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City guide · New York, NY

Cat Cafés, Adoption and Volunteering in New York City: A Cat Lover's Guide

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New York's first permanent cat café, Meow Parlour, opened on the Lower East Side on December 15, 2014, and it's still open, now with its own nonprofit rescue behind it. It wasn't the city's first brush with the idea: that April, Purina ONE ran a four-day cat café pop-up in the Bowery with North Shore Animal League America, which says 24 adult cats were adopted from it. The first permanent cat café in the US opened in Oakland that October. Meow Parlour followed two months later.

Every café in this guide is an adoption lounge, where the cats come from rescues and are looking for homes. Behind the cafés sits the city shelter, Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC), and its New Hope program, which lets partner rescues pull animals from the shelter. ACC lists hundreds of New Hope partner organizations, and says more than 6,000 animals went to those partners in 2025. Many of the rescues below get their cats that way, and many of them are foster-based, showing their cats in pet stores and at adoption events.

This guide covers about 40 miles around lower Manhattan: the five boroughs, northern and central New Jersey, Westchester and Rockland, and Long Island through western Suffolk. It walks through the cat cafés, the places to adopt, the rescues worth knowing, how to volunteer or foster, and what to do if you find a cat. Hours, fees and booking details change, so we leave those to the venues' own sites and our listing pages.

At a glance

If you want to…Start with
Visit a cat café in ManhattanMeow Parlour (Lower East Side)
Visit a café run by a rescue nonprofitBrooklyn Cat Cafe (Brooklyn Heights)
Visit a cat café with young kidsMeow Parlour's designated kid hours, with an adult
Adopt without an appointmentThe ASPCA Adoption Center (Upper East Side), Best Friends (SoHo) or an ACC care center
Foster kittensThe ASPCA, which trains bottle-baby fosters, or ACC
Volunteer as a teenagerBest Friends in SoHo, from age 12 with a parent
Found a healthy strayLeave it where it is; ACC doesn't take healthy stray cats
Help a street colonyGet certified as a TNR caretaker through Neighborhood Cats or Bideawee

Cat cafés

All of the cafés below are adoption-based, but they run on different models: a café with its own nonprofit, a café run by a rescue that has a spay/neuter clinic inside, cafés that host cats from a partner rescue, a café whose owners run their own rescue, and a rescue that outlived its café. Check each venue's age rules before you bring children.

Manhattan

Meow Parlour, Lower East Side. New York's first permanent cat café was started by the team behind the bakery Macaron Parlour. It opened at 46 Hester Street with cats from the rescue KittyKind, and because of city health rules its pastries were sold from a separate Meow Parlour Patisserie nearby. It's now at 43 Essex Street, between Grand and Hester, and its "catified" baked goods come from sister company Macaron Parlour.

Since 2018 the café has had its own nonprofit, Meow Parlour Cats, Inc., a New York State–licensed rescue, and "all of our cats are available for adoption." By its own count it has been a foster home for more than 3,000 cats since it opened (as of 2026). Reservations are "highly recommended," and there are some weekday walk-ins. Visitors under 18 need an adult with them, and children under 9 can visit only during designated kid hours. The nearest subway lines are the F, M, J and B.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn Cat Cafe, Brooklyn Heights. Run by the Brooklyn Bridge Animal Welfare Coalition (BBAWC), a volunteer-driven nonprofit founded in 2007. The café opened in May 2016 on Atlantic Avenue and moved to a bigger space on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights at the end of 2018. Its cats are rescues from the streets of New York and from the overcrowded city shelter.

BBAWC started trap-neuter-return (TNR) work in December 2016, and in 2020 it started the BBAWC Rescue Clinic, which now operates inside the café and offers low-cost spay/neuter and vet care. By its own count it has placed more than 6,000 animals, most of them cats, in permanent homes since 2007, and has about 200 cats in foster care at any one time (as of 2026).

Queens

Kokoro Cat Café, Flushing. Inside Tangram Mall in downtown Flushing, Kokoro opened in March 2025, and QNS and NBC New York both reported it as the first cat café in Queens. It's a Japanese-inspired café. It usually has 10 to 12 cats, all from Anjellicle Cats Rescue and all adoptable, and by its own count it had reached 325 adoptions (as of 2026).

