Montreal’s Next Cat Café Will Be Opening in Verdun

Cat café number three is landing in Montreal, and it will be the first coffee-and-kitties establishment to set up shop outside the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough.

Café Chato is coming to Verdun, and is set to open on the corner of Verdun and 4th Avenue sometime in June.

The café will be pretty similar in format to the others already out there: customers will be able to grab caffeinated beverages, hang out with an array of (presumably friendly) felines, and have any latent pet allergies get triggered. Chato (a wordplay that mixes up “chat” (cat) and “château” (castle), for the unilinguals out there) will also serve small vegetarian snacks and small meals. Oh, and the space will be appropriately cat-themed and relatively homey, with hand painted windows and such.

Café Chato is working with Verdun’s Refuge pour chats to source kitties — that means customers will be able to adopt, a common practice within the fledgling cat café industry. The café was crowdsourcing funds to help open, and already met its target of $8,000.

Cat cafés seemed to be a trend back in 2014, and while some cynics may have predicted that it was just a phase — at least one has been a success, with Café Chat l’Heureux on Duluth approaching four years in business, while Aline Féline set up in Mile End less than a year ago. Meanwhile, Le Café des Chats and all-vegan Café Venosa both shut down after a few years in business. Cat cafés have definitely been more successful than dog ones, though. Le Doggy Café on the Plateau has stuck around for nearly three years, but it’s on its own: the only other attempt (Ruff Haus in Verdun) only survived a few months in business.

• Montreal’s First Puppy Café Is Strictly for the Dogs [EMTL]
• This is What You Need to Know About the Second Cat Café in Montreal and North America [EMTL]
• Un café où vous pourrez adopter des chats ouvre très bientôt dans Verdun [JdM]