FAST CITY, SD “I love cats and I just needed cats back in my life.” -Claire Linn
Lukas and Claire Linn love cats. The brothers share this love with millions of other people around the world. Now, they want to share that with Rapid City.
Coffee and cats and human society
Coffee and the Cats partnered with the Humane Society of the Black Hills to house some cats for the shelter. These cats will be housed in a room at the back of the cafe. Cafe customers can visit the room and interact with the cats and even adopt them.
Lukas and Claire have been volunteers at the Humane Society of the Black Hills for a long time, so it seemed like a natural partnership.
Caitlin Ausmann-Winn, Community Development Manager at the Black Hills Humane Society, said, “This is a new and exciting opportunity for our humane society. We already have great partnerships, and this is something totally new and another place for four of our cats to go.” at a time, which also helps us a lot.”
The cafe can accommodate up to four cats at the same time. On Monday, the first cat was adopted and was able to go to its new home. The adoption process at the cafe is the same as if you adopted from the Humane Society itself.
Photo: Coffee and the Cats
Lukas’ vision for a business
Lukas always wanted to have his own business.
“I knew for a long time that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’m going to college for this and I’ll finish it next year”, said Lukas.
The inspiration for the café came from a space that was not currently being used.
“My mom was talking about how she had this open space that she didn’t really use for anything. And part of my dream is to be a kind of cafe, you know, selling art and I thought, ‘Hey, what if we open a cafe for cats? She agreed. It started as a light conversation, but then it started to get more and more serious. We got home and said, ‘We have an idea’ and got to work. It’s only been a few months and here we are today.”
Lukas added that one of his main focuses was the community.
“We want people to know this is a place that will embrace the community. We want everyone who walks through the door to feel welcome and happy with the service they are receiving. they can stay and feel comfortable and hang out with their friends and hang out with cats.”
Claire’s passion for coffee and mocktails
Claire is bringing her experience working in coffee as well as her desire to see a community form.
“I’m a huge coffee aficionado and after being a barista for a few years, I’m really excited to bring this new type of culture to Rapid City.”
Claire said that in addition to the traditional espresso and blends, they are adding some exclusive options to the drinks menu.
“We’re making a change by making mocktails. It’s really hard to find good mocktails in Rapid City. That’s something we discovered traveling to a lot of other cities and so we want to bring that to Rapid City as well. With flavors you’ve never heard of, like lychee or ube and all kinds of things like that.”
Cafe and cats opening hours and location
Coffee and the Cats is located at 315B E St. Patrick Street, across the street from Calvary Chapel Community Church. They are open from Monday to Friday, from 6am to 6pm. Saturday (Saturday) from 7am to 3pm and Sunday from 8am to 2pm
