MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The Constellation Cat Café in East Lansing is closing its café. Sunday was the last day for a latte. The cat room, however, will remain open.
"So, drink sales were really driven by events for us most of the time, so like our trivia nights, game nights, like different craft activities, and things that we’re not really able to do right now," said café owner Kelsey Maccombs. "So, a lot of our regulars haven’t really reincorporated us into their new pandemic-friendly lifestyles.”
Though this is the case for the café side…
“So, the cat side is actually still doing really well. So, if you haven’t been here before, you pay like a rental fee, or an individual admission fee to go into the cat room. That money goes towards paying our bills and taking care of the cats, and we’ve still been getting a lot of traffic for the cat rooms so we’re able to keep doing that. We’ll still be adopting out cats. We’ll still have cats you can come play with and our gift shop will also still be open, so you can still be open. So, you can still come hang out with us, but you just can’t get any coffee right now," Maccombs said.
So, what will happen to the café side of Constellation Cat Café?
“So we are not thinking we’ll expand the cat room right now… We’re still tossing a couple ideas around right now…don’t want to do anything too rash that we can’t do back. We’re definitely going to be looking at if it’s feasible for us to re-open the coffee shop in the fall, especially if MSU students move back to campus, that would be a real game-changer for us. But, it’s a little early for us to know," Maccombs said.
Maccombs remains optimistic and has a special message for those in the community who have supported her since she opened the cafe in September.
“We’re really grateful to everyone who supported us, and we hope that we can serve you coffee again sometime in the future…until then please come play with cats. We’ve still had like 565 adoptions so we’re going to keep going on that.”
For anyone who would like to come check out the cat room, you can go here to make an appointment. Maccombs says she feels confident in closing the café so that she can focus on finding homes for cats, especially as kitten season approaches.
