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Picture yourself at a Parisian cafe, sipping coffee with the Eiffel Tower in view. Now add a cat purring in your lap.
You can get surprisingly close to that experience in Brewerytown at Le Cat Cafe, a Paris-themed cafe where visitors can cuddle up with cats that are up for adoption.
Run by Green Street Rescue, the cafe gives people a chance to meet available cats outside of a traditional shelter and, sometimes, fall in love with one. It’s just one way that Green Street gets cats in front of potential adopters, but owner Kathy Jordan says it gives the animals a better opportunity to show their true personalities.
“When you come to a cat cafe, the cats are free roaming,” she told Technical.ly. “You can throw balls, and they run, and you can sit, and they can jump in your lap. It lets the cat express themselves.”
The cafe opened in 2016 and celebrated its 10th anniversary this past March. Over the last decade, it’s fine-tuned its rescue process and has spread awareness about the cat population on the streets, Jordan said.
Just this year, Green Street has rescued over 300 cats and found homes for more than half of them.
For a long time, Jordan was doing this work on the side of her full-time job. Now that she’s retired, what keeps her going is the idea of helping as many cats as possible, she said.
“The whole satisfaction of knowing you’re helping, you’re … working to solve a problem,” she said. “It feels good to give to the community.”
A second chance for street cats
Green Street gets five to 10 requests per day asking for help with a found cat, Jordan said. Once it rescues the animal, it addresses any health concerns, gets it spayed or neutered and finds the cat a foster family.
Not all cats rescued by Green Street then go to the cafe, but if a space opens up or if they’re having trouble being adopted, it’s a good way to get seen, she said. Some stay for a few days and some stay for a year.
“Every cat in here we took off the street, or was brought to us from somebody that had found them in the street or in their backyard,” she said.
Jordan remembers one cat they named Angelo who was great with people but bad with other cats. He was at the rescue for over a year until one day, the orange and white cat hit it off with a young red-headed boy, she said.
While adopting may be the ultimate goal, there’s no pressure to leave with a new pet.
Some come in because they want to play with cats, but they can’t have one of their own. Others visit because they’ve never interacted with cats and want the experience, Jordan said.
The store offers half-hour and full-hour sessions, plus events like trivia nights and yoga with cats to engage with the neighborhood. In the future, it’s thinking of expanding to movie and craft nights, Jordan said.
Rescuing cats started at home — and became a life’s work
For Jordan, running the rescue and the cat cafe is her life’s work.
She started rescuing cats over 20 years ago. At first, she was doing it by herself out of her home, but eventually launched Green Street as a nonprofit to increase her credibility, she said.
“It just kept growing. I kept finding more cats. [I] kept getting more requests for help,” she said.
Jordan heard about cat cafes in other cities and thought it was a great idea to adopt out cats. After visiting the other cafes, she started looking for property in Philly to do something similar, she said.
Looking toward the future, Jordan said she would love to open more themed cat cafes in the city to get more cats adopted.
In the meantime, she’s focused on the animals and educating the public about the city’s cat population problem. If you find a stray cat, you should call a rescue, she said.
“By taking care of one cat,” Jordan said, “you’re making a huge difference in the cat overpopulation problem.”
