Verdun is Getting a Dog Café This Week

Everybody knows about cat cafés — coffee shops with an array of roaming felines, who play, stalk or sleep while customers eat and drink. Montreal already has three of them, in weirdly close proximity — Le Café des Chats, Café Chat L’Heureux, and the all-vegan Café Venosa. Dog cafés have been less of a thing — there’s just one, Le Doggy Café, also on the Plateau.

Now those numbers are going to be a little more even — chronicler of various things seen by pedestrians Fuck No Montreal caught wind of a second dog café — set to open its doors this Friday (April 21).

Ruff Haus Café Canin (“canine café”) is taking the place of former steakhouse JoBlo in Verdun. It’ll operate along the same lines as Doggy Café — it’s bring-your-own-dog, as opposed to the cat cafés, where the kitties are all “supplied” (for lack of a better term). Daycare for dogs is also an option — presumably, customers without dogs will in turn be able to hang out with pups whose owners have left them there.

Ruff Haus looks to be headed into meal territory more than similar businesses in Montreal (who have tended to stick to coffee and baked goods), with somewhat of a gluten-free bent: a mac and cheese and meatball sandwich (both gluten-free) appear to be on the menu. They also have a liquor license and will do cocktails.

The pet café idea seemed like a trend when it first surfaced in 2014, but the other cat and dog locations have all been open two or more years — that said, they’re in more bourgeois parts of the Plateau — Verdun is unchartered territory, and perhaps not as moneyed, but we’ll wait and see if Verdunites take to it.

STATUS — Ruff Haus Café Canin opens Friday April 21 at 3807 Wellington Street in Verdun.

• First Look: Le Café des Chats [EMTL]
• First Look: Café Chat L’Heureux [EMTL]
• Café Venosa, Montreal's Third Cat Café, Is Set to Open Soon [EMTL]
• Montreal's First Puppy Café Is Strictly for the Dogs [EMTL]
• Ruff Haus Café Canin [Facebook]