Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at a cat cafe on the Lower East Side where people can play with cats who live there or are up for adoption.
On Sunday, Christina Ha threw open the doors to the brand-new Essex Street home of Meow Parlour, her cat cafe.
In the cafe, which Ha, 38, says was the first of its kind in New York City, human visitors can snack on food and drinks — they buy them next door, in a space with a separate entrance and address to abide by New York City health code — while they play with cats who either live there permanently or are up for adoption.
At 18,000 square feet, the space is three times as large as its previous iteration, which Ha co-founded 10 years ago around the corner on Hester Street. While the old space could accommodate 15 cats, this one can fit more than 20, and the space is designed to be a feline paradise.
“The cats who had been in the previous space were like, ‘What is all this other stuff?’” Ha said.
There are booths where humans can relax while cats climb above them on shelves and peek down at them. The walls are lined with circular holes for cats to climb through to get from room to room. There is a bookshelf for them to explore, and a tree with hammocks hanging off the branches for snoozes.
“The kittens figured out how to climb the steps to get up there right away,” Ha said. “They hopped into the hammocks and went to sleep.”
The space, which served as a boxing gym before the pandemic, came with a prebuilt sophisticated ventilation system, “because gyms can be really smelly,” Ha said. On opening day, patrons remarked about how nice the place smelled.
The new space can also accommodate 14 to 18 visitors per hour, an upgrade that is allowing Meow Parlour to allow walk-ins for the first time. “On opening day, it was incredible to allow people in who saw us from the street,” Ha said.
The cafe part of Meow Parlour, which sells boxes of macarons, pizza rolls, iced tea and coffee drinks among other items, is awaiting inspection and should open in the next few weeks. Ha, a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education baking program, is the head pastry chef. Her partner in the venture is Emilie Legrand, 41, who was one of the first kitchen employees of Meow Parlour.
Meow Parlour also acts as a cat adoption agency, sourcing cats from Animal Care Centers of New York, a local animal shelter, and the Bowling Green Warren County Humane Society in Bowling Green, Ky., which brings cats to New York who can’t find homes in Kentucky.
Ha started the entire endeavor in 2014 after she and her husband, Simon Tung, 42, found a kitten outside their apartment in Chinatown. “We found Mr. Socks, took him home and went full-blown cat lady,” she said. “We adopted Pickles afterward and started fostering.”
Meow Parlour now has between 50 and 70 cats in its program at any time. They either live at the cafe or in foster homes. The goal of the new space is to be able to offer them more services.
The cafe set up a surgical center in the basement where a local veterinarian is doing spay and neuter surgeries. “Our goal is to start taking in more senior animals, getting them fixed, cleaned up and ready for adoption,” Ha said.
There are also two walled-off rooms for special needs cats who require their own space for a host of reasons. They are currently occupied by Thunder, who “has complicated feelings for other cats,” as Ha puts it, and Homer, who is on a special protein diet and can’t risk sharing food with his companions.
“We call these our V.I.P. rooms,” Ha said. “That is something we never thought we would have.”
Weather
Prepare for a chance of showers and thunderstorms, persisting through the evening, with daytime temperatures in the mid-60s. At night, it will be windy, with temperatures in the mid-50s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
Suspended today (Eid al-Fitr).
The latest New York news
Trump
Choosing the jurors: In the first criminal trial of a former American president, who will decide Donald Trump’s fate? Here are the jurors each side wants.
A third attempt to delay a trial: Lawyers for Mr. Trump asked an appeals court — again — to stave off Mr. Trump’s trial on charges that he covered up a sex scandal. Again they failed.
Allen Weisselberg sentenced to Rikers: Donald Trump’s longtime financial lieutenant was sentenced to five months in the Rikers Island jail complex for perjury.
Crime
30 years for manslaughter: A man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old Queens boy, whom he mistook for a rival gang member, the authorities said.
Corruption charge for former Rikers employees: Federal prosecutors said the defendants accepted bribes and smuggled in drugs for detainees at the troubled jail complex.
More local news
Birth control for rats: A new City Council bill would deploy contraceptives in hopes of reducing the rat population and protecting wildlife from being poisoned.
City parts ways with migrant services company: DocGo, which operated under a $432 million contract, faced allegations of mistreating and lying to migrants.
Right-wing operatives fined for robocall scheme: The operatives, who used a robocall campaign to try to discourage Black New Yorkers from voting in the 2020 election, will pay up to $1.25 million.
METROPOLITAN diary
A. & P. truck
Dear Diary:
I was waiting for the downtown Second Avenue bus one day in the early 1970s as I did every morning. Time went by, and an A. & P. truck pulled up.
Where are you going? the driver wanted to know.
Fifty-Ninth Street would be fine, I told him.
When I am done, I will take you there, he responded.
So I took the seat next to him. Before I got off, he placed a couple of oranges in my lap.
Walking crosstown, I made it just in time to relieve the night manager at the Plaza.
— Margitta Rose
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. Lola Fadulu will be here tomorrow. A.K.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
The post A Cafe for Cat People Opens Downtown appeared first on New York Times.