Espurresso Cat Cafe, Bayside. Espurresso opened in 2025 in Bayside, in northeast Queens, and QNS reported it as the second cat café to open in the borough. Its cats come from two volunteer-run partner rescues, For Animals Inc and Purrific Home, and all of them are adoptable. The rescues handle adoptions, not the café: you apply to the rescue, and it makes the decision. The café side serves specialty coffee and pastries.

New Jersey

Catfé Montclair, Montclair. About 13 miles west, on Bloomfield Avenue. Its cats come from its rescue partner, Homeless Tails, a no-kill cat rescue based in Wayne. It calls itself "not a traditional café": instead of a café menu, there's complimentary self-serve coffee, tea and hot chocolate. Children 7 and older can visit at designated times, and monthly Family Cat Time sessions are open to kids 5 and up.

Rahway Kitty Hall, Rahway. About 16 miles southwest of lower Manhattan, Rahway Kitty Hall opened in April 2017 in partnership with Angel PAWS, an all-volunteer rescue in nearby Colonia that pulls the café's cats. The café doesn't accept stray or surrendered cats.

Catsbury Park, Asbury Park. About 34 miles south, at the edge of this guide's area. Catsbury Park began in July 2016 as a small foster-based rescue in Asbury Park and opened a cat café on Cookman Avenue in 2017. The café closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the rescue kept going through its foster network, and today it's a 501(c)(3) nonprofit cat rescue with a free-roaming adoption lounge at 901 Third Avenue in Asbury Park. It also runs the Catsbury Park Cat Convention, first held in 2018 and, since it returned in 2024, held each October at Bell Works in Holmdel (see Annual cat events).

Catcetera Cat Lounge, Raritan. About 34 miles west, Catcetera opened on March 26, 2026, and is Somerset County's first cat lounge, according to the lounge, MyCentralJersey and Patch. It partners with two rescues, Project M.E.O.W. in West Philadelphia and Beacon of Hope. Its programming includes LGBTQIA+ teen nights, adult nights and a children's story time.

Long Island

Catpurrccinos, Huntington Village. About 32 miles east, on Main Street. Instead of partnering with an outside rescue, the owners run their own, Feral to Family Cat Rescue, a 501(c)(3) since February 2018, and every cat in the back room comes from it. The café opened in late 2019, with the café up front and the cat room behind it.

Other cats you might meet

Bodega cats are a New York fixture, but they're technically not allowed in food stores under state rules, and bills to change that have been proposed at both the city and state level. In Midtown, the Algonquin Hotel keeps a resident-cat tradition going back decades. Its current cat, Hamlet, was found in a feral colony on Long Island.

Closed: Koneko, the Lower East Side café on Clinton Street that hosted cats from Anjellicle Cats Rescue, closed after 11 years. Its last day open to the public was July 31, 2026.

Where to adopt

Animal Care Centers of NYC

ACC describes itself as "the city's only open-admissions shelter." Founded in 1995, it cares for more than 15,000 animals a year, by its own count, and adoptions are walk-in at its care centers. It has care centers in Manhattan (East Harlem, with a separate adoption center), Queens and Staten Island. The Brooklyn center is closed for a complete renovation, and a new Bronx center is being built. Facilities are changing, so check ACC's site for current locations before you go. The Queens center in Ridgewood, which the city called the first full-service animal shelter in Queens, opened in April 2024.

ACC also posts an at-risk list for its New Hope partner rescues. Many New York rescues pull cats this way, so adopting from one of the rescues below can mean adopting a cat that came through the city shelter.

Shelters and adoption centers in the city

  • ASPCA Adoption Center, Upper East Side. Cat adoptions are walk-in at its building on East 92nd Street, which also houses the ASPCA Kitten Nursery (see Volunteering and fostering).
  • Best Friends Pet Adoption Center, SoHo. No appointment needed. It returned to West Broadway in SoHo in September 2026 after a temporary site in Brooklyn.
  • Bideawee, Chelsea. Its Manhattan adoption center has moved to West 24th Street. Bideawee also has campuses in Wantagh, on Long Island, and Westhampton.
  • Animal Haven, Centre Street. Has served New York since 1967, with cats and dogs, from its building at 200 Centre Street in lower Manhattan.
  • Bobbi and the Strays, Glendale, Queens. A no-kill rescue with an adoption center inside the Shops at Atlas Park mall (see Rescues worth knowing).

