Purrs and Pours cat cafe makes a splash at the coffee festival

LACONIA — Feline fanciers will hail this as an inspired, if not purrfect, addition to this weekend’s coffee festival. On May 20 and 21, the New Hampshire Humane Society will host the state’s first cat café – a pop-up event on Main Street featuring cats for adoption of various stripes and patterns, ages and catwalks at a storefront next to Wayfarer Coffee Roasters.

“We have had a tremendously positive response to the work we have been doing over the last two years and we are thrilled to bring another fun activity to the community,” said NH Hampshire Humane Society Director, Charles Stanton. “The felines we've chosen run the gamut. Some kittens, some adult cats, some rescues from local communities, and some that have been transferred from high euthanasia areas in other parts of the country. All of them are in need of loving homes.”

The Humane Society’s “Purrs & Pours” at 630 Main Street Laconia will not serve or sell any beverages, but those can be purchased at New England Coffee Festival venues brought into the cat café, which will run from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Cats will be available for adoption and potential new owners can apply during their visit. Stanton said space is limited, with only ten seats inside, so there may be a wait. Timers will be running to keep the experience efficient and invite as many people as possible, he said.

Stanton said other cat cafés will follow later in the year if this pilot “Purrs & Pours” proves popular and successful. “We are so thrilled to have been able to launch this as a litmus test for how the community would respond,” he said. “Clearly people are looking for a purrfect coffee spot.”

For those who are new to cat cafes, where patrons can watch and play with cats while sitting and relaxing, the concept originated in Taipei, Taiwan and quickly blossomed across the globe. After Taipei’s “Cat Flower Garden” opened in 1998 and became a tourist destination, the idea took off in Japan, where many people live in small apartments, unable to keep pets, and on-demand immersion with comforting and amusing cats provided the missing link of interaction. Within five years, nearly 80 cat cafes opened in Taiwan. Today there are hundreds of cat cafes worldwide, from Korea and Singapore to Austria, Poland, Lithuania and the United States, where locations crop up to offer candidates for adoption.

"Purrs and Pours" in Laconia was made possible by Eastern Propane and Oil, sponsor of the Humane Society’s New England Social Series, and by Warren Clement, a local realtor and former owner of The Sundial Shop, who approached his clients to secure the location.

For more information about upcoming socials in the series, go to nhhumane.org.