the roof and walls.
He does not yet know the extent of the damage until everything is dried out.
"The g. store was a draw for this whole retail strip," he said about Putney's north end. "People would get out of their car and look in our window and maybe remember they needed something. We hope people are going to come out and support the town. It's all about the local economy."
All of the downtown Putney businesses will be open this weekend.
Howard Weiss-Tisman can be reached at hwtisman@reform-er.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 279.
