Things are not purrrfect over at The Purfect Cup Cat Cafe in downtown Saskatoon.
Owner Sydney Sylvester says in the last five weeks, the business has been hit with some unfortunate luck, and she is now considering switching locations.
“They say that problems come in threes. First was our (broken) furnace. That affected the cats greatly, because our cat room is where most of our heat goes, and we didn’t have any heat at all. I think it was three weeks after that, we had our first window incident.”
Sylvester says the large front window was bashed in at 2:30 a.m. on December 18th. Thirteen days later, after a costly repair, it happened again.
She adds that it’s only a matter of time before something happens to the window on the cat-side of the building.
“They might become wary of the window. I know that a lot of people love seeing our cats in the window and seeing them basking of the sun, so that would be a real shame if they were to all just be scared of the window going forward.”
Sylvester says she has her eye on a larger building on Circle Drive near Millar Avenue, which will provide free customer parking, a full restaurant, more room for the cats, and hopefully less crime.
She adds that the idea of moving out of downtown is scary, as a lot of her business comes from people walking on the street.
“But, given all of our comments on the post that we’ve made regarding the move, it seems that a lot of people haven’t visited us yet because of our location, or they’ve visited us once and haven’t returned because they don’t feel safe coming downtown.”
Those looking to help her make the move can do so through a Go Fund Me with a goal of $25,000.