A Purr-fect Combination

“People say D.C. isn’t whimsical,” says Kanchan Singh ’12.

But from her view, perched on an end table in her Georgetown storefront, where a neon “MEOW” sign shares wall space with a hipster cat peering down from a T-shirt at its many real-life brethren and the humans gathered to adore them, it’s clear the naysayers are wrong.

D.C. is more than ready for its first cat café, called Crumbs & Whiskers, which Singh (right) opened last month, drawing 200 to 300 visitors a day. “It’s been insane,” she says. “It’s a lot of work, a lot of fun and a lot of no sleep.”

What’s a cat café? Popular in Asia, they’re places where people can hang out with feline friends while sipping on tea or coffee, enjoying their company without taking on the responsibility of caring for them full-time.

“Café” is a bit of a misnomer: Guests can order a variety of drinks or cookies that are delivered from a restaurant across the street, all in sealed containers, which gets around the pesky health and safety issues of preparing food on site.

The cats, all from the Washington Humane Society (WHS) and adoptable, are clearly the stars here. People can make reservations online for an hour at a time ($10 on weekdays, $12 on weekends) to relax or play with cats.

“People tell me, ‘I’ve had a bad week, and I’ve been looking forward to this all week,’” she says. “And I can’t tell you how many people have come in wearing cat-themed clothes.”

It all started with a trip to Thailand last September, when she took a break from her fast-paced consulting job with Accenture to volunteer at an elephant sanctuary.

“It made me realize how much I love animals,” says Singh, who has five pet cats. On her last day, some buddies who had watched her feed every stray animal in sight told her they’d arranged a birthday treat: a visit to a cat café.

“It was amazing, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it on my way back home,” she says. “I knew this was how I could help animals and still pay the bills.”

Singh held on to her day job until February, before deciding she couldn’t juggle that with tackling the D.C. bureaucracy each night. But even when she quit, she still wasn’t sure she could get the cat café off the ground.

Her Kickstarter campaign, launched a month later, gave her that confidence: Within 24 hours, she’d reached her initial goal of $15,000, and she eventually raised nearly $36,000.

She poured that, along with her life savings, into the café. Tucked away in a side street off of Wisconsin Ave, it’s clearly designed with cat comfort in mind, as creatively placed shelves give them a place to roam above the humans, who sit primarily on cushions and pillows. People can grab fuzzy toys and mouse-shaped laser pointers to play with cats on the first and second floors, while the basement provides the cats with a human-free zone. Singh spends more than 16 hours a day there, overseeing her six employees, checking in and taking drink orders for customers, as well as cleaning out litter boxes and making sure people aren’t picking up or waking up cats. She often returns to her parents’ home in Gaithersburg, Md., well after midnight (though she allowed herself a break to see Taylor Swift in concert last week).

Big media outlets including The Washington Post, Washingtonian and Washington City Paper have already written stories on Crumbs & Whiskers, while reviews are piling up on Yelp, offering up praise but also complaints about long wait times and an unsatisfactory cat-to-human ratio (too many humans), which Singh says she’s addressing.

On a surprisingly crowded Tuesday morning, though, customers had nothing but good things to say.

Michael Draper, a National Park Service ranger, was there on his second visit and had found a cozy window nook for himself and Spooky, a sleepy black cat. They lounged on the pile of pillows as Draper sipped his ice coffee and read on his iPad.

“I move a round a lot, so I can’t have pets,” he says. “This is a cool place to come, and petting cats is stress-relieving.”

At the other end of the café, Michelle Huynh, who was visiting D.C. from Pennsylvania, said she put Crumbs & Whiskers on the itinerary as soon as she heard it was open. She hoped to convert her dog-loving husband, Antonio Robinson—and watching him tantalize a fluffy gray cat nicknamed Mufasa with a mouse toy, it seemed like it might be working.

The space was great, she says, and “I like that the cats come from the shelter.”

So does Stephanie Shain, WHS chief operating officer. Although she thought the idea was far-fetched when Singh first emailed about it, she was struck by Singh’s confidence and intelligence. Now, 25 or so have great temporary digs at the café—and 11 have already been adopted out.

“It’s a really terrific option for our cats,” Shain says. “The space is beautiful, and the cats are very happy there. The opportunities are endless. We want to continue to work together, adopting our cats and promoting human-animal bonds.”

Looking ahead, Singh is focused on making the business sustainable after the initial excitement wanes, including selling even more cat-themed merchandise. The business major credits her time in the QUEST Honors Program and Hinman CEOs at UMD with giving her a leg up as a young entrepreneur, and she has lots of advice for students who want to try something new.

“You can never start marketing early enough, and don’t be afraid of embarrassing yourself,” she says. This spring, she ran around town for a week in a cat onesie to thank her Kickstarter backers.

“You know when you have a good idea,” she says. “Don’t start second-guessing and let your mind talk you out of it.”