Catfe, Vancouver’s first cat cafe, is opening next week

Finally, grab coffee with a date that won’t disappoint

After over a year of media buzz, Vancouver’s first ever cat café—that is, a café with cats in it—will open next Monday, December 14. It was an arduous process for owner Michelle Furbacher, who had health-code hurdles and more to overcome, all to make her dream of cats, customers, and coffee in one place a reality. Indiegogo, a crowdfunding site, was used to help fund the project, which eventually found a home in the second storey of International Village, the airy Chinatown mall famous for its eclectic retailers, high vacancy rate, and a rather good movie theatre (the Indian place in the foodcourt is also not bad). You can add Catfé to the list. The opening date was announced Monday morning on Facebook, where another cat café, neighbouring Seattle Meowtropolitan, noted that Catfé’s opening nearly coincided with its own. Change, it would seem, is apaw.(Pictured above: a cat café in Slovenia. Since the concept was birthed in the late ’90s, cat cafés have grown in popularity and can now be found all over the world, though they are particularly popular in Japan.)