By Dr. Randy Whetstone, Jr. • Photos by Kathryn Harrington
If you have walked down Bardstown Rd. in Louisville, Ky, you may have noticed beautiful kittens captivate you with their eyes and facial expression through a window. You likely felt the warmth that makes up the Purrfect Day Cat Café community. With a central focus and mission to provide adoptions for as many cats - in efforts to relieve the burden on shelters - this establishment (which has only been around since 2018) is closing in on a milestone they did not anticipate when they first opened their doors. The Louisville location reached its 10,000th adoption in the city in August of this year.
“When we started this, no one knew what a cat café was… I didn’t really know what a cat café was. You set goals, you set objectives, and you set a vision for where you want to be… no way had we known this would be what it has been,” says, Chuck Patton, owner of Purrfect Day Cat Café. “We were estimating 300 adoptions a year and here we are, year after year at 1,700 adoptions a year. So that journey has been a challenge after challenge, but it was a good experience. We wanted to be successful, and we thought we could, but we had no idea we would be this successful. We just stayed laser focused and that is why we are here to thank the community.”
As a social enterprise, Purrfect Day Cat Café not only provides a family for cats, but donates monetary resources to shelter partners. Between its two locations (Louisville, Ky & Covington, Ky), the business has donated over $110,000 to shelter partners in the last five years.
As the highest adopting cat café organization in the United States, Purrfect Day seeks to become the paradigm for many others in the pet adoption industry.
“We modeled what to do and what not to do… I had traveled all the way to California, to Washington D.C., and then also to Seattle, Patton adds. “We tried to take some of the things that we thought were going to work and then some of the things that we didn’t. We wanted to keep it simple. We wanted to attract not only cat lovers, but animal lovers in the community. The reality is, if you’re helping here, you’re helping the shelters.”
“Cat café” may be a relatively new term for some, but it is an innovative approach to harmonize humanity and animals for the betterment of both.
“It’s an adoption center that meets a bar and coffee shop. What I like the best is when someone looks at that and they doubt it. I think unique is the new safe. You almost have to create something unique, specifically for some of the younger folks out there. They are looking for experiences. They enjoy that part and making a difference. That’s what we try to tell people, even if you are not out here adopting, you are making a difference. You are supporting this mission and the larger that mission gets, the more cats that get adopted.”
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