Ottawa’s cat café entrepreneur has her paws on a location.
By Adam Kveton
Josée Cyr announced just a few days ago that her cat café, expected to open in April, will be located at 1076 Wellington Street West in Hintonburg.
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“It’s really exciting,” said Cyr. “I keep getting messages from people encouraging me, and it’s really exciting to see it coming together.”
Feline Café will have six or more rescue cats to cuddle with, along with vegan food,coffee and drinks.
In partnership with the Ottawa Stray Cat Rescue, people will be able to adopt cats from the café as well, though Cyr said she hopes the café will be a “dream home” of its own for felines.
“If you were a cat on the street, this is where you want to end up,” she said with a smile, as one of her own cats came up to say ‘Hi’ during the interview.
Though there remains more than a month before the planned opening, Cyr said just getting to this point has been a long process, complete with extensive conversations with Ottawa Public Health.
Though The Purrfect Café already exists in Ottawa, offering a once-a-month cat meet-up with coffee and tea, Cyr’s daily, for-profit business had a few more health hurdles to jump through.
To satisfy those, all food and drinks will be purchased in one part of the café where people can sit and talk, while the cats will be in a dedicated cat room, where customers can go to get their purr therapy and sip their drinks.
Cyr got started on her cat café after visiting several of them in Thailand and Montreal.
A long-time animal lover, Cyr said she couldn’t wait to adopt her own cats once leavinghome, since her parents had allergies.
Now with three, and a rabbit, Cyr said she’s combined her love of animals and knowledge in food and entrepreneurship to launch the business.
In addition to providing a peaceful, comfy place for homeless cats to get some much-needed attention, Cyr said the café should be a great place for people who can’t own a cat of their own to get some kitty cuddles.
This story originally appeared in Metro News.
