LOS ANGELES—Chetan Singh, co-owner of Crumbs and Whiskers, the first cat cafe in Los Angeles, is allergic to cats. He even has to take allergy medication, although he sometimes forgets.
“But that doesn’t stop me,” he said, at the pre-opening of the cafe in the Melrose District, with eyes slightly red and watery. “I love cats. I have five cats back home.”
The new cafe, which officially opens on Sept. 30, is now the second Crumbs and Whiskers location. The first is in Washington D.C., where Singh and his co-owner and sister Kanchan Singh live.
It all started when the Singh sister went to a cat cafe in Thailand in 2014. Always an animal lover, she decided to quit her well-paying corporate job to start her own dream career, intertwining a responsible business model, animal welfare, and creative design.
“The whole concept is you come in, you just relax with a friend, you drink a chai, and you cuddle with some cats,” she said. “We have 13 cats right now, but by the time we open in general we'll have about 20 cats.”
