The last two weeks I’ve talked a lot about what some of the cats in our foster care experienced prior to coming to us, (you can check out those posts here and here) and all the behind-the-scenes work that LYFF Rescue volunteers put in to get the cats to us.
So this week I want to highlight some adoption success stories, with the hope of course that this becomes an ongoing series!
If you’ve visited us in the past few months you are sure to remember some of these star players – who are now living the high life with their forever families thanks to YOUR support!
SODAPOP
Sodapop living the dream
“She is now feeling like home is home. She is getting along with our 2 rabbits. The master bedroom is her territory, along with the rest of the house.
She sleeps between my legs so I can’t roll over, and doesn’t care. She loves laying flat on her back and sleeping. She goes almost too crazy for the red laser toy.
Sleeping on her back is like a venus fly trap though. All I want to do is pet that fluff, but it most likely will hit the trigger and she attacks the hand. That soft belly is worth the gamble though because sometimes she loves the belly pets.
Sodapop has such weirdness, sometimes she prefers to play with the tail of the catnip toy as opposed to the actual catnip part!”
~ Sodapop’s family
ENDOR
Endor ready for nap time
“He is doing amazing! His name is Pete now 😁 We love him so much. Seriously the sweetest cat I have ever had. He is a snuggle bug. He wakes me up every morning at 5am by kissing my nose. Follows me around like a puppy all day long.
At about 11AM he cries for me to basically put him to sleep. He likes to be scratched until he falls asleep on my bed for the day. We couldn’t be more happy for such an amazing cat.”
~ Endor’s family
SPACE BEAR
Spacebear relaxing in his new digs
“He’s wonderful! He has bonded with my other male cat, Ziggy. And he loves our two girls. He likes to wake me up for cuddles!”
Space Bear’s family
COPPER
Copper keepin’ it casual.
“He is doing great!
We’ve given him the nickname Mr. Muffins because every time he gets all loved up he makes muffins 😂 . He’s been doing great during the day when he’s home alone!
The only toys he really loves are the puzzle treat dispenser (he’s very food oriented) and the laser. But he loves to lay on anything soft and make muffins. And he sleeps with me and my husband every night.
All in all me and my husband are so happy to have him and he’s a great addition to our family!”
Copper’s family
ROSIE
Rosie keeping the blanket from flying away.
“We love her so much! She’s done amazing!! So spoiled and loved. She’s a happy happy girl, seriously the BEST cat we’ve ever had.
She’s family! Like she always belonged. And she knows it too “
If you follow the many amazing rescues organizations of San Diego (or elsewhere) on social media you are well aware there are a lot of urgent and sad situations they deal with every day.
Early on Andrew and I made the decision that we would keep our environment and our social media feeds strictly a place of happy and inspiring content – because let’s face it there is a lot of dark in the world right now.
Any little bit we can do to brighten someone’s day we believe is ultimately in the best interest of the cats we are trying to place in happy forever homes.
That said, I also believe it’s important to understand a bit about what goes on behind the “happy cozy” cat cafe scene – specifically what sort of situations the animals we all work together to help have encountered before coming to our foster environment.
Which brings me to Danny….
Beautiful Dani
Dani is a beautiful 3 year old orange tabby gal. However her story – as far back as we know it – had a difficult start.
Dani – then called “Danny” somehow ended up at a high-kill shelter, ill and rapidly declining in that environment. Thanks to hard working volunteers who work with shelters to network for cats they believe can be saved, someone put an urgent plea out for her…
This is the actual post…
She’s not meowing in this photo, she can’t breathe due to a really bad upper respiratory infection. Not much different than when an infant has a bad head cold.
Luckily she was pulled into foster thanks to the plea for help.
Once in foster, it still took this poor gal over 8 weeks to get healthy enough to be fit for adoption.
And then she came to us at Cat & Craft.
Now she’s known as “Dani” – same sound but a new name for a new start. And as you can see her shadow days are far behind her.
Dani paying the love forward to lil’ Richie
The truly happy ending to her story will be when her forever family comes in and decides to adopt her! But she’s well on her way to a wonderful life from here on out.
