Candi K.
Yelp
The cafe section of Koneko (which means "kitten" in Japanese) cat cafe is clean, relaxed and comfortable with a wide range of beverages and Japanese pastries/snacks if you just want a place to rest somewhere after walking around the gritty streets of the LES. The baristas were super chill and friendly, easy to talk to if you truly love coffee, tea or cats! I was early for my $25 12pm cat visit but they checked me in and I bought a cup of mint tea. I only had to wait about 5 minutes before a man gestured me into the glass door at the back of the cafe, showed me where to park my bag and shoes before I entered a 2nd glass door into the cat area.
This street-level "upstairs" cat area adjoins a cat-tio patio area which was closed due to rain (Tropical Ophelia remnants). As a result, all the other cat cafe visitors were squished into the room trying to get their hands on a cat to pet. I wandered downstairs to the basement level and found myself alone with 3-4 sleepy cats. A staff person sat quietly in a chair on the perimeter. She went back into a staff area to retrieve more cats, enticing them into the room with treats. It was so relaxing to just sit and play "catch the string" with a lazy kitten. Then a couple of other people discovered the sanctuary, followed by even more people who loudly entered the room. The room started to smell stuffy. Like stale smelly socks (remember it was a rainy day). If you know cats, you know cats strangely seem to like the smell of stale smelly socks - the cat I was playing with suddenly left me to rub itself against a guy's smelly feet. Not my feet since I am fastidious about foot hygiene and clean socks. I was already irritated because I had been seated on the ground petting the cat when the said guy invaded my personal space and almost sat on my cup of tea. It just got too crowded so I went back upstairs and left the cats before my hour was up. But it was enough for me. I had sufficient cat cuteness to brighten up my day. Also in my particular logic, if I pet a cat that was rubbing against a stranger's smelly feet just minutes before, wouldn't it be just like I was petting that person's smelly feet? Next time I'll try to visit on a sunny day and hope other visitors will be wearing clean socks.