We’re back with more renovation updates!
We gave a sneak peek on our social media yesterday, but the catwalk is finally up! And with that, the feature wall is nearly done!! We just have to add a couple more comfy and fun finishing touches to the wall and lighting.
It’s starting to look very cozy in here, and we can’t wait to have cats climbing all over this!
Our catwalk was built by Furniture Makers PD White & Alex Sutula, and was then painted by the affoGATO team and mounted it on the ceiling. Check it out!
It took a bunch of family members to get it on the ceiling, but it looks great!
Thanks to Al, Butch, and Jason, and a special thanks to our late Uncle Frank, who owned the drywall lift!
We need to modify the lamp slightly, add 2 more cat climbing shelves, and acquire tons of cat-related games and books to fill the bookshelves. Let us know if you have any recommendations!
We have also made a lot of progress with the cafe counters. Since our last update, they have been anchored in place, stained, and varnished. It was a time consuming process, but they look great!
We ordered countertops from Countertop Solutions, which should be installed late this week or early next week!
You can’t see if from the picture, but we finished the electrical work inside the counter to allow us to plug in our machines. The plumbing should be finished tomorrow if all goes well, and we hope to have both inspected late this week or early next week.
Our coffee equipment is finalized and waiting for us at Espresso Analysts, so as soon as the countertops are installed we can put that equipment in place and start testing some delicious drink recipes.
We’re also working on building the remaining shelving and menu board for the cafe. We actually worked on a huge portion of that project today, so they should be finished, stained, and mounted in the next week or so.
Our brother Al improved the cat shelves, and is building all of our wood cafe fixtures! Thanks, Al!
The partition wall is also nearly done, as we were able to install the door and windows. At the moment, the plastic protective covers are still on, but we promise they will be clear for optimal cat watching! The wall and window frames just need some touch up paint to be completely finished.
We also ordered most of our furniture this week since the construction is wrapping up. We tried to pick the best combo of cozy and sturdy for maximum cat and human enjoyment, and look forward to sharing pics in our next update and on social media.
While the renovations look great and have come along a lot in the last week in particular, most of the work we’ve been doing has been administrative:
- We built our scheduling system on Acuity, so we are completely ready to launch reservations as soon as we can set an opening date!
- We have mostly completed setting up our Square Point of Sale system, so that the cafe will be ready to serve you once we open.
- We’ve been wrapping up a lot of the logistical decisions, such as remaining food/drink providers, staff responsibilities, waste management/recycling, etc. We intend to finalize and contact our merchandise artists/vendors who already applied in the next week or two as well. Sorry for the wait!
- We decided on our hours! We are planning to be open Wednesdays-Sundays from 10:30a to 9p, offering hour-long reservations, day passes on weekdays, and tickets for weekly and special events like cat yoga, trivia nights, and more. We will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED IN OUR SURVEY! It was incredibly helpful!
To our GoFundMe donors who earned purrks, we are still distributing them based on your responses to our email a few weeks ago! We are happy to arrange pickup at affoGATO or drop-off at your home or office to save on postage, or we can mail purrks if necessary. Please check your email if you haven’t already. We are mailing a batch tomorrow, so if you requested mailing and haven’t received it yet, don’t worry!
All in all, we’ve been able to make a ton of progress in the last two weeks, which has brought us much closer to being ready to open. We want affoGATO Cat Cafe to be a complete, beautiful, and fun experience from the very first day, so we have sincerely appreciated everyone’s patience as the estimated opening has been delayed by various projects.
We are extremely excited to be able to host you at affoGATO soon, and will announce our opening date as soon as possible here on our blog and on our social media. As always, please feel free to email us at affoGATOcatcafe@gmail.com or call 440-941-5130 with any questions!