Koneko — Restaurant in New York

It was my first time attending this café, and the manager on duty was unprofessional. The one thing I will say is that she was kind enough to gave us a pass, even though we came in a day late. As soon as we walked into the store, she greeted us, asked for our name and reservations. Unfortunately , due to the loud noise of the café brewing, my sister did not hear the manager asking for The spelling of her name. So when my sister repeated her name, She replied by saying “I said spell it”. Her response alone already bothered me. Then she explained that we came a day late for our reservation. she was going to see what she could do. Due to my sisters disability, she really wanted to enter this place, cats are therapeutic for her and she was already feeling uncomfortable.

As I was privately talking to my sister about the manager’s attitude, her coworker immediately let her know, as soon she walked out of the cat room. I thought that was also very unprofessional of him. Especially, because it was a private conversation. But he chose to blatantly do it in front of us. In this case, what he should’ve done was mind his business.

The manager then proceeded over to us with an attitude now, shrugged her shoulders, pressing her lips her shoulders and said, “she was trying to figure out a plan for us, but that since I thought she had an attitude, oh well.” then she tells us that she’s a manager, this was her voice, she has a monotone voice.

She continued by telling us that she will allow us 20 minutes. At this time, it’s 12:40pm. The reservation was originally for 1 o’clock, the day before. As a courtesy, she gave us 20 minutes for being late, which made my sister very happy. But this is also a $50 reservation appointment. Which I didn’t believe was not fair, but we took it.

Again, she reminded me that I was late and we were at fault for being late. At this point, we are going back-and-forth with each other and talking over each one another. Then she states and I quote, “Ma’am it is early in the morning, I haven’t had any breakfast, I’m tired and, this is a customer service job. You have to understand that this is a customer service job and the associates work hard to serve the people”.

I completely understand. That this is a customer service job. Not at any moment did I disagree with her. In this case as a customer she did not make me feel welcomed. She also explained that she was tired and then she didn’t have any breakfast. Respectfully , that is not my problem that she didn’t have breakfast or that she was tired. The only thing I cared about in that moment was her attitude. She was unprofessional and rude. We were the only two people of color at this café. I did not hear her speak to any other person after me that way.

We will be returning back to this café, because in the end, it was a nice and calming environment. I hope that the next time we come in, we have a...

The price of the tickets to get into the cat “experience” are very expensive for what you get. When you go in, after removing your shoes and coats, you have two levels of moderately to small sized rooms filled with about a dozen cats upstairs and downstairs. You can’t eat in there but you can bring in a drink. Tickets cost us about $85 for four people (two adults and two children) and with the addition of 4 drinks we were at about $118. We got 3 cappuccinos that were actually very good but about half the size of a tall coffee at Starbucks so they were small and a matcha latte that my daughter enjoyed. Cats of course will be cats and we did come close to their lunch time so there was very little interaction. It may have been that the cats were hungry or just not interested but there were also a lot of people there for a cat to person ratio and it kind of felt like you had to compete for time with the cats.

I didn’t really go for my husband or myself, we went for my daughter and her friend and after about half an hour my husband and I decided to go sit in the cafe and have something to eat while they played with the cats. We got a croissant and gyoza. The croissant was to die for, really outstanding and encouraged me to add a star just on that alone. The gyoza were okay, pricey at $16 for what they were in my opinion. The staff overall was exceptionally friendly and helpful again adding another star in my opinion to the experience.

Overall my daughter was happy and said she had a good time so that added the third star despite the fact that I did not feel it was worth the cost of the experience. That being said it is NYC and as we all know the prices are inherently higher so there is not much surprise in that. I just think maybe for that price including a complimentary cup of coffee or tea would not hurt to make it feel more like an inclusive experience.

I just want to close once more with the fact that the staff was outstanding. They were happy and friendly and really gave an atmosphere that they were doing what they love to do....

The overall experience is a solid 4.7/5 but I'm going to round it up to a 5.

TLDR: the cats are very passive, clean environment, cute adoptable kitties

5 star reason: The cats. They are adorable. They're all relatively young kitties, and some are more sociable than others. Do watch out for their body language because they are quite obvious when they don't want to be touched. They won't attack you, so don't worry. In fact, it's quite obvious that they are very cautious and downright scared of you, but it was cute enough to watch them.

The upstairs cattery is very well presented. There's a homey feel to it, and it was pleasant watching the kitties rest on their cat beds. Most kitties here are either sleeping or observing the main cafe area, which is barricaded from the cattery for sanitary reasons.

The middle cattery is a patio, and it's closed during the colder months. The walls are high and seems to be able to keep the cats in. There are none of the obstacle courses for cats, probably to keep them inside the patio.

The lower cattery is quite bare to say the least. It's a dimly lit room with cafe jazz playing in the background. A lot of the kitties here seem to be hiding in corners or up high. Sometimes you can witness a playfight between littermates or bonded pairs. The cats down here are a bit more active. The only thing I have to say, though, is that there doesn't seem to be great insulation. I saw a few cats huddled around a heater, probably to stay warm.

The entire procedure of entering and exiting the cattery is quite well enforced. You line up, enter a room to store and take off your shoes, and then enter the cattery. I suppose this is for keeping the cats away from food and to prevent any pathogens from entering the cattery via our shoe. I think that's a pretty great preventive method.

The cafe area is not as much an attraction as the cattery. They offer the standard cafe drinks and some Japanese snacks and pastries. You can bring the drinks inside the cattery...