Wait wait wait… freeze frame. Before I get into that…
First meet Rocko. Rocko is as awesome as awesome comes.
But his journey has been a tough one…
This is how Rocko looked when our cat rescue partner, LYFF Rescue, rescued him from an animal shelter on January 29, 2019.
He was on death watch due to an undetermined “eye injury” which was later determined to be chemical burns to both eyes. (Likely intentional given placement of the injury.)
The shelter who received him did not have the resources to treat him – not even with pain medication.
LYFF Rescue stepped in and sent out an APB asking for monetary commitments so that they could commit to the treatment they knew could save this cat and give him an awesome future.
A generous anonymous donor stepped in and Rocko went to a volunteer foster home for continued treatment – progressing to this…
Rocko on the mend!
Once he was fully healed, good ol’ Rocko moved into the Cat & Craft Cat Lounge and started livin’ large…
Then on May 13, 2019 his forever momma who came in for her Cat Lounge reservation, applied for and was approved by LYFF Rescue to Rocko him home to his brand new life!
I often have to remind myself that the “cat cafe” concept – while present around the world – is still not a universally known thing…
I sometimes overhear first-time visitors ask why we have cats and why we charge a fee to spend time with the cats.
It’s sometimes a challenge to communicate correctly, especially when there are a lot of elements competing for our modern-day short attention spans!
If you found this blog and are taking the time to read it, I realize you are probably onboard with the whole “cat cafe” concept…so that’s why I’m going to ask for your help!
Do you know someone who has heard of us (or any cat cafe) but hasn’t visited? Or maybe you have friends or family members that love animals, but have never had a cat as a pet before?
…OR maybe you know someone who deep down is destined to become a crazy cat lady or cat man, and you know all they need is a little coaxing!
“Come over to the dark side… it’s furry and purry here!”
If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, please read on and use this info as a tool to help us grow our community and save more lives!
Here’s the deal… just like Rocko, every cat in our care was saved from euthanasia.
You read that right…
Every single cat we have cared for at C&C since our January opening was pulled from something referred to as “death watch” in the rescue/shelter world. This means the cat was marked for euthanasia by the shelter and assigned a timeline for changing/appealing that decision.
Euthanasia assignments can be based on a number of things – behavioral issues, medical issues, or simply a lack of space.
Some behavioral issues are easily addressed with time and attention. Some medical issues are easily (or not so easily) addressed with treatment and dedicated care. And when it comes to a lack of space, resources are finite and when an adult or senior cat is taking up cage space with no one showing interest in adopting it time can simply run out.
We exist to give these cats another chance.
I like to think of our space as a spoke in a wheel. Each spoke serves a purpose that helps the wheel to turn, and the wheel in turn to carry forth an objective. Shelters, rescue organizations, individual volunteers and cat cafes are all spokes in a wheel, and all work together to give companion cats a higher quality of life and a second chance at love.
We are extremely lucky to work with a non-profit rescue organization that is willing to take on the hard cases – and sometimes expensive cases – to help as many cats as they can. But a rescue can only commit to saving a cat if they know they will have the resources to care for it and help it get adopted. This is where we come in.
Each cat adopted from Cat & Craft enables LYFF Rescue to save another life.
We work really hard to give our foster cats a safe, comfortable and cozy environment where they get plenty of love and attention. But we are no substitute for a family and a home to call one’s own. And worse, the longer current fosters reside with us, other cats are stuck living in cages and missing their chance to be saved due to a lack of available foster space.
Operating a foster cat lounge isn’t free… or cheap.
In a perfect world committing to help improve the lives of others would be a free endeavor. Sadly we don’t live in a perfect world. We have to pay additional monthly rent for our cat lounge space. Additional monthly power and insurance bills too. Staff costs to feed and clean up after 15 cats every day? That’s an additional monthly expense too. Cat litter… I won’t get into how much cat litter we go through.
By additional I mean all these costs are added to our costs to operate a coffee shop. And the coffee shop is the vehicle by which we attract and encourage people to come spend time with – and hopefully adopt – our foster cats.
