NewHavenBIZ

10 n e w h a v e n B I Z | N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 8 n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m T R E N D I N G I n this cozy Westville boîte, cus- tomers have learned to manage their expectations of the staff. If the employees ignore them, that's probably for the best. At worst, they can scratch or even bite. Feline-staffed cafés have become the cat's meow in cities from coast to coast in recent months. e first of its kind in Connecticut, Mew Haven Cat Café opened in down- town Westville this summer by husband and wife duo Angela and Michael Pullo, serving coffee and pastry with the additional mission of placing kittens and cats up for adoption. Before opening Mew Haven, the Pullos had previously lived in New York City where Angela worked for an agency-style marketing firm and Michael reverse-commuted to Darien. It was aer Michael's brother re- turned from a trip to ailand that the concept of a cat café crossed their minds. "Aer my brother- in-law got back from ailand, Michael popped the question. Did I want to open a cat café?" Angela Pullo says. ree years later and the Pullos have realized their dream of open- ing a café catering to both cat- and caffeine-lovers in the heart of Westville. "It was something we really want- ed to do and New Haven just felt right to us," Angelo Pullo says. "And Westville — it's so friendly here; it's really a community. A community that welcomed us right in." Cat cafés originated in Taiwan two decades ago, the first opening in Taipei in 1998. ey soon be- came an international phenomenon with hundreds of cat-friendly cafés popping up across five continents. e first North American cat café opened in Montreal in 2014, just before Cat Town Café, the first U.S. example, debuted in Oakland. Due to governmental food-ser- vice regulations many U.S., cat cafés aren't allowed to have food and cats in the same space. Which is true for Mew Haven. Unlike most Asian and European models, where the cats reside permanently in the café, Mew Haven offers a satellite adoption facility for a local organization, in this case, North Haven's Animal Haven, a non-profit no-kill shelter. Mew Haven will host a dozen cats at a time. e café will accept adoption applications in-house before handing potential families over to Animal Haven to complete the process. Settling into a space that for- merly housed an optician's office at 904 Whalley Ave., Mew Haven is currently serving coffee and delicious sweet treats, like cannoli cookies baked by Moon Rocks in Hamden or cat cupcakes made by Jackie O Cupcakes. "ere's something about looking at animals that transports you away from the rest of the world,' says Angelo Pullo. "You forget about that urgent deadline you have. You leave the rest of the world behind and just focus on the animal. "And it's just really lovely," she purrs. n — Makayla Silva ANIMAL MAGNETISM In Westville, Cats Out of the Bag

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