Update Monday, May 28: Mount Purrnon reached its $25,000 Kickstarter funding goal with less than 24 hours left in the campaign. Next steps include finding a suitable location before navigating permits, architecture and building for the business.
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A Kickstarter crowd funding campaign has launched to secure funds to open a cat café in Alexandria. Mount Purrnon, the area's first cat café, is aiming for a December 2018 opening.
* Learn more through Kickstarter here. *
Mount Purrnon has plans to become the first cat café in Northern Virginia. It will have adoptable cats on site, beer, wine and snacks. In addition, the cat café plans to have free, high-speed wi-fi and allow teleworkers.
"Even if people aren't huge cat fans, they can still visit the cat café and grab a drink," says co-founder Kristin Cowan, who launched the Kickstarter campaign with Adam Patterson. "But, they will probably want to go into the cat room when they see how much fun it is."
Cat cafés have become popular across the country. The closest one to Alexandria is Crumbs & Whiskers on O Street NW in Washington, DC.
"We plan to be in the Old Town Alexandria area; it is part of the theme," Cowan says.
Cowan and Patterson also plan to host events like cat yoga, trivia, game nights and local animal shelter and pet rescue organization partnerships to get cats adopted.
"One of the benefits of cat cafés is that they get cats out of the shelter and help to socialize them," Cowan says.
Learn more about Mount Purrnon through the Mount Purrnon Kickstarter page here.