So on the rare occasion I hear someone make a comment that they shouldn’t have to pay $12 to hang out with cats, I don’t disagree.
I tell them if they can convince my landlord to stop charging me rent, and SDGE to waive my power bills, and AllState to give me free insurance, and help me win the lottery so I can pay our staff so they can buy gas to get to work, then I am beyond happy to waive their $12 lounge fee!
In all seriousness, what I’m getting at is that we are invested in providing the platform and experience that we know will help the 500 cats we are trying to save in our first year of business, and even more beyond that. But like any small business we depend on the community to support us. And that is where you come in.
Even just choosing to make us your daily or weekly coffee shop helps… truly it does. But spending time with the cats in our care… helping us share their stories and encouraging others to do the same… that’s how you can help us weave something truly magical!
If you didn’t see Andrew and I at Cat & Craft this past week, it’s because we stepped away for some much needed rest and relaxation.
This would not have been possible if not for our super staff and rescue partner keeping everything running like clockwork while we were away.
During our travels we got to spend time with family on the Big Island of Hawaii. As some of you know, the majority of our family resides on the east coast (where we moved here from). However Andrew’s cousin moved his wife and kids to Big Island a few years ago, and as you can imagine that’s a longer flight than most Georgia and Tennessee residents choose to make.
But now that we are in California (and thanks to Southwest causing all the Hawaii bound flight prices to drop) we decided to go say aloha!
Here’s the cool part and why I’m even getting into this on the blog
Long story short – we arrive to meet cousins that Andrew hasn’t seen in years (and that I’ve never even met) and quickly discover that cat obsessions run in our family more than we knew!
“Are they ‘cat people’… or are they just people who have cats?”
We learned that the Hawaiian islands have a disproportionate number of feral and stray cat colonies given there are very few natural predators, and cats are not a native species (I’m intentionally avoiding the “invasive species” debate here though I can see and understand both sides of the argument in this regard).
Add to the equation large areas without access to affordable spay/neutering programs and it’s easy to understand why there are so many cats.
Much like here on the mainland, many folks don’t understand how feral and stray cat communities operate and deem them to be a nuisance.
Without education, the default solution too often involves the topic of extermination. But thanks to dedicated non-profit organizations and volunteers (like our family members) some really pawsitive changes are being made – such as enrolling area resorts into TNR programs and cat colony monitoring programs.
Along for the ride
Our cousin loads the back of the family minivan with 4 large bags of dry food and 8 reusable plastic tubs of pre-portioned wet food the evening before his 6AM volunteer feeding round.
We rode along with him to meet the three colonies he cares for at a golf resort on the western side of the island, and got to see a lot of very well-cared for ear-tipped stray and feral kitties, as well as a few mongoose – the equivalent of what us mainland caretakers encounter when it comes to racoons!
Quick Clip #1 – Big Island Cat Colony Volunteering
He explained to use that these three specific colonies now have a team of monitoring volunteers in place solely because of one awesome woman who has been caring for them for YEARS.
Quick Clip #2 – Big Island Cat Colony Volunteering
She started TNR on her own – as many do – and later recruited volunteers to help her with feedings. All cats in the colonies are now spayed/neutered, and if a new cat shows up or one falls ill, she traps them and gets them to the vet.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to meet her, but if you follow any cat rescue account on Instagram (@the_original_trapking, @catmanofwestoakland, @kittenxlady, @paulthecatguy, @catmanchrispoole) then you’ll quickly discover a small army of individuals all over the world who chose to get involved and be the change they want to see in the world, rather than stand idly by to let animals suffer – or worst be exterminated.
So how is this relevant to Cat & Craft?
My hope is by sharing this story and photos with you, it might open your eyes to another way you too can help cats.
Andrew and I initially met our rescue partner because we chose to volunteer as community cat caretakers in Carlsbad long before we opened Cat & Craft.
While we paused on our community feedings in order to open the cat cafe, it’s most certainly work we will return to. Most non-profits – including our partner LYFF – provide all the food and supplies.
