Thank gatos it’s Friday! It’s been another busy week at affoGATO Cat Cafe.
First, our GoFundMe fundraiser officially ended. Thanks to your generosity, we raised a total of $13,920 from 159 donors! We seriously cannot thank you all enough. These funds have put a huge dent in our vital safety renovations, and make it much easier for us to pursue more traditional supplementary funding to close the gap. This project would have been impossible without your help, and we are so incredibly grateful for every single dollar.
On that note, rewards will be distributed very soon! GoFundMe doesn’t automatically allow campaign organizers to access their donors’ contact information, so we haven’t been able to send out emails or packages to you yet. The list should be given to us early next week, so we can start distributing all of our digital and physical purrks asap!
If you missed out, don’t worry! We can still accept private donations via meeting or mail to our business address. We’re also announcing a really unique fundraising event in the next day or two, which will take place on July 6th. We have very limited tickets, so keep an eye out on our blog and social media for that info! We have a few more small events in the works too.
In other HUGE news, our city application to put in the partition wall and build out the cafe has been submitted!! The first stage has gone through, and now we’re waiting on the next stage. We’re crossing our fingers that everything goes through without any issues! We’ll start building as soon as we are approved.
On the renovation front, we’ve been working on buying our furniture and cafe equipment. We visited Espresso Analysts in Pittsburgh this week, and the friendly staff there helped us pick the best equipment for our unique concept.
We’re still trying to get our early access tour and event purrks into the cafe in late July if at all possible. However, between waiting for city approval, the actual build (1-2 weeks), and waiting for our equipment to arrive, it’s very possible that those purrks and our public opening may be pushed into August. We will keep you updated as we learn more though!
We were in the press again twice this week! First, we were in our neighborhood paper, the Tremonster. There’s a lovely interview and pics of some adorable adoptable cats, so definitely pick up a copy in your favorite Tremont businesses. We were also featured in Cleveland.com’s 2018 “18 New Coffee Shops to Check Out in Greater Cleveland“!
Finally, don’t forget that we’re currently accepting applications from Cleveland creators that want their cat-themed products sold in our cafe/shop! Learn more here.
In the meantime, we hope you all have a purrfect weekend, and we look forward to continuing to share our progress!