A well-liked feline-themed cafe based mostly in Beacon could quickly be opening a brand new location in New Paltz.
Beans Cat Cafe house owners Jessica Cruz and Justin Strika got here earlier than the Village of New Paltz Planning Board for the primary time final week for a web site overview and particular use of their plans to show 11 Church Avenue into their new location.
Cruz and Strika opened their Beacon Beans Cat Cafe in November 2020, fulfilling a storyline that in line with their web site, noticed Cruz flip into “a loopy cat girl” after getting her first cat on the age of 18. Earlier than turning their skilled lives to Beans Cat Cafe, Cruz was a supervisor within the restaurant trade and Strika a direct help skilled with the Anderson Heart for Autism.
In Beacon, the pair have helped facilitate the adoption of round 450 shelter cats, and so they hope guests to their future New Paltz location will reply equally.
Although Beans is kind of actually a cat cafe, the operations are technically separate.
“Our area is split into two sections,” stated Cruz. “One the place folks can are available and buy drinks and pre-made snacks, after which we host shelter cats within the different part from Hudson Valley Animal Rescue that individuals can are available and spend time with, and (the cats) are additionally made accessible for adoption.”
The feline facet of Beans permits guests to pay for a block of time to spend with the cats, who even have areas the place they will cover in the event that they’re less than interacting. The Beans web site (beanscatcafe.com) encompasses a present lineup of cats, together with their names and character traits. The web site additionally options an alumni web page of cats of their new houses.
Guests to Beans Cat Cafe are requested to stick to a algorithm designed to make sure interactions between people and cats go properly for everybody.
“That is the cats’ house,” reads the primary rule. “Respect the cats, respect the people.”
Most of the guidelines are frequent sense, notably for many who have expertise with cats. The central theme is that the cats set their very own boundaries, and guests to Beans Cat Cafe are anticipated to respect these boundaries.
Time within the cat cafe is booked in increments of 30 or 60 minutes, with non-public classes for as much as eight folks accessible.
Predictably, canines should not allowed within the cat facet of the enterprise, however relying upon native well being guidelines can be allowed contained in the cafe facet inside motive, stated Cruz. She added that they’ve already been in touch with the Ulster County Division of Well being and informed that so long as there’s a strong wall dividing the cafe and the cats, then they shouldn’t have any points.
The enterprise has utilized for a Particular Use Allow to rework the previous Lagusta’s Luscious Commissary at 11 Church Avenue into the brand new cat cafe.
Planning Board members — even those that recognized themselves as canine folks — expressed enthusiasm for the undertaking and hoped to have the ability to set a public listening to quickly to permit Beans Cat Cafe to get nearer to probably opening faster. First, the undertaking will go earlier than the Ulster County Planning Board, doubtless in early April.
“Now we have to get some response again from the Ulster County Planning board earlier than we will set a public listening to,” stated Village Planning Board chairman John Litton. “In the event that they disagree with it for no matter motive, we’d need to work via that. Not that we predict that they are going to.”
Ought to the undertaking proceed easily, it could possibly be set for a public listening to on the Village Planning Board assembly scheduled for Tuesday, April 18 and could possibly be authorised by early Could.