All it requires from you is a little bit of your time on a regular basis… and you’ll soon be rewarded by cats who recognize you, wait for you, and live a happier and healthier existence because of you.
If you’re interested in getting started with volunteering, click here to visit LYFF Rescue’s volunteer page. They have lots of different ways that you can help – even being a temporary foster for cats who will end up at C&C!
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!
I think I speak for most cat cafe owners when I say we tend to get a lot of questions from people about how they might go about opening their own cat cafe. And we certainly had those questions ourselves when we first committed to opening Cat & Craft.
Now that we are approaching four months of being in business, I want to share some of what we’ve learned thus far. And even if you don’t have any interest in opening your own cat cafe, you might be interested to know all that goes on behind the scenes throughout the process.
So let’s get started!…
1. Get involved with a rescue or shelter as a volunteer (and give it some time)
Honestly speaking, if Andrew and I had not had the experience we did with feral momma cat Cali while we were back in Atlanta (you can read more about that here), we would not be doing this now.
Before I got involved in volunteer cat rescue work I had no idea the true scale of suffering that can take place when cats are homeless and/or not spayed or neutered. To be even more honest, it would have been easier for us both to just ignore the problem and tell ourselves we couldn’t do anything big enough to help fix it.
Not everyone is called to the same work.
That is why we are all created with different skills, and why each of us has an individual heart that is set on fire by what speaks directly to our souls.
So the first benefit of investing your time volunteering is to determine if this route is really YOUR route.
Your project, your service, your calling.
The second benefit of investing yourself in volunteer work is it naturally enables you to create a relationship with the very shelter or rescue that might need you and your dream to help accomplish their own.
Or, you might be inspired to start your own non-profit, as some cat cafes choose to do. Either way, you’ll get confirmation on whether or not you are on the right path.
2. Do your business homework
Do you need to be classified as a for-profit entity or a 501c3? Depends on what you want to accomplish and how much oversight or control you want to give others.
What is your value proposition?
Who are you trying to serve?
What is your vision?
The long road ahead will be much easier traversed if you have an unwavering vision of your potential and believe in it 1000%.
Do your homework and start compiling potential operating expenses, then determine what resources you need to have access to in order to start up the business and then sustain it.
3. Leverage experts whenever possible
Not to say it hasn’t happened, but I don’t know any cat cafe owners who had an easy time leasing a commercial space for their business.
You may eat/sleep/breathe the cat cafe concept, but I’m here to remind you the vast majority of folks still have no idea what it is. Take time to put together a concise, easy to read presentation with clear visuals. You don’t have to get into your financial details but do give a basic overview of your business plan. Be a professional and offer this to any landlord who is leasing space that you are interested in.
We chose to work with a commercial broker because we had no personal experience with commercial leasing, and I didn’t want to go into any legally binding agreement with blind spots. That said, don’t depend on your broker to look out for all your interests – their job is to help you find property appropriate for your needs and to help get the landlord’s broker to see value in your business proposition (note: you may not need to work with a broker to find the right space, it all depends on where you want to be located and what is most common/acceptable in that area).
Before you enter any contract have an attorney review what you are preparing to agree to and advise you of things you might want to negotiate with the landlord before finalizing your agreement.
Trying not to freak out.
For example…
Is the landlord willing to waive your monthly rent for a period of time while you apply for your building permit to make modifications to the space?
Does the property have common area management fees and if so, do they increase year over year?
Are you responsible for anything outside of your leased square footage?
If something doesn’t go as planned are you allowed to sublease your space, and if so are you still responsible for all associated fees and payments?
Even with a broker and an attorney helping us, we still encountered multiple issues with our lease, and there are quite a few things I would do very differently in this respect if I started all over from scratch.
Same goes for the permitting process with city and state governmental agencies. If you want to serve any food or beverage that is not pre-packaged offsite, you’ll very likely have to deal with your state health department. Want to serve alcohol? There is a permitting process for that too.
Many city building departments won’t agree to review food service plans unless the state health department has either signed off on them, or is simultaneously reviewing them. If there is not currently a cat cafe doing business in your state, you will probably want to take the time to request a meeting with your state’s Environmental Health department.
