A Haven for Cat & Coffee Lovers
I thought I would have to travel to East Asia or the west coast to find and eat at my first cat cafe, but Ohio has a way of granting wishes.
Eat Purr Love Cat Cafe sits humbly on Indianola Avenue. Its bay windows are lit with soft yellow light and are adorned with plush cushions that serve as beds and seats for cats and their human visitors. Its front room houses a coffee and check-in counter, hosting a lit up refrigerator chocked full of beverages and vegan pastries from Pattycake Bakery. Behind the counter sits a barista that doubles as a cat attendant who is ecstatic to serve.
Owner and creator of the cafe, Chrissy Kuras, led me in to the beatifically decorated interior. “Take your time and relax, it’s very calming in here.” And it truly was. There was soft acoustic music playing, tables set up with coloring books and paper, soft chairs and lots of seating, all enclosed in light blue and green walls. I admittedly expected it to look a bit like a cat shelter, but the only cages I saw held three newly arrived kitties that were being acclimated to the space. They meowed in a jealous frenzy as the free cats strolled between the “living room” and the bay window.
No more than 15 people are allowed into the space at one time in order to keep the cats from being overwhelmed. Not only was that the perfect number of people for the cats, but it seemed to be the perfect number for the humans too. Everyone there shared at least one thing in common: an interest or appreciation for cats. It was easy to play with them—there were cat toys and even catnip adorning the tables in cute woven baskets, and the cat attendants passed out cat treats in little plastic containers. Though they were hard to find, as they often blended in with their surroundings (i.e. a white cat sitting on a white shelf against a white wall; a tabby hidden inside a brown side table) they were quickly coaxed out with treats and catnip.
One girl in the living room had been sitting with the cats for over an hour. “I’ve been following the cat cafe since last summer, I was so excited for it to open!” This was the place to be if you want to skip the bar and crowds on the Short North. It was a mixed group at the cat cafe, couples that had come for a date, friends that were discovering it together, and even a tough-looking muscled man that melted at the sight of a cat playing with catnip bubbles.
And the coffee? It was drip coffee from a pretty standard coffee maker, but it can rival the curated mugs served in German Village. With a warm cup in hand, Kuras and I chatted about her cat cafe adventure. Eat Purr Love Cat Cafe is the first of its kind in Ohio, and it all came from an online article about the cafes. “I did a lot of research, but with my full time job and volunteering part-time, I couldn’t actually visit one,” she said.
For having never seen a cat cafe in real life, this one fits and exceeds my expectations. The cats are hand picked by The Capital Area Humane Society, screening the cats for how well they would fare in a group setting. The cat cafe does do adoptions, so if you fall in love with a kitty once you visit, you can apply for its adoption right then and there. The cafe has only been open for a week, but so far, five of the 12 original cats have been adopted. “That’s definitely one of the ways that I can gauge if this [the cafe] is working how I wanted it to,” said Kuras.
“It’s been a labor of love and definitely a project that I’m very proud of,” said Kuras. “People are engaged with one another and they’re smiling and happy. You don’t really think about anything else but the cats.”
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To visit Eat Purr Love, reservations are recommended. A visit will cost $10 an hour plus drinks and snacks for purchase. The money help keeps the cafe open and the cats happy. There are currently six cats available for adoption:
- Waffles, tabby shorthair
- Maxwell, tabby shorthair
- Johnny, white and black shorthair
- Simba, orange medium hair
- Nebula, tortoise shorthair
- Pep, tabby and white shorthair
More information about the cats, the cafe, and the people who love them can be found on their website.
Written By Paola Santiago
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