We’re still open – all of the same operational modifications mentioned in my last blog post remain in tact.
Cat lounge reservations are required if you want to see the cats. The DEH will not allow customers to watch through the window viewing wall at this time.
We will be packaging all food and beverage orders in to-go containers, for you to take with you after your cat lounge visit. Additionally to-go orders can be placed via phone and Purrvisions are available for online ordering.
[ IMPORANT ] If you feel ill, have health concerns or are caring for someone with health concerns please stay home.
Background
On March 16th we shut down Cat & Craft due to Governor Newsom ordering all non-essential businesses to close.
At the time there was no state guidance regarding sanitation or masks, and lots of scary news about people getting sick and dying.
So I believed the right thing to do was close like everyone else and tough it out. We told our staff we would pay them their regular paycheck through March 31st, and then we’d see what our options were.
By April 1st we had no choice but to lay off 90% of those employees, keeping only two cat lounge hosts on board because cats still need care and attention 7 days per week regardless of whether or not we have customers.
My husband Andrew spent every waking hour coming up with a plan for how to survive the closure – he bought and wired a live feed camera for the cat lounge, and we pivoted with almost every product we make or use on the cafe side so that we could have something to sell.
And at night, we’d lay awake worrying about our aging parents on the east coast… how we couldn’t visit them even if they fell ill. April was a dark and lonely time.
In mid-May we finally received a Paycheck Protection Program loan. It was small, but small is better than nothing.
So with this glimmer of hope we started to bring back employees for short shifts, a few hours a week, to try and maintain our team that’s been with us since the day we opened. And adoptions were continuing by private appointment – one family or individual at a time, so that too served to inspire us to just keep swimming.
In early June the re-openings began across California and San Diego. We waited. We watched other businesses spring back to life overnight and we still waited… because what if we re-opened our doors, rehired all our employees, reinvested in all the food and beverage supplies necessary to operate a coffee shop, just to get shut down again?
By the 2nd week of June things looked good… our staff wanted to come back to work so we ordered floor graphics to aid social distancing, removed furniture, added hand sanitizer stations and cashless payment options, increased sanitation practices throughout the cafe and the cat lounge, and re-opened our doors June 18th. That was 20 days ago.
I should also mention that during these 20 days the Department of Environmental Health stopped by to inspect our COVID-19 safety practices (along with the usual cafe safety requirements) and they gave us a perfect score of 100.
Over the past 20 days our revenue has bounced between 35% and 41% of what it was this time last year. But at least we’ve been able to enjoy happy smiling customers, and see an amazing number of adoptions.
So you tell yourself you’ll be able to get back to even in time, because good work is being done and that’s what really matters.
This week San Diego County moved to restrict the number of businesses that can conduct indoor operations.
We’re licensed as a coffee shop with an “ancillary use” (that’s the cat lounge) by the City of Vista. Today the San Diego Department of Environmental Health confirmed we can continue our cat lounge reservations as along as all food and beverage orders are taken “to-go” and not consumed in the cafe.
Given the current state of affairs and opinions about COVID-19, since reopening June 18 we’ve only had 3 days where we actually reached our modified 8 person capacity in the cat lounge.
So… all of this is to help explain why we are still open and still working to get cats adopted. Our PPP loan is almost gone, and you can’t pay employees and rent with money you don’t have. That means we are extremely dependent on those who believe in us and our mission to help support us during this time.
We regret to inform you that like so many other small businesses, we will be temporarily closing effective Thursday March 18.
Many of you have shown us support these past few days and we are so very appreciative.
Here’s what you need to know about our plan for going forward:
1. All cats in our foster care will remain in the lounge and our staff will be onsite feeding, cleaning and playing with them 2x per day, 7 days per week.
2. Our mission is unchanged – we are here to help cats find loving forever homes and that is what we will continue to do.
