D.C.'s First Cat Cafe Probably Won't Show Up Until Next Fall

Last week, news broke that a Kickstarter-funded cat cafe might be headed to Washington. And now the founder of D.C.'s would-be cat cafe Crumbs & Whiskers is sharing more details about the cafe's possible opening and her business plan. According to an email blast, Kanchan Singh says she is currently scouting for a location and she thinks a fall 2015 opening is a more realistic projection than a summer opening.

Singh writes: "Summer 2015 is the EARLIEST guys! What that means is — summer is only going to happen if things move fast legally and absolutely nothing goes wrong (and if I've learned anything from working on this for the past few months, it's that everything goes wrong). Late fall 2015 is a lot more realistic."

Why will it take so long? "Because the government doesn't know what to do with a cat cafe," Singh writes. "So they need to grant us lots of exceptions — and the whole process takes over 7 months from the moment we sign a lease and submit our blueprints (Which will take a couple months because that process is complicated too since we have cats. And it's holiday time. Yay!)."

And she addresses that whole issue of funding. "Crumbs & Whiskers is opening. Period. But it would be AWESOME if you helped me because...well..I'm 24, and this is crazy expensive. Like, I'll-be-homeless-if-this-doesn't-work-expensive. Also, the funds I have secured would allow for an extremely bare bones place, but we all want something epic, right?!"

So if the opening is so far away and funding is iffy, then why talk about the cat cafe now? Singh addresses that too:

"Let's also talk about the elephant in the room... which is - "Why is Crumbs & Whiskers playing with my emotions when it's so far away from becoming a reality and hasn't even gotten official approvals?! This is cruel." To be honest - this was unintentional. I was not expecting the response we received this week. The reason Crumbs & Whiskers and the Humane Society decided to pre-launch was to see if we could get a couple hundred sign ups as a way to validate that there is a demand for a cat cafe in DC. Why validate demand?! Because this is scary. Seriously, I'm betting everything I have on the DC cat cafe - time, money, and my career. I needed some validation. And well, we got a couple thousand sign ups. And press. And a Twitter meltdown. But the intention was not to play with your heart. I promise."

Video editors/film makers, artists and musicians (who will play quiet music that won't scare cats) who want to contribute are invited to email Singh at ksingh0914@gmail.com. Anyone who has suggestions and feedback for D.C.'s first cat cafe can shoot Singh an email, too.