VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Luna Cat Cafe brings Japanese hobby to CNY
Lucy Vulgamore: As temperatures drop and work loads skyrocket in Central New York, it can feel like time is of the essence. But if you have a meow-ment to yourself, you could spend it at Luna Cat Cafe on East Fayette Street. It’s a restaurant boasting a menu of boba and japanese cuisine, and its most paw-pular attraction: a cat lounge. Luna partners with the CNY Cat Coalition, a volunteer group that finds foster homes for homeless animals. All cats in the cat lounge are adoptable – this means if you fall in love with a kitty during your visit to Luna, you could go home with her in the same week.
Vulgamore: Joshua Davis is the current owner and chef at Luna. He opened up shop in the summer of 2021, and has since gotten over 300 cats into permanent homes. He says that while business is hit-or-miss at times, the cat cafe is here to stay.
Davis: This has been in the works for 9, 10 years, so it’s been going through a lot of different things to open up. Business is very unpredictable. Some days you’ll get blasted on a Wednesday and be like, “It’s a Wednesday, what?” and other days you’re like, “OK, I’m ready for Friday,” and it’s totally dead. You have no idea how it’s gonna be, so those are some of the challenges, but it’s been a blast either way, so.
Vulgamore: Maria Murphy is a self-proclaimed “cat person,” and a volunteer with the Cat Coalition. In just six weeks of volunteering, she’s gotten comfortable with the adoption routine.
Murphy: Yup, so it’s really simple, we have a QR code up on the wall, so you can scan that. Or there’s also hard copy ones on their website. If everything checks out, it just takes a couple of days, and then you get to bring a furry friend home.
Vulgamore: Some may say starting a business after a global pandemic is a recipe for cat-astrophe. Luna, on the other hand, shows us anything is paws-sible. Get it? With NCC News, I’m Lucy Vulgamore.
Syracuse, N.Y. (NCC News) — Luna Cat Cafe, located on E Fayette Street, first opened its doors in the Summer of 2021. The cafe boasts a traditional menu of Japanese cuisine and boba tea, and a lounge for visitors to sit with cats. According to Smithsonian Magazine, these cat cafes are commonplace in Japan, with over 150 of them across the country.
The cafe partners with the CNY Cat Coalition, a volunteer shelter group that places homeless animals into foster homes. All cats in Luna’s cat lounge are adoptable and from these foster homes.
Joshua Davis, the owner and head chef at the cafe, was wary about starting a business after the pandemic. He said that while business can be rocky at times, it has nonetheless been rewarding.
“This has been in the works for 9, 10 years, so it’s been going through a lot of different things to open up. Business is very unpredictable,” said Davis. “Some days you’ll get blasted on a Wednesday and be like, ‘It’s a Wednesday, what?’ and other days you’re like, ‘OK, I’m ready for Friday,’ and it’s totally dead. You have no idea how it’s gonna be, so those are some of the challenges, but it’s been a blast either way.”
Maria Murphy, a volunteer with the CNY Cat Coalition, often visits Luna and a local Petsmart. She has two cats of her own, and has gotten in the groove of handling adoptions at the cafe after six weeks of working there.
“It’s really simple, we have a QR code up on the wall, so you can scan that. Or there’s also hard copy ones on their website,” said Murphy. “If everything checks out, it just takes a couple of days, and then you get to bring a furry friend home.”