We were lucky to catch up with Jessica Burge recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Many people looking to open their own cat/pet cafe reach out and ask about how to start. Honestly opening a cat cafe is the same as starting most any business. You need to have a rock solid plan, which a business plan can help lay out, financing, and you must understand and meet city licensing requirements.

Every business starts with an idea. The idea came when the first pop-up cat cafe happened in NYC in 2014. Once hearing the concept was out there I researched the ones over in Asia and the few in Europe. After lots of research, I gained an amazing SCORE mentor, asked a local coffee shop owner to shadow them and their employees, talked with other business owners and rescues to develop a plan of action and define my business operations. I would work on my concept every night after work until I went to bed. Most weekends were also filled with work toward the business coming to fruition.

After 4 years of planing, self-educating, promoting, the purr-fect location was found. A lease was signed. The concept finally just needed the construction, and final licensing approval to become a reality.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Jessica Burge and I grew up in the twin cities suburbs. My up bringing wasn’t anything significant. I got average grades and the family got by alright. My love for cats was instilled in me from a very early age. My family adopted a feral cat who just claimed us as her own and never left. I was brought up with her but she was pretty old by the time I actually joined the family. She passed when I a was still a kid but she showed me what having compassion for others you may not always fully understand was. Her name was Symba and she was incredibly tolerant of my young self. I took care of her, scooping her box as soon as I could complete such tasks.

Once I was a teen I started volunteering at a rescue, Caring for Cats, where I found my best friend, Olive. She is who we owe thanks to for The Cafe Meow coming to life. She is a small brown torbie with a wobble to her step and loudest purrs. She drools excessively when she is really happy and is now around 16 years old and still gives the best cuddles.

I went off to University after completing high school and had to leave my best friend at home for the first two years, but she joined me for my last few years at university. With my BFA I got a job in web development. At the same time I went into web development I went down a path no one expected, not even me.

I now am the proud owner of The Cafe Meow, which has two amazing locations already in Minnesota!

Since opening The Cafe Meow has helped nearly 700 cats find homes. Brought smiles and good times to countless people.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

For my unique small business the biggest thing we have utilized to grow our clientele is social media. Cat people started going to the internet as soon as there were sites where people could share videos and photos of their cats. It was the main way cat people socialized and found each other because cats are well known for not being the most receptive to change in surroundings. So you really cannot bring, most, of them around with you like you could another pet, like dogs. So we have utilize social platforms to get word out that now cat people can come socialize and visit with rescue cats.

Social media and local write ups on our business have provided the most impactful on getting word out to the community.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Well the obvious one is Covid-19. Somehow we not only made it through that, but having our original location in Minneapolis, we somehow survived the cities unrest after George Floyd was killed. When the businesses next door to us were broken into 4 – 5 times and other business owners sat with guns at their store front; We boarded up and I spent my nights at the cafe with the cats. I even had to evacuate them late one night after another night of riots and people destroying the business we share a wall with. Closing during this time was hard to do, but we had to close, or run on a lowered capacity for over a year on and off. It was hellish. As a business owner it was not so much the closing that was challenging but the mental strain on figuring out how we could continue to help get cats homes, support our employees, safely get back open, and how to manage it all.

I owe the ability to keep The Cafe Meow open and continue to be here now to 1. the massive community support and 2. the amount of state and federal support we received. Thankfully The Cafe Meow is half a restaurant (half a cat lounge) so we received the funding we needed to retain employees and cover our monthly costs like rent and utilities that did not change. The community came forward to show support in the unique ways they could during the pandemic. They dropped by for coffee to go, paid higher rates to visit with cats as families without anyone else in the room, donated cat food if they could, and once we could open to any extent they were there to help us land back on our feet.

It is important to remember a good community can help provide the support you need during the tough times. I hope our cafe continues to give back to the community and the cats in return. I have been putting every penny back into this business because of how grateful I am. This means this past year I was able to open a second location, partner with 2 more rescues and over double the amount of cats we can help at a time. We can now house 50 cats between the two locations which means we can help more cats and the second location can extend our community reach to more people who cannot make it into the city.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @thecafemeow @thecafemeownh
• Facebook: @thecafemeow @thecafemeownh
• Other: [email protected]