Coffee, sweet treats and cuddles
Marcie’s Angels, a new cat cafe aimed at getting pets in need adopted, is coming to Glastonbury
When Beth Drazak visited New Haven’s Mew Haven Cat Café last year and spoke with business owner Angela Pullo, Drazak told her if she ever won the lottery, she would open up her own cat café.
The 54-year-old Glastonbury resident hasn’t won the jackpot yet, but she’s getting her wish of opening up a cat café. Marcie’s Angels Cat Café is planned to open sometime in midsummer at 3039 Main St. in Glastonbury and will be the third known cat café open in the state.
For Drazak, it all started with the visit to New Haven last March.
“She told me I didn’t have to win the lottery. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Angela has been a great mentor for me,” Drazak said. “We are getting permits and having inspections and waiting to see what the renovation budget will be, but I will do what I have to do to get this open.”
She said this is a “pre-retirement passion project.” She also works in Glastonbury as an administrative assistant for a financial adviser, a post she has held for 24 years.
Drazak named the café after the first cat she owned as an adult after being around cats her entire life. “Marcie was adopted in 1995 and was lucky to have had 11 amazing years with her,” Drazak notes on the cafe website.
“This will give people a chance to visit with cats for a potential adoption — that’s a good thing,” Glastonbury Town Planner Gary Haynes said. “It’s something unique that we don’t have in the area.”
The cafe will be a for-profit business but her passion is for cats, and getting adoptions done for of cats in need, Drazak said.
The café will house as many as 10 cats that are up for adoption. All cats will come from East Hartford’s Protectors of Animals, where Drazak is one of about many volunteers.
All of the cats will be fully vetted. They will be spayed or neutered, will have received appropriate shots, will have been socialized and have gone through behavioral assessments, she said.
The café will be on one side of the business and the lounge and the cats will be on the other side. Drinks and baked goods will be provided for purchase by local businesses, such as Sweets by Jenna of Rocky Hill and New England Coffee Guy, of Newington, she said. It will work this way: a ticket is purchased and then the customer gets 50 minutes to visit with the cats.
Reservations will be preferred on the website marciesangelscatcafe. com but walk-ins will be welcome.
She expects to do special event nights, such as hosting youth groups, as well as hosting birthday parties.
Drazak grew up in Massachusetts and animals were always around. Her parents bred German shepherds. She raised two children, Caitlyn and Michael, in Cromwell. Both are college students and will be helping the business, she said
The other known cat cafes in the state are Mew Haven Cat Café and Two Wrasslin’ Cats Coffee House in East Haddam. Drazak said overall there aren’t many cat cafes in New England, compared to other parts of the country.
Joann Azzara, who has been with the Protectors of Animals for 21 years and now heads the medical team, said she’s looking forward to the partnership with Marcie’s.
“This is going to be a learning curve because we haven’t done this before,” Azzara said. “But Beth has been in contact with cafes around the country and we are going to be learning together.”
“We are excited as an organization. The volunteers are excited, and this will bring more attention to our organization and will give these cats a better chance of being adopted,” she added.
The cats at the café will mainly be adult animals.
Protectors of Animals started by with three women 49 years ago and now is run nearly entirely by about 300 volunteers.
“We are one of the oldest and most respected animal organizations in the state,” Azzara said. “It takes a lot of people because we rehome 700 to 750 cats and 100 to 150 dogs per year. We will fix any medical problems needed to make a good life for animals. A lot of our fundraising goes to medical costs of our animals.”
The small private rescue is run completely on donations with no government assistance.
Azzara, an Andover, Massachusetts, resident, recently went to visit the cafes space Drazak chose, which was formally Cove’s Barber Shop, and is excited about the opening in a few months.