Pet-store adoption centers and events

Many of the city's rescues are foster-based, with no shelter building, so they show their cats in pet stores and at adoption events.

  • Anjellicle Cats Rescue has an adoption center at the Petco on the Upper East Side, at Lexington Avenue and 86th Street. It's an all-volunteer 501(c)(3), and it supplies Kokoro's cats.
  • Whiskers-A-GoGo, a volunteer-run North Brooklyn rescue, holds Sunday adoption hours at Bushwick Bark on Irving Avenue.
  • Bronx Tails Cat Rescue holds adoption events at the PetSmart in Yonkers.

New Jersey

Westchester and Rockland

  • SPCA Westchester, Briarcliff Manor, about 31 miles north. A no-kill shelter that has cared for animals since 1883 and also handles humane law enforcement for Westchester. It takes adoption walk-ins every day and, by its own count, helps more than 5,500 animals a year (as of 2026).
  • Humane Society of Westchester, New Rochelle, about 18 miles northeast. Established in 1911; adoptions are by appointment.
  • Yonkers Animal Shelter, the city of Yonkers' municipal shelter, about 16 miles north.
  • Rockland County's shelter in Pomona, about 31 miles north, is now RG CARES, run by Rockland Green with the consultants Four Legs Good since Hi Tor was removed as operator in 2023.

Long Island

Rescues worth knowing

Many of these rescues are foster-based: the cats live in volunteers' homes until they're adopted. These stand out for what they take on.

Community cats and TNR

  • Flatbush Cats, Brooklyn. Works with neighbors to trap, neuter, return and rescue outdoor cats. In 2023 it opened Flatbush Vet, a nonprofit spay/neuter and vet clinic on Flatbush Avenue for pet owners and rescuers, which by its own count has done more than 10,000 spay/neuter surgeries (as of 2026). It also produces *Underfoot*, a podcast about the city's cat crisis.
  • Little Wanderers NYC, the Bronx and northern Manhattan. It works in what it calls "the toughest neighborhoods of NYC": the Bronx, northern Manhattan and East Harlem. By its own count it saved 1,300 cats in 2025 and feeds more than 400 colony cats, and it supports independent rescuers.
  • Greenpoint Cats, Brooklyn. A 501(c)(3) for the stray and feral community cats of Brooklyn. It handles adoption and fostering, helps residents with TNR, and places cats as barn cats.
  • LIC Feral Feeders, Long Island City, Queens. Formed in 2017, when independent feeders realized they were caring for the same colonies. It feeds, traps, rescues and adopts out cats, and runs a free winter cat-shelter-building workshop every year.
  • Bronx Tails Cat Rescue, the Bronx. A small, all-volunteer, foster-based group doing TNR and rescue for Bronx street cats.

Working cats

  • Hard Hat Cats. Takes feral cats with few adoption prospects from the city shelter and gives them "steady jobs" as non-toxic rodent control. Its placements have included breweries, distilleries, apartment buildings, community gardens, a big-box store, an arts center, a hotel and a warehouse, and the hosts provide food and shelter. It incorporated in 2020.
  • SPCA Westchester runs a similar program, "Career Cats," that places shy cats in workplaces such as warehouses.

Special needs

  • Bobbi and the Strays, Glendale, Queens. A no-kill rescue for "orphaned, stray, abused, and special needs cats and dogs," with its adoption center in a shopping mall.
  • Anjellicle Cats Rescue. Lists FeLV- and FIV-positive cats among its adoptables, alongside the cats at Petco and at Kokoro.

Other models

  • Brooklyn Animal Action. An all-volunteer foster network founded in 2010 that also does TNR, and has found homes for "thousands" of cats.
  • Karma Cat + Zen Dog Rescue Society, Milltown, NJ. Runs a storefront adoption center plus TNR, fostering and outreach. By its own count it has helped more than 4,940 cats since 2010 and has more than 180 volunteers (as of 2026).
  • Whiskers-A-GoGo, North Brooklyn. A volunteer-run 501(c)(3) with weekly Sunday adoption hours at Bushwick Bark.