Even though a cat cafe had already been doing business in downtown San Diego for multiple years, I still requested meetings with the San Diego Department of Environmental Health, as well as the City of Carlsbad, The City of Encinitas, and The City of Vista.
Also keep in mind anytime you submit your plans for formal review with the city or state, you will have to pay a fee – and the fees aren’t cheap. So get your ducks in a row long before you submit for your plan checks.
4. Check your compass
If you’ve made it anywhere near signing a lease and drafting plans for the build-out or remodel of your leased space, take this to heart:
As with most every decision you’ll face in life there are usually a few doors that will present themselves to you. Whichever door you choose will have its own set of consequences.
For the purpose of this post I’ll refer to these doors as follows:
The Easy Way
The Cheap Way
The Right Way
The “Easy” way might be cheap, and the “Cheap” way might be easy, but neither may be the “Right” way. As we got further and further into the process of drafting our food service plans (once again, you probably want to work with an expert here if you plan to face your health department and haven’t opened a cafe or restaurant before), and working with a general contractor to price out the work and materials specified by the plans, I suddenly began paying attention to ALL SORTS of other businesses and what they apparently did – or didn’t do – during their permitting and building process.
I started to get really frustrated that we were spending so much time and money to follow “the rules”, when other businesses seemed to have gotten away with not following them (a fun game for those of you in San Diego County – start tracking how many coffee shops actually have the required sneeze guards around their espresso machine and bean grinders).
So all of this to say, prepare yourself for what you are going to do if you face these doors. In our case, we felt it was important to do things by the book even if that meant sacrificing more money or something else that we had wanted, because the potential consequence of not getting our building permit, or delaying our opening date, or worse – running the risk of being shut down during future inspections – was too much of a jeopardy to our overall cause.
5. There will be delays
The sooner you accept this, the less sleep, hair, and overall well-being you will have to say goodbye to. I don’t remember how many delays we encountered, but I do remember touring something like 24 properties in four different city jurisdictions, making offers on six properties and moving to negotiations on two during an 11 month time period.
We signed our lease in May of 2018, and architectural / food service plans weren’t complete until July. Plan check with the health department took two weeks, and we had to resubmit a 2nd time because they wanted to know more about the exhaust fans we selected for the restrooms.
City plan check took six weeks, and we had to resubmit to them too because of our 2nd submission to the health department. We started demolition in July but couldn’t put in a single piece of pipe or new plywood until we had our building permit from the city, which happened in September.
Foster Cat Lounge – Before & After
Then we went through 5 or 6 construction schedule revisions because materials were delayed, subcontractors didn’t measure correctly the first time, or something specified on the plans – once built in actuality – had to be re-configured. We got so down-to-the-wire that we literally opened our doors two days after passing our final health inspection and receiving our temporary occupancy permit from the City of Vista. We were sooo not prepared but we were out of time and money – rent had to be paid and more importantly cats were waiting for homes – so off to the races we went with our fingers crossed and pants afire!
Coffee Shop – Before & After
6. Cats are not widgets
An espresso machine is fairly predictable. It works exactly how it’s supposed to when you take proper care of it and follow directions (unless you have a really fancy, really expensive, sports car of an espresso machine).
Cats, no matter how closely you follow the very best practices of care, will never ever behave in a way that is totally predictable. You will spend the vast majority of your time playing ‘wack-a-mole’ with various unplanned circumstances regarding the health and well being of the cats (as you should if your heart is in it for them).
Just like all living, breathing creatures, even when all controllable variables are the same, each and every day is different. One day everyone is happy and chill, the next day three kiddos are vomiting, one keeps picking a fight with the new guy, and another has suddenly decided to pee on the new rug you got.
Each time a cat is adopted out and a new foster moves in, the whole scene resets to “God Only Knows What’s Next”. It may sound funny but if you are not prepared for this it can be a very real drain on time and attention that might be needed elsewhere in your business to keep things running properly. Which leads me to…
7. You’ll need good people
Unless you can accomplish 3 – 5 things at once, have eyes in all sides of your head, and can be in two places simultaneously, you will need a team of people to support you.
