Written by Morgan Ellis and Olivia MacDonald
Photos by Caitlynn Beatty

The Colony Café is the first cat café in Pittsburgh, and is nestled in the eastern end of Penn Avenue in the Strip District. Unlike other cat cafés, their cats are on display in a glass-enclosed loft where customers and cozy up to them without fear of them getting into the food. The Colony Café gets their cats from a local shelter, meaning all of the cats in the loft are available for adoption. Their mission is “to offer a unique, fun, relaxing cafe for humans, while finding loving homes for Pittsburgh’s at-risk cats.” 

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We had the opportunity to interview Erik Hendrickson, the co-owner of the café with his wife Sue.

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Where did you get the inspiration for a cat café?

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We were living in New York, and a cat café opened up as an experiment in the city. There was a line around the corner for people to come; it was a pop-up, it was sponsored by one of the cat-food brands, and we were really intrigued by the idea. Then one opened in New York, and we went to visit, and we just thought it was spectacular. Then we went on a trip to Paris, and went to a cat café there. They don’t have the same kind of health codes that you have here, so the cats are going outside and coming back in, and they run over the table where you are eating. That kind of sparked the idea for having something different. 

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The cat cafés in the U.S. are more cutesy little places where they bring you food from the outside. We thought it would be nice if we could have something a little more elevated; we have a liquor license, so we can have wine, and we have some of the best coffee in the country. We have a kitchen where we make all of our own food. So, it’s a place where you can hang out downstairs and have a European café experience, or you could go upstairs and have a cat café experience, or you could combine the two because everything from downstairs can go upstairs. So that’s where we’re a little bit different; the idea sparked from visiting different places and putting them all into one.

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How does it feel to have the first cat café in Pittsburgh? What has the public’s reaction been like?

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Being the first cat café in Pittsburgh is really exciting. We got a really warm welcome by the community. A lot of people were curious as to what this is, and you know, a year and a half later we still get people who walk in the door and go, ‘What in the world does your sign mean, well, what do you mean there’s cats in here?’ So, it was satisfying. It was nice to bring a new idea to Pittsburgh, because there’s a lot of new things going on in the city, so it’s fun to be a part of a community.

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Why do you think people have responded so well to your business since you opened in February 2017?

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I think it’s hard to resist. You come in and then you sit down with the cats, and you’re sipping your wine or your coffee and having a snack, and you know you’re helping to save animal’s lives. When you leave, you just have such a good feeling, your heart rate is down, and you’ve experienced something a little bit different. I think the word spreads; people tell their friends about it and they come in to experience it. It kind of builds on itself from word of mouth.

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What do you think makes Colony Café different from businesses similar to it?

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I think what makes us different is that we have a kitchen, and we are dedicated to bringing the best of what we’re offering and creating a sort of European café experience paired with a cat café. We have what we consider some of the best coffee from around the country, so we’re an excellent coffee shop. We make our own baked goods and foods, so we bring that café-bistro experience. And the café is different because it’s in a loft; it’s enclosed in glass, so the people downstairs can check out what’s going on up there while they’re eating. And of course, the liquor license. Not many cat cafés have signature cocktails. We have signature cocktails, they’re named after cats, they’re kind of fun, and of course, the wine.

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Can you talk about your wine selection and how you decide what to offer?

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We have inexpensive wines that are to-go and are also available in the state store, and then we have our own curated list of wines. We just wanted it to be fun, accessible, and affordable. They’re all available to-go, and also by the glass or bottle. We have wines from Portugal, Italy, France, and the US. We just wanted to give someone a little bit of the taste of all over the world of what we can offer.

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Where do you get your coffee selection?

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When we started, I sampled coffee from all over the United States and ended up on Ruby Roasters; they’re out of Wisconsin. A former guy from Intelligencio, which is considered one of the best coffee roasters out of the country, left to form his own roastery on a farm. He has relationships with the coffee pros all over the country to make sure that he has sustainable methods, paying their employees the right way, and they’ve been a wonderful partner. We recently made the decision to partner with Commonplace Coffee. T.G. Fairchild owns Commonplace, and it’s local to Pittsburgh, so we hope to be exclusive to a roaster that’s here in Pittsburgh. Commonplace Coffee offers coffee from all around the world, and we’re looking forward to getting some new, interesting things.

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How do you decide what goes on your menu? Do you choose items that customers downstairs will enjoy, or ones that customers can easily take upstairs?

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It’s a little bit of both. We want to try to create food that will pair well with wine, and also something that people can come for lunch, which is why we have a daily soup. A lot of the recipes come from things that were comforting to me as a child, my mom’s recipes, like her banana bread and potato corn chowder, for instance. We keep in mind things that would be easy to eat upstairs. One of the things that we didn’t think would be popular for people going upstairs was the soups, but Pittsburghers love soup, and we get tons people wanting soup with the cats. We also try to change the menu seasonally if we can.

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What do you like about being local?

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It’s just fun to be part of a community. Coming from New York City where everything is very anonymous, it’s nice to be in somewhere like the Strip District of Pittsburgh where people can come together, and it feels like you can get to know people. It feels like you are part of something bigger instead of just being one thing.

What would you say your favorite menu item is?

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Probably the Avocado Pitza, because I invented it. It’s a toasted pita with a homemade hummus, which is actually my sister’s brother-in-law’s recipe. It’s covered with greens, avocado, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, and some salt. It’s cut into 4 like a pizza, but it’s a P-I-T-Z-A.
It’s really delicious.

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How does the cat loft work?

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It’s $8 a person per hour. Walk-ins are welcome if we have slots available. The loft is open from 11am to 7pm and there is a break from 2-3pm for the cat naps and to feed them. We prefer people to reserve spots online so that way you’re guaranteed a spot and we don’t have to turn anyone away. You can order anything you want from the café and we’ll bring it up to you. If you’re interested in adopting a cat, we follow all of Animal Friends’ rules; they are our exclusive provider and they’ve been really helpful. You fill out a paper application which goes through an approval process with Animal Friends, and then once you’re ready to pick up the cat, you come here to get it. So, everything can happen here if you’re approved with Animal Friends.

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What is it like to work with a local animal shelter like Animal Friends? What is the process like?

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They’ve been an amazing partner. They’re really big on education and are a big part of the local community. They’ve been really helpful with answering questions, providing the cats with medical care, and anything we need to provide to the animals. As soon as one gets adopted, another one comes. They also have been great with selecting the right kind of cats for the café. They segment them into red light, yellow light, and green light. The lights kind of mean whether they are social or not. They try to send us the green light cats. But sometimes, they give us their hard-to-adopt cats, and we’ve been able to adopt them out. We’ve had two-legged cats, a one-eyed cat, cats with their tails cut off, and older cats. So it’s been really nice to partner with them in that regard, helping them get these older, less adoptable animals into their forever homes.

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How often do the cats get adopted and how many do you usually have at once?

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Well, it kind of comes in waves. It’s hard to get an average of what happens; I think we’re up to 116 since we opened last February [as of April 27, 2018]. We usually have between 10 and 12 cats at one time.

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Is there anything else you’d like to add?

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My wife and I just feel like it’s been a really rewarding experience to leave the corporate world and come into the cat café world.