Attention cat lovers: There’s a new place to get your feline fix, and it has a double mission of employing people with special needs.
MeowTown Cat Lounge, a nonprofit enterprise that held its grand opening Feb. 28 in McLean’s Salona Village Shopping Center, is home to about 20 cats at any given time. All are available for adoption through Herndon-based Fancy Cats & Dogs Rescue Team.
“We have the dual mission of rescuing cats and also providing employment for people with neurodiversity,” says MeowTown founder Whitney Albrittain, who lives in North Arlington. “My biggest hope is that it creates a [sense of] community.”
Taking its design cues from New York City, the lounge has three distinct areas: Central Park, Times Square and a loft apartment, complete with fake windows overlooking the Big Apple’s iconic skyline. There’s even a newsstand stocked with magazines, all of which are about cats, of course.
Guests can use toys such as laser pointers and wands to play with the resident furballs, or plunk down on one of two couches to see who’s feeling snuggly.
“We don’t let people pick the cats up because they can be be a little unpredictable, but if you sit on the couches, they just come up and get right on your lap,” Albrittain says.
Though the business is billed as a café, only pre-packaged snacks and drinks such as soda and bottled water are available. They’re included with the entry fee of $25 for a 50-minute visit or $60 for a four-hour pass that’s good on weekdays. Guests are also welcome to bring in their own food.
About the Cats
Current MeowTown residents include 3-year-old Dax, a boy who loves cuddles and naps, and 4-year-old Kylie, who enjoys chin rubs. At the time of this interview, three kittens were waiting to join the party after they recover from being spayed and neutered.
A cat adoption coordinator “supplies us with the cats and does a really good job vetting them as to who would be good in a lounge, who would be friendly, who would be social, who would get along with other cats,” Albrittain says.
New feline arrivals are quarantined for about a week to make sure they are healthy, then introduced to the lounge in cages so the other cats can safely sniff and get to know them before they are allowed to roam freely. The length of each transition varies based on where the animals are coming from. Cats coming from shelters may need a little more time to acclimate than those coming from foster homes.
Twice a month, Amanda Smith, owner of Feline Fine Mobile Vet, stops by for wellness checks. On March 15, she will host a seminar for high schoolers interested in become vets. Albrittain has several other events in the works, including a spring break camp March 31-April 3, and a cat yoga session (date TBD).
Finding Furever Families
For folks looking to adopt, the cafe is a low-pressure space where visitors and pets can spend time together. Some 20 cats have already been adopted since MeowTown held its soft opening in January.
“Instead of just seeing a cat in a cage at a shelter or pet store, this way, you’re seeing them like you might see them in your own house, where they’re roaming around,” Albrittain says. Some people come in not wanting a cat but end up adopting one anyway.
Albrittain can relate. Before the cafe opened, she fostered four cats at her house and fell in love with one of them. She brought her to the cafe, but after an adoption application fell through, decided to keep her.
Fancy Cats handles the adoptions. Interested pet parents can apply online through the rescue’s website and pay the $200 fee. The fee helps to cover food and medical expenses incurred by the rescue group.
A Purrfect Plan
The idea for MeowTown emerged from a conversation Albrittain had with a friend in late 2024 about her daughter Abby’s post-Covid-era challenges. Abby, 27, has intellectual disabilities and was struggling to find connections and meaningful work. “She almost was depressed,” Albrittain says.
The friend asked about Abby’s interests, and Albrittain immediately thought of the cat she had gotten her daughter for companionship during the pandemic. “She says, ‘What about a cat café?’ and I was like, ‘Bingo! You’ve just solved this problem,'” Albrittain says. “I realized we could help other people who are in the same situation and looking for meaningful employment and community and friends.”
She hired two neurotypical managers and nine neurodiverse staff members—she calls them the Cat Crew—who clean, greet customers and tell visitors about the cats. Albrittain partnered with Arc of Northern Virginia, which supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, to develop an app for the Cat Crew that provides step-by-step guidance for certain tasks and protocols. The goal is to make the workers “a little more independent,” she says.
For Abby, the experience is playing out exactly as her mom hoped. “I enjoy bonding with the cats, and then knowing them, and then getting attached to them. There’s cleanup, but it’s not that bad. It’s just what you do,” Abby says. It’s hard when furry friends get adopted, she admits, but those farewells also make her happy, knowing they will be loved.
“I can’t describe to you the change in such a short time,” Albrittain says. At a recent party, “my family members were saying how much more engaged [Abby] was because she had so much to talk about. She was talking about MeowTown, she was talking about the people that are working here, she was talking about the cats. It just really allows her to feel like everyone else” with a job.
Find MeowTown Cat Lounge at 1345 Chain Bridge Road, McLean.