We often get questions from people asking if they can volunteer for us. Whether or not you hire employees or recruit volunteers is a decision you will need to make based on your organization’s classification / license and state requirements.
For example, in California the state can issue you a monetary fine if it finds you have non-compensated workers doing a job that paid laborers could equally effectively do. Personally, I feel better providing compensation to people who I depend on to execute our mission, because it keeps agreements clear and everyone on equal footing.
We are so lucky to have amazing employees both behind our coffee bar and in the cat lounge (you can meets some of them here and here). They bought into our vision at the start, and they value being a part of the mission. Without each and every one of them we would not be able to provide the experience we want to give to the cats in our care and the guests who support us.
Bonus: Ready fire aim
I’ll wrap up with this: Timing will never be perfect. Conditions will never be perfect.
Like the Nike slogan says, ‘Just do it!’
Sometimes you just have to start the work and course-correct along the way. We’re very grateful for the support of our families, our team, our vendors, our rescue partner and all who have contributed work towards our vision.
Andrew and I stepped away from the cafe for a date night last night, and we braved the North County traffic to see CATS at the San Diego Civic Theatre!
Full disclosure, I’ve seen this musical 5 or 6 times AT LEAST. My parents first took me when I was in elementary school (many many years ago lol).
My two favorite things as a child were 1.) cats and 2.) ballet. So you can imagine at 7 years old when I see a stage full of dancers in the most incredible cat costumes ever, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
Sitting in the theater last night waiting for the house lights to dim, Andrew and I couldn’t help but notice the dad and daughter seated next to us. The daughter was 6 or 7 years old dressed in a leopard print dress (I was wearing leopard print pants so we matched), the dad was singing all the songs with her and they were excitedly discussing their favorite Jellicle cat characters.
Gotta dress for the occasion!
And it hit me that a little more than 30 years ago I was her, doing the exact same thing with my parents.
CATS the musical premiered in 1981, which means it’s been entertaining the imagination of cat lovers young and old for 38 years! Very few things can manage to hold the attention of our current culture for long, so this, in an of itself, is a marvel.
Cast of CATS the musical.
And it was so cool to see so many children in the theater last night wearing cat ears, cat tails, costumes even… and each of those kids left with an even greater appreciation for the mystery unique to all cats, and perhaps are now inspired by the beauty of self-expression through song and dance.
Next time you’re in the cat lounge take a look at our bookshelf and you’ll find a copy of the book that started it all – T. S. Elliot’s 1939 poetry book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
…And I may or may be serenading our foster cats with the soundtrack for weeks to come!
When warmer weather arrives in the Spring, mother nature generally goes to work. Primarily taking place from March until October, “kitten season” is a reference to the time of year when most unaltered (not spayed) cats go into heat.
If an unaltered female cat meets an unaltered male cat and is impregnated, the female can give birth to a litter of kittens a mere 60 days after conception.
Do the math… that means an unaltered female cat could have multiple litters of kittens during a single season. And did you know a female cat can be successfully impregnated as young as 4 months of age? This is why most veterinarians recommend spaying/neutering cats as early as 8 weeks of age.
So what happens when countless litters of kittens start popping out all over the place?
Not a lot of good if humans don’t intervene. When food sources are limited babies face the risk of starvation if the mom is not be able to produce enough milk. A newborn kitten’s immune system is at high risk for illness and disease, not to mention predators such as coyotes, owls and hawks.
Shelters and rescues alike are inundated with kittens during this time of year, and without adequate space, supplies and skilled volunteers many kittens face euthanasia. This is where you can help!
Learn how to bottle feed kittens (BE STILL MY HEART)
Learn how rescues are working to save more kittens
Learn the importance of spaying/neutering
Adopt a kitten… or 2!
All you have to do is buy a ticket and bring a donated item to support LYFF Rescue (list is on the website). Super simple and SUPER fun, all while you are helping animals in need.
This week I’d like to continue introducing you guys to more members of the Cat & Craft team.
These two awesome souls came to be a part of our team in a very cool way, which I’ll do my best to explain below..
