Urban Expressions / The Montreal Gazette | 2014-10-02
By Mariève Inoue
Cat lovers abound in Montreal, if the crowd at Café Chat L’Heureux this past Monday evening is any indication. The second cat café to open in our city over the last few weeks, the café and restaurant has been officially welcoming visitors since Saturday. Although the concept is not new—cat cafés have been popular in Asia for about a decade, and the first European cat cafés opened a couple of years ago—Montreal is the first city in North America to get its very own permanent feline-themed coffee shops.
Originating in Taiwan in 1998, a cat café is basically an establishment that is home to several cats, where visitors can spend time playing with and petting them. Cat cafés are very popular in Japan, especially in Tokyo: in a city packed with people living in tiny apartments where pets are not always allowed, cat cafés provide a way for lonely cat lovers to partake in a bit of feline interaction. Montreal’s first cat cafés, Le Café des Chats on St-Denis St. and Café Chat L’Heureux on Duluth Ave., opened within a few weeks of each other.