~ ~ ~ Anyone interested in adopting a cat can complete LYFF Rescue’s pre-approval questionnaire online at
LYFF will be working with us to set up appointments for approved adopters to come interact with the cats. ~ ~ ~
3. As always, each cat adopted from Cat & Craft enables LYFF to move another rescue cat into our environment, thus enabling them to save another cat or kitten from area shelters.
4. Just as the corona virus has affected businesses, schools and families, it has negatively affected area shelters too. Animals need our help now possibly more than ever. We will continue to provide updates on the cats in our care as well as our plans for the future via our social media and newsletter.
5. We continue to offer online e-gift cards and merchandise, the proceeds of which help mitigate the costs we will continue to carry in order to save cats.
Until we see you again, know that we love you and appreciate you very much. 🙏
I poked my head out of a gaggle of cats this week to realize it is:
a) Back to school time for most of North America and…
b) Labor Day weekend according to the influx of online retail “labor day sale!” alerts bombarding my email inbox.
The cats in my world don’t go to school, nor do they get to celebrate a day of not working (since they never work AT ALL), so we are going to get into a sometimes smelly subject that follows cat ownership and of course, cat foster-ship.
“Heyyy…I do stuff. Notice how this bed hasn’t flown away? You’re welcome.”
Cat Litter
Fun fact…ready?
I did some math and from January 6, 2019 (the day our first group of foster cats moved in) through August 25 2019, we went through3,578 pounds of cat litter.
You read that right, I’ve done the math four times.
For perspective, 3500 lb is about the same as:
A small White Rhinoceros
A medium sized Giraffe
An empty cargo container
A Chevrolet Equinox
“Heyyy…I just big boned.”
“How on earth?” you might ask.
Well, if you’ve visited us you might have noticed the Cat Lounge and cat privacy room are pretty darn clean. This is not by accident, in fact it is very intentional.
Part of our mission of connection is helping to enroll “non-cat people” into the fantastical furry world of cats by breaking down common barriers such as fear of litter box or cat smell.
Our team works really hard at keeping our space as clean as possible because the alternative is no fun for anyone (including the cats). And if we can keep a room full of 20 cats and not smell litter, then 1 or 2 cats shouldn’t be an issue for those non-cat people! 😹👍
Part of the sanitation requirements we follow for our rescue partner is emptying and sanitizing each litter pan on a regular basis.
Even with hard clumping litter, this inevitably results in usable cat litter going straight into the trash.
If you have cats then you know that good cat litter isn’t cheap; hence it being one of many costs offset by the $12 purr hour Cat Lounge admission.
Litter & Boxes
People ask me all the time what we do about cat litter and litter pans so I’m happy to go into detail on that for you guys here.
To date we’ve been using Fresh Step Simply Unscented, mainly because it’s low dust and doesn’t have any added scent. We don’t have any relationship with the brand so this is just me sharing what we’ve been choosing to use so far.
BUT – last week World’s Best Cat Litter contacted us about joining their cat cafe program which is SUPER exciting. I’ve not tried their products before so if any of you guys have tested it out I’d love you to drop me a note with your thoughts.
When it comes to litter boxes… my oh my there are all kinds. And they can get pretty pricey.
When Cat & Craft was in the planning stages I spent some time chatting to Haydn of Java Cats Atlanta, and she shared the genius idea of simply buying a bunch of 18 gallon storage tubs like these on Amazon.
We just cut a U-shaped hole in the front of each one for cat access, and the high sides keep litter inside the tub and the non-porous material is easy to sanitize. Plus when it’s time to replace the cost per item is much lower than many of the litter boxes available in various pet stores.
“Heyyy…we’re not full of shhhh – quiet someone’s coming”
Of course when you are talking about cat litter you eventually get around to the subject of cat poops and pees… but I’ll leave that topic for another day!
A few weeks ago, I announced our staff would be taking a field trip to Laguna Beach to visit Catmosphere.
Well, the field trip was this past Monday and we had a blast!
You see, most cat cafes share a common goal – we want to see fewer cats in shelter cages (or worse, euthanized unnecessarily) and more cats happy in loving homes.
