Coffee and Cats: Ottawa Café hopes you have a coffee, rescue cats

At first glance, Feline Café in Hintonburg looks like just another coffee shop but on top of the java and local sweets, customers can also relax with a furry friend.

The café on Wellington Street West allows customers to sit and relax in a separate room and enjoy their coffee with a few local cats up for adoption.

The concept is still a bit of a new one to the area, according to manager Katherine Clements, but it’s become very popular and has so far led to the adoption of over 400 kittens and cats.

“It’s a purpose-driven business, so our umbrella initiative is to take cats off the streets or in compromising situations and find them and put them in loving homes [through adoption],” Clements said in an interview with OttawaMatters.com.

Clements said the café is great for those who just want to have a coffee and hang out with cats, but they also “provide a space for people with anxiety…or a safe space to hang out with animals.”

A good mixture of both types of customers can be found in the café at any given time but the main goal is to help find good homes for the animals fostered by the café, which is done in partnership with Furry Tales Cat Rescue.

“We provide the space for them to bring the kittys to be cared for and to facilitate the adoption process,” Clements said.

The café has run out of room on its board of pictures of cats adopted out to new homes, with eyes now on the number 500, averaging an adoption of a cat every two days.

While the kittens and cats tend to steal the spotlight, Feline Café also offers up locally sourced food and coffee for all customers, whether it's Happy Goat or Equator Coffee or sweet treats from the nearby Strawberry Blonde Bakery.

“Lots of Latte’s, it’s like a science experiment back there right now,” Clements joked, adding they even have a Pumpkin Spice flavour for customers right now to go with the fall season. 

While one day they would like to make their own coffee and treats, for now the challenge of running the café side and the cat room side keeps everyone busy.

“It gets stressful sometimes because we are running two businesses at once essentially, the cat lounge with all the volunteers and the café with the staff members, so it’s a challenging and new concept,” Clements said.

“We’re still figuring it out and ironing out our systems but it’s all about saving cats and we know at the end of the day all of our hard work is going toward something beautiful.”

Customers do not have to adopt or commit to adopting animals to sit and have a coffee with them, but team members and volunteers will help with the adoption process if people are interested.

While cats are traditionally viewed as less work or more independent than dogs, Clements cautioned those looking for a kitten that it will be very time consuming for the first several months.

“If you’re looking for a kitten, you need to understand you’re adopting a baby, so this little creature is going to need a lot of care, attention and affection,” Clements said, adding a new cat parent can expect to be up all night the first few days and shouldn’t expect an easy process.

“They’re still little babies, they don’t know how to ‘cat yet,’” Clements said with a laugh.

Those interested in adoption can be taken through the whole process at the café with help from staff, who will work with the adopter to find the right fit.

The café is open Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.