Meow Parlour, New York City's Very First Cat Cafe, Opens Next Month on Hester Street

It's happening: On December 15, New York City will finally get its very own cat cafe. Meow Parlour, a combination patisserie/kitten kingdom, is the work of Christina Ha and Emilie Legrand of the bakery and pop-up market regular Macaron Parlour. It'll open on 46 Hester Street in just a month, with a cat-filled space adjacent to a cafe selling the same coffee, tea, pastries and macarons found at the regular Macaron Parlours. Guests will be able to bring their food into the cat room, but not the cats into the food room (to keep the health department happy). Update: The cat space will actually be around the corner from the cafe, in an entirely separate building. But the cafe will deliver directly to the cat room

Given the response to the pop-up cat cafe this past spring, the demand to get into this place is sure to be through the roof. But there's a system here: visitors have to rent time in the room with the cats. It's $4 for every half hour, and there's a limit of five hours maximum. Plus, the cafe takes online reservations, which is probably a better bet than just trying to walk in. There are a lot of other details (and a lot of cat pictures) already on the Meow Parlour website, but here are a five more crucial facts:

• All the cats come from the cat rescue center KittyKind, and are adoptable.
• Kids under 10 can only come during special hours, and have to be with an adult.
• No shoes allowed in the cat room.
• The cat room has wifi.
• The space is available for private events.

It's also worth noting that the crowd-sourced fundraiser for a cat tea house is still running. It's still about $16,000 away from its goal, but if it manages to raise that money in the next nine days, New York City could have not one but two cat cafes before you know it. And for what it's worth, Meow Parlour will only be the second permanent cat cafe to open in this country, after Oakland's Cat Town Cafe. Though there are many more in the works:

Eater Video: The Mysterious Rise of the Cat Cafe