The first Cat Café, where feline-lovers can spend quality time with cats and sip coffee, opened up Thursday in New York City. But the café is not a permanent fixture. The cats will be gone by Sunday, the New York Daily News reported.
The Purina ONE Cat Café, located at 168 Bowery, is open from 10 a.m.to 7 p.m. to anyone who wants to come in, relax and pet any of the 16 cats as they lounge around. The pop-up café also offers complimentary "Cat'achino's," a cappuccino with foam in the shape of a cat on top, the Daily News reported.
"I'm obsessed with cats," Vanessa Gonzalez-Bunster, who is 23 and lives with roommates in Queens, told the newspaper. But she cannot purchase one because her roommates are allergic to cats.
"So why not just have the cats here and walking around with you?" Gonzalez-Bunster said.
The cats are all from the North Shore Animal League, which is the nation's largest no-kill animal rescue and adoption center. All of the cats are also eligible for adoption, the newspaper reported.
"I think it's a great concept," Kristen Shea, who already adopted a cat she found in the Bowery district last year, told the Daily News. "I like creative ways of adopting cats."
PETA said they are OK with the cat café as long as the cats aren't mistreated, including "no escape paths to the streets, no loud noises, and no opportunities to retreat and sleep as cats like to do during the day," according to a statement obtained by the newspaper.
North Shore shelter director Christina Travalja told the Daily News that the cats are well provided for.
"There's a lot going on- but they're doing great," she said.
Cat cafés aren't a novel concept. They already exist in Japan, and the first cat café opened in London in March. The first permanent U.S. cat café, KitTea, is scheduled to open in San Francisco this summer.