Rewind to last fall. It was September 9th, and while our physical location was still under construction our Instagram page had been up and running for quite some time. We were blessed to have some regular social media followers keeping up with our progress and supporting us.
This is the day our sweet Rugby had to depart from his life with us. It was a beautiful morning, complete with a butterfly exiting its chrysalis on the back porch. Rugby took his final stroll around our garden before crossing over the rainbow bridge in a warm pool of sunshine, and once Andrew and I pieced ourselves back together, we went down to the beach to have a ceremony in honor of the time we had shared with him.
I posted a photo of his life ceremony to our Instagram page, and a kind soul sent me a message telling me he happened to have been on the same beach and saw us, and that he was holding space for us during this time of transition. The fact that a complete stranger had recognized us, witnessed such a special moment and was supporting us from afar was so magical and meaningful to me that it’s difficult for me to put it all into words.
Fast forward to December when we began hiring staff for Cat & Craft. A bright, bubbly young lady with a huge heart for cats – and people – came to interview for the Cat Lounge host position. During our conversation I learned her partner was none other than the same gentleman who saw us on the beach that day and had messaged us. And he happened to be a barista who was working for his parents coffee cart in Carlsbad.
Now there are many times when the universe has to hit me in the face to get my attention, but this time I felt the message in my heart loud and clear.
Sydney joined us as a Cat Lounge host, and later Eric joined us as a barista (don’t worry he’s still supporting his family’s coffee cart too). And guess where they had their first date years prior? The Cat Cafe in downtown San Diego!
With that, let me get on with introducing you to Eric and Sydney…
You now know Eric came to work for us as a barista because he was seriously meant to. He prefers to go by the name TumERIC (like Tumeric, the healing spice… get it?) and the name is totally fitting.
‘Purr’over coffee champ!
He and Sydney have four cats – Bleu, Opie, Floyd and Roxanne. They also make wire wrapped jewelry (their business is called Wrapping Cats) – and they very much want to visit Peru!
You’ll find Sydney in the cat lounge rocking a sweet set of cat ears and expressing her true self in fun, funky clothing as yet another means of artistic expression!
Sydney listening closely to the demands of a Cat Lounge resident.
She’s also a Reiki level 1 and 2 practitioner and is always very much in tune with how the cats and their visitors are all vibing on any given day.
So next time to you stop by be sure to say hello to these two and thank them for the work they do.
Next week I’ll shine the flashlight on our next two superstars… so stay tuned!
I often get asked questions about what it’s like to run a cat cafe.
The obvious answer is it’s super fun and super rewarding given I get to spend a lot of time with cats (win) and see a lot of people grow great big smiles on their faces when they are spending time with our cats (win win).
BUT it’s also A LOT of work.
So it’s super important to have a great team of people who share the same vision and love cats like we do!
Charlene was born in Encinitas so she’s a local! She came to us after moving back to SD from Long Beach where she spent 10 years managing a bakery and a coffee shop.
She has two cats of her own – George who is a gorgeous grey dude and Lorelei – a beautiful tortoiseshell lady who she adopted from Cat & Craft!
50% Tortie, 50% Velociraptor, Lorelei isn’t a big picture poser but is a total sweetheart loving her new furrever home and her big brother George.
Charlene also has two human boys (ha) and likes to design jewelry in her spare time.
Next up is our Cat Lounge host supervisor Jennifer!
Jennifer treating C&C foster, Callahan to some grooming glove love.
On top of doing an awesome job keeping the kitties well fed, loved on, and the cat lounge looking pristine, Jennifer is skilled at getting some of our shy kitties to open up and acclimated to their new surroundings.
And just like Charlene, Jennifer made a special connection with a C&C foster named The Dude and is now his furrever parent!
The Dude getting to go home with his furrever mommy.
Oh yea, she also has her black belt in Taekwondo and competes regularly. (best watch your Ps & Qs in the Cat Lounge 😹👍 ).
Next week I’ll introduce you to a few more of our lounge hosts and baristas – until then, have a great weekend and we hope to see you soon!