Volunteering and fostering

Almost every shelter and rescue above needs help, from cleaning and socializing cats to staffing adoption events and fostering. Most start with an application and an orientation, and many set a minimum age, typically 18. Requirements change, so check each group's volunteer page.

  • ACC asks volunteers to be 18 or older and complete an orientation. Fosters must be 18 or older, live in or near New York City, and do a 90-minute orientation, and ACC supplies food, litter and medication.
  • The ASPCA takes Adoption Center volunteers from age 16. Its fosters must be 18 or older and live in the New York City area.
  • Best Friends in SoHo takes volunteers from age 12, with a parent or guardian for anyone under 18, and calls itself "one of the few places in the city where middle and high school students can volunteer directly with animals."
  • Bideawee starts with an online application and a 20-minute orientation. In Manhattan, teens can start at 13, volunteering alongside an adult relative until they turn 16, and Bideawee looks for fosters both in the city and on Long Island.
  • Animal Haven asks volunteers to be 18 or older.
  • Brooklyn Cat Cafe asks volunteers to be 18 or older, commit to two shifts a month for six months, and attend an in-person orientation.
  • Little Wanderers NYC says volunteering needs no experience.
  • St. Hubert's in New Jersey takes "Feline Friend" volunteers from 18, and juniors aged 16 and 17 in roles that don't involve handling animals.
  • SPCA Westchester takes hands-on volunteers from 18, and teens from 14 for its Open Service Days.

Fostering kittens: the ASPCA Kitten Nursery on the Upper East Side opened in 2014, and the ASPCA calls it the city's first and largest high-volume kitten nursery. It has cared for more than 12,700 kittens, most of them transferred from ACC, and a new, larger nursery opened in the same building in June 2026. Kitten fosters get hands-on bottle-baby training, the ASPCA covers medical care and supplies, and a kitten foster stint runs one to ten weeks.

Fostering for a café: Meow Parlour recruits fosters for cats that aren't ready for adoption, such as cats that are too young, under the weather or recovering from surgery, including experienced fosters for special-needs cats. Stints run from a few days to a few weeks, and the foster space is "usually… your bathroom."

Street cats: in New York, volunteering with community cats starts with TNR caretaker certification. See the next section.

Found a cat?

Flatbush Cats estimates that New York City may have as many as 500,000 free-roaming cats. That's an estimate, not an official count.

In New York City

  • A healthy stray: "ACC doesn't accept healthy stray cats." It recommends leaving healthy outdoor cats where you found them. An ear-tipped cat is a community cat with a caretaker. For unsocialized cats, ACC recommends trap-neuter-return.
  • Kittens: ACC says kittens should stay with their mother to nurse for at least five weeks. Offer shelter, food and water, and keep in mind that the window for socializing kittens closes at around nine weeks. Once they're eating on their own, ACC can help with rehoming.
  • A sick or injured cat or kitten: ACC asks you to text or email so its staff can assess the situation. The details are on its community cats page.
  • Lost and found: use ACC's lost and found page and Petco Love Lost.
  • Cruelty: call 311, or 911 for a crime in progress. The report goes to the local NYPD precinct (NYC Animal Welfare).

Trap-neuter-return in the city

The city doesn't train or certify TNR volunteers itself. Its Mayor's Office of Animal Welfare points residents to nonprofits for that, chiefly the two below, and says affordable spay/neuter resources in the city are limited.

  • Neighborhood Cats runs an online TNR certification workshop of about two and a half hours, with the recording available for a year.
  • Bideawee's Feral Cat Initiative took over the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals' NYC Feral Cat Initiative in 2019. That program ran from 2005 and trained more than 14,000 people in TNR. By Bideawee's own count (as of 2026), the initiative has assisted 200,000 community cats, gives 2,000 cats a year free transport to spay/neuter appointments, and has 8,000 Certified TNR Caretakers with access to a seven-day TNR helpdesk.

Certification matters: according to Bideawee, you need to be a Certified TNR Caretaker to use the free and low-cost community-cat clinic services of the ASPCA, The Toby Project and the Humane Society of New York.

