Take a look inside Mew Haven, Connecticut's first and only cat café
The owner of Mew Haven Cat Cafe reflects on four years of operation and nearly 600 cats adopted into forever homes.
Combine a coffee shop and an animal shelter, and you get Mew Haven Cat Café in New Haven.
Many kittens and cats - at one point as many as 30 - hang out on the first floor of a building on Whalley Avenue, adjacent to Blake Street, in the Westville section of the city, waiting to say hi to visitors and someday be adopted into a forever home.
How Mew Haven got its start
Angela Pullo and her husband Mike first visited a cat café in New York City, the "Meow Parlour" in 2014. This was shortly after they had to say goodbye to their own Mr. Kitty, who had passed away, but the couple was not yet ready to adopt another.
"A few months later, my husband Mike said why don’t we do one [a cat café] of our own?" Angela said. "That might seem like a throwaway question from anyone but knowing Mike I said, 'OK, why don’t we think about this.'”
The couple indeed did some thinking and some research. They found New Haven to be a prospective area for the state's first cat café. During their search in 2015, there were fewer than 10 cat cafes in the U.S.
"We knew we didn’t want to open it in New York; it felt like too of a competitive place, higher rent. But as soon as he said Mew Haven, we knew we had to do it in this town," Pullo said.
Like with any new business, getting the permits and zoning approvals is an extensive process, especially when the type of business being pursued is not defined in the planning and zoning regulations.
"So there is no such thing as a cat café in New Haven zoning; there’s no such thing as a cat café in any zoning, so we had to figure out where we would be able to open up this place," Pullo explained.
The Westville neighborhood, as well as area aldermen, helped Angela and Mike get the ball rolling. They went on to obtain a health license to serve food and drinks and they also found the perfect spot to transform into a lounge fit for felines.
They finally opened in September 2018.
A look inside the café
As many as 30 cats have roamed the café at a time. There were 21 when FOX61 paid them a visit.
Patrons first walk into the café section of the building to check in, and this is their chance to get a drink or a snack before visiting the cats. When ordering tickets online or in person, visitors can choose to stay for a 50-minute or three-hour study session.
A quick walk around the orange building, the color inspired by the late Mr. Kitty, and through a brick road alleyway will bring you to the second entrance, sealed by two doors to ensure the cats don't escape.
Inside are two main rooms, surrounded by bright windows that look out on Whalley Avenue. From top to bottom, there are perches, cushions, and cubed nooks for the cats to lounge, stand, and even sleep on. Toys from ribbons and mice on sticks to life-like plush fish are sprawled along some of the tables.
Other tables in the room adjacent to the café, visible through an interior window, are set aside for human food. These rooms are also accented in bright orange.
Before speaking with Angela, Panther wanted the spotlight, meowing to let us know he's around. He sat down on top of a nearby table and kept an eye on the camera. He even made a cameo in between questions, eating his afternoon kibble on the window sill facing the main road.
Many of the cats were taking their afternoon naps. Most stay asleep as guests give gentle pets.
Some cats were still alert and playful, including Jethro, enticed to catch the bait while perched on the cat-sized hamster wheel. Another cat, perhaps Ira, played fetch with one of the staff members, strutting around with a plush fish in tow.
Cat nooks extended into the single (human) bathroom, and those dwellers pay no mind to visitors on important business.
Adopting a cat and partnership with Halfway Home Rescue
Most of the cats can expect to go home as soon as days, and as long as months, from when they first come to the café.
"Every week we can expect someone to go home, pretty much," Pullo said.
Going on four years, the café is also set to celebrate another milestone: 600 cats adopted through the café.
This could not have been done without the partnership they have with Halfway Home Rescue in North Haven.
Since 2004, volunteers have taken care of shelter pets like cats and dogs. They have expanded to take care of "lifers," pets that otherwise would not be able to be adopted into a forever home due to a severe issue with health or behavior. Halfway Home also has a barn to take care of farm animals.
The café acts like a foster home for Halfway Home. Adoption applications are accepted at the café and are sent to the rescue for processing. During that process, they try to find a good fit between a cat and a prospective owner.
"They’re looking for the right fit," Pullo said of Halfway Home Rescue. "Just because the cat you are looking to apply for may not be the right fit for your home. Maybe it’s because you might be looking for a relaxed cat and the cat you are attracted to has a lot of energy and you want to make sure you can treat that cat properly and give it the right stimulation at home."
She added that kittens should go home with another kitten to help them with socialization.
The cat café is dedicated to keeping their cats safe and healthy during their stay, even the ones with chronic conditions.
Halfway Home tests all of their cats for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) and FeLV, which is Feline Leukemia Virus; the tests are done all together but they’re two separate things.
"Feline leukemia cats can’t be around other cats because it’s something that’s spread very easily. FIV however, means that the cat is immunocompromised," Pullo explained.
FIV positive and FIV negative cats share the café together. This condition is not easily spread through common settings like sharing food and water and being groomed, according to Angela. The illness is usually transmitted through bites from an infected cat, Cornell advises. Angela notes that transmission could happen during catfights.
"We’re on top of it for FIV-positive cats, otherwise it might turn into something that will spiral itself out. And we want to make sure we are paying attention to all of those symptoms," Pullo said.
Milestones and the road ahead
Just a few years after getting into the swing of things, like with everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the cat café. However, support from the community did not slow down.
"We couldn’t have succeeded through COVID; we had to shut down for four months," Pullo said. "Without people continuing to show their support online, buying gift cards so that they will want to come in the future, and people who are even more eager now to come visit us than ever."
Masks are now optional in the café and cat lounge.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: A cat business is just scratching the surface in New Haven
Now, this past summer, the café encouraged buying tickets in advance, as weekend slots have been filling up fast.
There are no plans so far to open additional locations; that would involve going through planning and zoning all over again, especially if they were to expand outside of the Elm City.
"It’s definitely a big step to take if we were able to do so," she said.
Instead, they're full speed ahead on Whalley, particularly for the anniversary celebrations in September.
"We are going to have tons of events," Pullo said. "We’re going to have our yoga event, crocheting with cats event, I’m hoping to do our first ever tea party."
"For us to be open for four years, for us to be hitting upon 600 adoptions is really special and far surpasses anything we could’ve imagined when we first opened," Pullo said.
To find out more about the Mew Haven Cat Café, click here.
To find out more about Halfway Home Rescue, click here.
All of the available cats, including those featured in the cat café, can be found on Halfway Home's Petfinder webpage.
Leah Myers is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. She can be reached at lmyers@fox61.com
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