Kitty Korner Cafe — Restaurant in Barre City

Ex employee here - now that I no longer have ties with the place, im here to say my piece.

I used to volunteer my time there pretty often as my partner at the time worked there. I helped clean cages of cats in the back (new or dont get along with others) I was hired by the owner Alexis after she had offered me a job as janitor MULTIPLE times. I always brushed it off as it wasn't an outright "work here" it was more hinting. At the time I had a full time job that paid well and I was stable in. I did eventually take the offer of job and left my stable day shift job to work at the Cafe.

I was there from September - December 2022 . Let go in three months. Why? The owner couldn't afford to pay the employees. Still, she kept brining in new cats. Cats that require care, food, vet appointments, but she couldn't pay her staff. She didn't even have the respect to tell me in person (this is not a big business, at the time maybe 5 employees and the owner) she had my partner at the tims tell me and wouldnt talk to me after that for the week i had left. Along with that - She never paid anyone on time. Payment was once a week and she was unable to stick to a schedule so im sure I was shorted a check. I cleaned for 8 hours a day, mourned over the dead cats I found (some were sick so not surprising but still) , tried to keep everything looking nice all day, only to be let go due to lack of funding. I told the other employees at the time and some left the job soon after.

The café itself, is fine. I personally wouldn't order food there unless somone was wearing gloves because it more than likely they are taking turns to clean out cat boxes and then serving and as somone who worked there, you need more than a minute of hand washing to be able to touch food after just holding a poop scoop. That and all the cat dishes filled with dried cat food and their bowls all go in the same sink as the regular dishes humans eat off from and are handwashed. No dishwasher, no sanitation which is a hazard.

Food safety is also an issue at the time my previous partner was the only person up to date on food safety guidelines (they worked in a kitchen most their lives as a cook / chef and had to be) Many of the pastries were from a third party source (this is common) and they would wrap them individually with plastic and set about half in a freezer and half in a fridge. And lable the ones in the fridge to expire within a week / 10 days , but often times if the items didn't sell they would just take the expiration sticker off and leave it until it did sell or until it was visibly bad. The only freash foods were limited and either cookies or donuts and not many. Prices were high for things that somone could get across the street for less. If things have changed since, that's great, but its only been maybe 3 years, so i doubt it.

Their process for finding forever homes is thorough and they care a lot for the cats, but it does not show in the way the place was maintained and how the staff were easily burned out. You cannot save every cat, it is admirable that so many were adopted in a short amount of time, but to keep the cats safe, clean, and taken care of you need to take care of your staff too as they are the ones doing the work.

As a reply to their reply to me:

I find it really funny that im being called a disgruntled employee when while I was there I was given praise , told I was great at my work, told I was a god-send for the cats, and always treated so respectfully, by the owner and especially by her mother. Her husband even helped my past partner and i with our house. But now that ive revealed some of the darker spots im called disgruntled. I think its fair that customers know all sides of establishments they go to. I also said I was and employee there 3 years ago and further said if things have changed that's great.

I hope yall have turned a new leaf genuinely, but what reason would I have to lie in a Google review 3 years later ? Taking accountability is a wonderful thing, but acting like these things didn't...

My partner and I drove up to VT and saw there was a cat cafe we wanted to check out. We immediately fell in love with a sweet older cat who layed in our laps and kept looking to us for pets! While we were in there however, I only noticed a couple of litter boxes and none of the cats were engaged. There were only a few toys laying around. There was also a kid screaming and terrorizing the cats that were awake, scaring them! If your business is not going to have someone monitor the customers playing with the cats then that room should not be open to the public! Even with the bad vibes, we still applied to adopt the sweet cat. Well they told us there was already an application for her which was completely fine, we wanted to try anyways! Well we kept waiting for a phone call and finally after a couple of weeks, the cafe called our cats’ vet. They wanted to make sure our cats were up to date on their shots before adopting this cat out to us. We were so excited! We were planning on driving back the 7 hours to pick her up. We didn’t receive a call back after verifying our cats’ vaccinations and I was going to have my partner give them a call today so we can prepare for the cat. Well, she went on the cafe’s fb page and saw that this cat was adopted out a day before the cafe even called us to verify our cats’ vaccinations! Why did they even bother with this phone call and get our hopes up when this cat wasn’t even at the cafe anymore?! The lack of communication between the staff is very blatant and disrespectful of the customers time preparing to adopt a cat. This cafe is unprofessional and after reading some other reviews this seems to be an ongoing trend with them. I worry for all the cats’ safety! They definitely took on way more than they can handle. Also $200 to adopt out an adult cat is straight robbery. Anyone thinking about adopting a cat from here should adopt from an actual shelter instead! If I could give this place zero stars I would. They left such a bad taste in our mouths.

*Edit: In Response To Their Response: Completely missing the part where I said that we received a call AFTER the cat had already been adopted. We understand that it is not guaranteed, I also said that in my review! There was no warning for the child that was screaming and tormenting the poor cats. I literally watched the cats begin to hide one by one because of this child. Your condescending reply to the cost of adoption is a blatant lie because it does not look like that money is being invested in the cats at all. All those toys you mentioned were in boxes. How would they be able to get the toys out in the first place? I personally think this sort of response places blame on the reviewer just because you don’t...

We didn’t have such a great experience at the Kitty Korner Café!:(😢 When we first walked in, we were greeted by a kind, attentive, young lady who was willing to see photos of our cat. While we were showing the young lady our cat photos, an middle-aged woman with short, brown hair (I think that she was the manager) came in and “hissed” something into the young lady’s ear. Immediately afterwards, the lady seemed frightened about what her manager said and did not want to look at any more cat photos. After this incident, my family and I paid $20 ($5 each for 4 people) for a thirty minute session with the cats. Around 10-15 minutes in, we saw the lady with short brown hair whisper something to another woman. Right after that, the woman came into the cat area and told us that our time was almost up. Then, the short, brown haired lady came in and said that we need to leave (she also seemed very annoyed when I wanted to spend one more minute with the cats even though we paid for 10-15 more minutes.) My family and I just thought that it was rude how the lady with short, brown hair tried to convince us that our time was up when we were only in there for obviously 10-15 minutes and our time was not up. Maybe they should set a timer or something because they need a better system.🙄 The last thing that I am going to say is that during our time here, many locals kept walking in and the lady with short, brown hair was EXTREMELY friendly to them. So, it seems like she doesn’t really like “outside visitors” and she only likes locals..... In conclusion, I am giving this place three stars instead of one star because of three reasons only. The young ladies who worked there were very kind and attentive 😊 (just not their manager) They are saving stray cats and I applaud them for that.😃 I also understand that caring for all these cats is a strenuous job so I do appreciate all the work that this company does for their cats Some of the cats were cute and it seemed like they were being well cared-for 🐱

RE: Thank you so much for your kind response!:) We will definitely give Kitty Korner Café another chance if we are ever in the...