So rather than view other cat cafes as competitors, we see an opportunity to collaborate on ideas together so that we all can make the biggest and best impact for both the animals in need of assistance, and the families who will enjoy love and companionship through adoption.
About Catmosphere and its founder Gail
Catmosphere opened in August of 2018 and color me impressed… Gail not only runs the business but also handles all the rescue and adoption efforts herself!
That means she works directly with local shelters, rescues and families who have encountered a circumstance where they can no longer care for their cat. She takes all cats slated to enter Catmosphere to local veterinarians for intake screening and appropriate care, personally reviews all adoption applications AND completes all home checks prior to adoption approvals.
Here at Cat & Craft we work with a rescue organization that accomplishes the same via dedicated volunteers – and they’d tell you it’s time consuming and often times difficult work. So for one individual to handle it all is extremely impressive and worthy of support.
Inside Catmosphere
When you visit Catmosphere you will find a delightful space with lots of windows and natural light, right in the heart of Laguna Beach.
The cafe portion offers delicious toast plates, macarons and they also serve beer and wine. Similar to our space you can either view the adoptable kitties from the cafe or you can book an hour in the cat lounge to interact with them directly.
We had a great time sharing best practices with one another and discussing ideas for how we could help support each other and other cat cafes here on the West Coast.
How fantastic would it be if all shelters, rescue organizations and cat cafes’ collaborated to bring an end to unwanted pets and animal suffering? It’s a tall order, but with enough people dedicated to bring about positive change in our communities and our culture as a whole, it’s not impossible.
If you are ever in the Laguna Beach area please make a point to visit the Catmosphere team and show your support!
Us cat cafe’s need to stick together and support each other as we all share a common goal.
So in that respect, the Cat & Craft team will soon be headed north to Orange County so that we can visit our neighbors Catmosphere Laguna!
It will be a great way for our team to see how others go about connecting lovely people to cats in need, and we will get to share best practices with each other.
There’s no fur-flying competition in the cat cafe arena, we want all to succeed so that all animals have loving forever homes. I’ll be talking more about this in coming blog posts, and of course provide fun photo recap of the field trip!
Now let’s get to some adoption success stories, shall we?!
MISSY
“Missy is settling in just fine. Loves getting her head petted and will just purr up a storm! She loves curling up in all my fuzzy blankets and sleeping.”
~ Missy’s family
OOLONG
“She’s doing great. We love her so much! She’s perfect and she seems very content with us. 😊”
~ Oolong’s family
TIGER (Irie)
“Tiger is doing great! Her name is now Irie. Here are a few photos of her with Vadar!”
I’ve been introducing you to our team members every other week (if you missed out, check out part 1 and part 2), because they are hugely important to the success of our mission here at Cat & Craft.
So, without further ado…
Delaney – Barista
Delaney was one of our very first barista applicants.
We were conducting interviews in a construction zone – with no bar counter, no bean grinders, no espresso machine and no POS.
Delaney walked in for her scheduled interview and announced that this was her dream job, gave us a speech about how much she loves cats and coffee and wanted to help homeless cats get adopted. Her interview strategy worked because we pretty much hired her on the spot!
Delaney with her signature cat ear beanie!
And just this past weekend, she became the 6th Cat & Craft employee to adopt from our cat lounge Delaney is now the proud new momma of little baby girl Smores!
Delaney holding her new kitty, baby S’mores
Lanie – Cat Lounge Host
Lanie is one of our awesome cat lounge hosts, and has the honor of being our tallest staff member (which really comes in handy when we have to retrieve a cat from the wall shelves LOL!)
Lanie LOVES cats, the cats LOVE her, and she’s another one of our adopters too – her husband and two daughters decided to surprise her by adopting her favorite C & C lounge cat – Gomez – while she was away on vacation.
Lanie’s family secretly adopting Gomez!
Always smiling, cleaning and cuddling our furkids, Lanie is such an important part of our team – we are thankful to have her in the family!
