If you’re in a bodega in New York City and need to speak with “the manager,” you may find her underneath the fridge or nestled between bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Bodegas being managed by the cats that live in them is part of a “big running joke among a lot of New Yorkers,” said Drew Rosenthal, the creative producer of “Shop Cats,” a web show that recently found a large audience on TikTok for its feel-good feline coverage.
When Mr. Rosenthal, 35, moved to Brooklyn eight years ago, he was surprised by the ubiquity of semi-feral cats patrolling the city’s bodegas and delis. Even more so by the scarcity of online bodega cat registries documenting their addresses and personal updates, given their beloved role in the city’s ecosystem.
Last summer, working for Mad Realities — a media company with ambitions of becoming “the MTV of the internet,” according to chief executive and founder, Alice Ma — Mr. Rosenthal addressed this gap in the kitty catalog by pitching a bodega cat talk show he characterized as “‘Cribs’ meets Steve Irwin.” It was greenlit almost immediately.
The pilot of “Shop Cats” featured Mr. Rosenthal’s local bodega cat in Crown Heights, a cuddly but capricious gray and white tabby named Kiki, who sleeps behind a display of corn chips. In the minute-and-a-half-long episode, Michelladonna, the flamboyant host of “Shop Cats,” interviews the whiskered bodega manager — who introduces herself by hissing into the microphone — and the locals who take care of her. The interview culminates in a test of Kiki’s hunting skills via her ability (or desire, rather) to chase a feathered toy. The hunt was set to a zany, “Looney Tunes”-style soundtrack, a signature of the show.
In developing “Shop Cats,” Mr. Rosenthal wanted to create a “very New York” show, which meant he needed a New Yorker to host it. Michelladonna, née Michelle Reiss, with her comedy background and irresistibly thick Queens accent, fit the bill. Ms. Reiss, 26, hosts the show with a familiar, early-aughts V.J. energy, occasionally functioning as a cultural liaison between immigrant bodega owners and the Gen Z audiences meeting them on TikTok. “I know how to talk their language, uncle to uncle,” she joked.
The instantly chummy, New Yorker-to-New Yorker rapport Ms. Reiss establishes with bodega owners devolves into a cooing gushfest once the boss is brought up. “Their faces change when they talk about their cats,” she said. “It’s my favorite thing to experience doing this show.” Among the words shop owners have used to describe their cats are “spectacular,” “pretty,” and “my baby, of course!”
Shop patrons are similarly quick to fawn over their local working kitten. Simcoe, a courteous, long-whiskered tuxedo cat who runs a brewery in East Williamsburg, has inspired T-shirts and even tattoos. “Simcoe is the best!” Yoko, a brewery regular who wears homemade earrings featuring Simcoe’s face, testifies in the episode. Ms. Reiss, too, tends to style herself in feline fashions, often sporting a long ponytail that shimmies behind her like a sassy cat tail. “You’ve got to lean into that kitty fever,” she said. She also has a penchant for winged cat-eye liner.
Since the debut of “Shop Cats” last September, the show has garnered over 740,000 followers on TikTok and, just last month, took home a Webby Award for social media. Unlike many places on the internet, the show’s comment sections are consistently and overwhelmingly positive — an anomaly given TikTok’s hot-and-cold user base — with several commenters claiming that “Shop Cats” is their “preferred type of journalism.” One comment claimed that the show’s use of Spanish subtitles had the potential to “heal America.” The comment has over 28,000 likes.
The decision to add Spanish subtitles came about when Ms. Reiss sent an unpublished episode to her mother, who lamented being unable to share “Shop Cats” with her Spanish-speaking friends. After getting Mad Realities’ approval, Ms. Reiss translated and transcribed the first few episodes herself. It felt compatible with the show’s format, given that it is de facto multilingual, with Ms. Reiss usually approaching bodega owners in Spanish. (In many Spanish-speaking countries, the word “bodega” is translated as “small grocer.”)
Many of the shop owners like to claim a cultural affinity with their cats. The adoptive caregivers of Rambo, a scrappy brown tomcat from the Bronx, for example, like to claim that he is Yemeni on his father’s side and Dominican on his mother’s side. Charlie, the 15-year-old striped “employee of the month” at Flowers by Giorgie in Queens, was lauded by his owner for being “the best Ecuadorean cat in New York.” And on a recent sunny Tuesday afternoon in the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn, the “Shop Cats” team had the pleasure of meeting Jamal — a puckish tabby whose name means “beauty” in Arabic.
Jamal was the team’s fourth attempted interview of the day — some of the cats are unwilling to participate, which can create challenges for the three-person crew. However, Ali Mohammed, Jamal’s owner, was tickled by the concept of his cat being interviewed, as were his store’s patrons and staff. At one point in the shoot, eight people — including two store employees, four giggly children under the age of 9, their father and a food supplier who had stopped by for a routine snack delivery but stayed for the show — were recording Ms. Reiss as she interviewed Jamal and Mr. Mohammed.
“They either want us out of their store immediately or they’re so excited, they’re FaceTiming their families back home,” Ms. Reiss said. It should be noted that throughout the entire interaction, including while he was being interviewed on camera, Mr. Mohammed was on a video call with his daughter, a veterinarian in Dubai. As filming was about to wrap, Mr. Mohammed’s nephew walked into the store and made a beeline for Jamal. “This is my girlfriend,” he deadpanned.
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