A Look Inside The Purina ONE Cat Café [Gallery]
How we managed to leave without stealing ten cats, we don't know.
The first and only North American cat café is now open, and you have until this Sunday to get yourself to Chinatown in New York City to get your cat-fix. Luckily we managed to pull ourselves away from the Internet long enough to check it out, and then pulled ourselves away from the cats to come back and tell you what it’s like.
One thing you should know before you get there is that early is best. We first tried our luck yesterday at 4:30pm and were turned away from the line, despite the fact that the café’s doesn’t close until 7. By the time we got there this morning at 10am, there was already a line wrapped around the side of the building, and the people near the front told us that they’d been there since 9 and even 8am. It’ll probably be even more busy on the weekend, so if you’re really desperate for cat cuddles, you should probably carve out a big block of time for yourself — and wear comfortable shoes and layers, of course. You’re going to be standing in the shade for a while.
All the cats are available for adoption through the North Shore Animal League, which is based in Port Washington, Long Island, though they’ll probably all get adopted by the end of the weekend. Not going to be able t0 make it to 168 Bowery to meet the cats for yourself? That’s okay. We took a bunch of pictures while we were there.
[geekovision id=315]
There’s also livestreaming video from the space, too.
So will all this attention convince some budding entrepreneur to start a long-term cat café business? They’d need the support of a local animal shelter, probably, but you never know. Perhaps if the proposed spaces in San Francisco, Montreal, and Oakland get up off the ground and succeed as viable businesses, we’ll get ourselves a permanent New York cat café one day. Let’s hope they come equipped with WiFi so we never have to leave.
(images our own)
- The Cat Café livestream is giving us life
- Montreal should be getting one any day now
- Check out this video taken inside a Japanese cat café
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