Purrs and perks: Chill with dozens of kitties at city’s only cat cafe

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This article was published 28/10/2018 (2526 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Want your coffee with a side of cuddles? Or some purrs with your afternoon pick-me-up?

When you walk into Miss J. La’s Fur Babies Cat Café, you won’t see a shiny, chrome-plated cappuccino machine. Nor will you see a short-order cook churning out plates of eggs, bacon, and toast.

What you will see, however, is a pussycat paradise with cat towers, cubby holes, and toys galore — here, the focal point is felines.

Cats and cooking aren’t exactly a match made in heaven — anyone want their omelette with a side of fur? Miss J. La’s doesn’t have a kitchen. Jennifer Laferriere, the eponymous Miss J. La, operates out of a dance studio run by her daughters.

The modest-sized room — where 20-odd cats loll about on perches and plush beds, occasionally dash after a toy, and lap up attention from visitors — is primarily an adoption centre to match up the folks who come in with new four-pawed pals. Laferriere has partnered with Ksen’s Kittens, a local non-profit that doesn’t have a space of its own.

“We work with the rescue, we bring in all these kitties, and our goal is to give them a home,” Laferriere said. All the cats at the café are up for adoption, with the exception of a trio that live there full time: Jazzee, a one-eyed brown tabby; Mouse, a deaf white cat with heterochromia (two different coloured eyes); and Marty, a gregarious, outgoing sort who people keep trying to adopt.

Marty spent part of the interview roosted on the interviewer’s shoulder, purring into his ear.

Although the space on Kingsbury Avenue has served Laferriere well, the café will soon be on the move — the lease is up at the end of the month. Laferriere is still searching for a new space, ideally with windows —so the cats can bask in the sun — and in a more visible location.

She is accepting donations through GoFundMe, has organized an online auction, and is selling all sorts of merchandise at the café to raise funds.

Her goal is to have her new space open a week after she secures it.

Laferriere is an unapologetic “cat lady” — she even wears a shirt proclaiming herself as such. In addition to all her “fur babies” at the café, she has three more at home: Lola, Cinnamon, and Angel.

“At first, Lola, when I got home, she wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I think she knew I was with other cats! Basically, my whole life is cats. About taking care of them and worrying about them.”

Laferriere said her space, where the cats have free reign, gives people more chance to see them as they truly are.

“When you come in here, you get to see their personalities — they’re not in cages,” she said. “I’m not slamming places that have cages because they have to. But here, you get to see their personalities and what they’re like, which is hard when they’re in a cage.”

“Here, you can spend time with them, some of them come up and cuddle you, so that makes people want to come here,” she continued. “Someone might come in saying ‘Oh, I want a white cat,’ but it’s the black cat comes over and steals their heart.”

The café has adopted out 56 cats since opening in August 2016.

One adopter is Marnie Vieira, who took home a handsome tabby named Jakey nearly a year ago. She characterizes Jakey as “an extreme cuddle bug.”

“We were attracted to the cat café because it gave us the opportunity to have a unique experience with all of the cats,” Vieira said, adding it was “extremely beneficial” to interact with them outside of cages.

“Jennifer was so kind and allowed myself to return with each of my children to make sure Jakey was the right fit for our family,” she continued. “I brought the kids there a few times so we could all make a decision. After we had visited and all spent time there with the cats, we knew Jakey was the one for our family.”

Cat Cafes got their start in Asia. The first one, Cat Flower Garden, opened in Taipei, Taiwan in 1998, according to a Mental Floss article, “A Brief History of the Cat Café.”

It wasn’t until the concept of combining cats and caffeine reached Japan, however, that it really began to burgeon. The first cat cafés opened there in the mid-2000s, and by 2012, there were more than 150 in operation, according to a 2012 article by the BBC’s Lindsey Galloway. Some offer a full food menu, while others don’t even serve water.

Laferriere was inspired to open Miss J. La’s after cat cafés started popping up in Canada (the first one opened in Montreal in 2014.) Her daughters had an empty studio, which proved to be the perfect space fort the past two years.

Technically, you don’t even pay for your hot beverage of choice at the café — it’s included with the $10 flat fee, which goes toward buying supplies like food, litter, and paying the rent.

There’s a selection of prepackaged snacks for purchase, including baked goods when people donate them. Recently, they’ve had — appropriately enough — cat-shaped sugar cookies.

The real cats attract all sorts.

“We’ve had couples and people that stay for two, three hours, just sitting with the kitties,” Laferriere said. “I encourage people to study or read or anything, just come here and relax with the cats.”

The café also acts as a place for people who aren’t able to have one of their own cats to get their feline fix, Laferriere said. Even people with allergies — some of whom have come in wearing masks — can’t stay away.

Many visitors, she says, are “cheating” on the cats they have at home.

“I know most people will come in and be like ‘I have three cats at home and my cats are going to know when I go home that I was here,’” she says.

That includes Vieira and her family, who still stop by from time to time. Vieira calls it “a great stress reliever.”

Although Laferriere is the queen of cats, she doesn’t rule alone, and calls daughter Karlie her “right hand.”

Karlie has a few other jobs, but helps her mom whenever she can, and willingly shoulders perhaps the least desirable task — cleaning the litter boxes. Jennifer had a kidney transplant two years ago and organ recipients are advised to avoid cat litter to minimize the risk of contracting a potentially fatal parasite.

“I love cats, but not to the degree that she does,” Karlie said as she cuddled with a white cat named Meow.

Even though the uncertainty around the café’s new location is causing her stress, Laferriere is not going to give up being a cat “mom.” She finds seeing the cats blossom and their true personalities slowly shine through very rewarding.

“It’s watching the change in cats,” Laferriere explained. “We have one… that used to be feral and now I go up to her and she rubs against me and lets me pet her and she’s purring.

“Even Jazzee… she was terrified of people,” she said. “To see her come around and let us touch her…it’s amazing. (Without the café) many of these cats would be on the street. I don’t know if they’d be alive right now.”