By providing a relaxing and playful environment, the MeWow Cat Cafe, located in Doylestown, brings in cat-loving customers looking to adopt or simply spend their afternoon at the cafe. Owner Eilene Kramer originally opened the cafe upon her daughter’s suggestion as she was retiring. Kramer’s goal is to provide a fun space for people to create memories in. “We make people happy one half hour at a time. Our motto of come happy, leave happier, is absolutely the truth,” Kramer said. The cats that interchangeably stay in the cafe come from their own shelters. Anyone interested in adopting a cat from the cafe must go through the shelters after bonding with a cat. “We are the display case kind of like PetSmart but we are just doing it in a much more humane way,” Kramer said. According to Kramer, many cats they take in aren’t always the “outgoing” kind and the interactions with people “create” their outgoing personalities. Junior Cayden Johnson and senior Felicia Cappiello visited the cafe on April 8. They both “enjoyed” experiencing the cafe and getting to know the cats currently living there. “It was a very enjoyable experience. I’m typically a dog person so being in a room with a lot of cats is not very familiar to me but it was a lot of fun,” Johnson said. “It is a good environment for the cats, additionally, because it gets the cats away from bad homes or were in foster homes so having the opportunity for cats to find new homes is good.” Cappiello feels the cats are in a good place and being at the cafe can help them to get adopted. “It’s really good for people to get to know the cats and see them in a good light,” Cappiello said. “The cats in there were all really friendly and I feel like for people who might not like cats as much it would be good for them to go to get an idea of how nice and friendly they are.” Kramer also stresses that people can come into the cafe for any reason, not just to adopt.
“We don’t care why people walk through the doors,” Kramer said. “A lot of times people want to come in because their pet just passed away and they are looking for comfort. Other people come in here because they work too many hours and they don’t want to have a pet at home but they miss that.”
Harleysville resident Holly Fisher visited the cat cafe in April and described her experience as “unique” and “relaxing.” “Spending time with the cats and finding out a little more about how they came to be in the cafe and how the cafe is run was a really interesting experience,” Fisher said. “I think it’s really a nice kind of neutral area. There’s no pressure to adopt an animal.”