Low-cost spay and neuter in the city

  • ASPCA mobile spay/neuter clinics visit all five boroughs and are free with proof of public assistance (NYCHA, Medicaid, SSI, SSDI, SNAP, WIC, TANF and others), or low cost otherwise.
  • The Toby Project offers free and low-cost spay/neuter from a mobile clinic to residents of all five boroughs, first come, first served, with no public-assistance requirement.
  • Flatbush Vet, Flatbush Cats' nonprofit clinic in Brooklyn, offers spay/neuter and vet care to pet owners and rescuers.
  • The BBAWC Rescue Clinic inside Brooklyn Cat Cafe offers low-cost spay/neuter and vet care.

In New Jersey

  • Jersey City: the city's Division of Animal Care & Control does TNR. In 2024 the city used a $90,000 state grant to support TNR at 18 community cat colonies, including free spay/neuter surgeries, so check with the city for the current program.
  • Essex County: a county-supported Community Cats TNVR program offers free trap-neuter-vaccinate-return services.
  • Montclair: the township shelter runs a TNR program; contact Animal Control first.
  • Bergen County: the county shelter in Teterboro runs a Community Cats Program.
  • Low-cost clinics: People for Animals runs a spay/neuter clinic in Hillside, and Liberty Humane Society, which closed its shelter at the end of 2023, now runs a nonprofit clinic in Lyndhurst. The state's Animal Population Control Program offers reduced-cost spay/neuter to eligible residents.

In Westchester and on Long Island

  • SPCA Westchester runs Cody's Clinic, a low-cost spay/neuter clinic.
  • Town of Hempstead: the town shelter's TNR program accepts cats trapped within the town.
  • Town of North Hempstead: TNR runs through the town shelter with Helping PAW.
  • Town of Huntington: the Huntington Cat Shelter spays and neuters feral cats that will be returned outdoors, free for residents.
  • Nassau County: Pets4Luv Foundation runs the county's community cat initiative at county-owned locations.

Annual cat events

  • NY Cat Film Festival, which premieres in New York City every fall and then tours.
  • Garden State Cat Show, the Garden State Cat Club of New Jersey's CFA cat show, every July in Edison, NJ, with an Adopt-A-Cat program.
  • Catsbury Park Cat Convention, Catsbury Park's convention, with talks, vendors and adoptable cats. It was first held in 2018 and, since it returned in 2024, has been held each October at Bell Works in Holmdel, NJ, about 25 miles south.
  • LIC Feral Feeders' cat-shelter-building workshop, a free workshop at Materials for the Arts in Long Island City each fall or early winter, for building winter shelters for outdoor cats.
  • Karma Cat's Black Cat Bash, an October fundraiser in East Brunswick, NJ.

For what's happening this month, see cat events on MeowScout.

FAQ

Can you adopt from a cat café in NYC?

Yes. The cats at Meow Parlour, Brooklyn Cat Cafe, Kokoro Cat Café and Espurresso Cat Cafe are adoptable, and so are the cats at the cafés in New Jersey and on Long Island. Adoptions are handled by each café's partner rescue or, at Meow Parlour, by its own nonprofit.

Is there a cat café in Brooklyn or Queens?

Yes. Brooklyn Cat Cafe is in Brooklyn Heights. Queens has two: Kokoro Cat Café in Flushing and Espurresso Cat Cafe in Bayside.

What was the first cat café in NYC?

Meow Parlour, which opened on the Lower East Side on December 15, 2014, was the city's first permanent cat café. Earlier that year, Purina ONE ran a four-day cat café pop-up in the Bowery.

Is Koneko still open?

No. Koneko closed after 11 years on the Lower East Side. Its last day open to the public was July 31, 2026.

What should I do if I find a stray cat in NYC?

If it's healthy, leave it where it is: ACC doesn't accept healthy stray cats, and an ear-tipped cat already has a caretaker. If it's sick or injured, contact ACC through its community cats page. To help a colony, get certified as a TNR caretaker through Neighborhood Cats or Bideawee.

Where can I volunteer or foster with cats in NYC?

ACC, the ASPCA, Best Friends, Bideawee, Animal Haven and Brooklyn Cat Cafe all take volunteers, and many of them need fosters too. The ASPCA trains kitten fosters to bottle-feed. Best Friends takes volunteers from age 12.

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