Pop-Up Cat Cafe

For a city that has practically everything, New York was missing one thing: a cat cafe. That is until Purina ONE decided to open one in Manhattan for 4 days only. The mission behind the cat cafe was a worthy one indeed: all the cats in the cafe were up for adoption, searching for their forever homes.  The concept was effective, and the cafe featured a wall of all the cats photos and if someone elected to take one home, an ‘adopted’ sticker was placed on the photo. After an especially long wait to get in (they could only let 5 people in at a time), we were first greeted by the cafe itself, with pastries and coffee, all of which was free. Unlike the cat cafes in Asia and Europe, the cats were in a separate room to the coffee in order to keep the Health Department happy, but you were allowed to take the coffee through to the cat room. The cats, 16 in total, were all very well-behaved, with the exception of one cat warning another not to get any closer to the bed he was sitting on. They were available for adoption through the North Shore Animal League. With so many people pouring through the doors, the staff rotated the cats so that they could have a break out in the truck while they brought in a different cat. I had to leave my cat back in New Zealand when I came to live in New York, so it was quite difficult to only look at the cats and not take one home. Word has it that permanent cat cafes are in the works in Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Vancouver and Toronto.

Cat’achino

My half-eaten brownie, it was delicious