City New York, United States
Cats in Bodega cats
Roughly four thousand cats live in New York’s corner shops, technically against the health code, universally loved, and the subject of a bill to make them legal. Where they are, and how to visit one without being weird about it.
Where to find cats in Bodega cats: Any of the ten thousand bodegas in the five boroughs, and especially the ones in the older neighbourhoods where the shop and the cat have been there for decades. When: Any time the shop is open, which is always. Late evening is when the cat is on the counter. Why here: The most beloved illegal animals in America, on the counter of every third corner shop.
The short version
- Where
- Any of the ten thousand bodegas in the five boroughs, and especially the ones in the older neighbourhoods where the shop and the cat have been there for decades
- When
- Any time the shop is open, which is always. Late evening is when the cat is on the counter
- How long
- Five minutes per bodega, plus whatever you buy. A cat crawl of a neighbourhood is an afternoon
- What it costs
- Buy something. That is the whole etiquette
- Why here
- The most beloved illegal animals in America, on the counter of every third corner shop
What to bring
- Money for a coffee or a sandwichThe cat is the shop’s. You visit the shop. A bodega cat visitor who buys nothing is a tourist; one who buys a coffee is a customer.
- The mapcatmaps.nyc is a community map of shop cats, and Bodega Cats of New York has catalogued them for years. Pick a neighbourhood.
- RestraintThe cat is working, sleeping, or ignoring you, on its own shelf. It did not agree to be an attraction.
- A neighbourhood, not a listGreenpoint, Astoria, the Lower East Side, Bushwick, East Harlem: walk one, go into every bodega, and count.
Why there are cats everywhere
Between a third and a half of New York’s ten thousand bodegas have a cat, and every one of them is breaking the health code.
The bodega is the New York corner shop: open all hours, run by a family, selling coffee, sandwiches, lottery tickets and everything else, and, very often, home to a cat. The cat is there for the mice, in theory, and for the shop, in practice: it sleeps on the sacks of rice, sits on the counter, and has a name that the whole block knows. There are, by estimate, up to four thousand of them.
They are also illegal. The city health code prohibits live animals in food establishments, apart from fish in tanks and service dogs, and a shop can be fined between two hundred and two thousand dollars for a cat. Enforcement is inconsistent: some inspectors write it up and some walk past. A proposed law would change that, creating a registration and free vaccination programme and a path for a bodega to keep its cat legally. New Yorkers, who agree on almost nothing, agree on this.
There are Instagram accounts, a community map where people mark the cat near them, a book, and a general understanding that a bodega without a cat is a bodega that could do better. The cats themselves are ordinary American shorthairs, mostly, well fed on deli scraps and adored by strangers, and they treat the whole city as a shelf.
The walk
Not a walk so much as a method: pick a neighbourhood with old bodegas, go into every one, buy a coffee, and ask. Five neighbourhoods where the method works.
- From ManhattanThe G, L or 7 train to the Brooklyn and Queens neighbourhoods25 minGreenpoint is the G, Bushwick the L, Astoria the N or W. Every stop is a bodega.
- From AnywhereWalk out of the door and find the nearest corner shop2 minA third of them have a cat. This is the genuine method.
- From The airportsAirTrain and subway to wherever you are staying60 minThe bodega on your corner is your first stop. Go in and look.
Greenpoint
Polish delis and corner bodegas along Manhattan Avenue and the side streets. Old shops, old cats. The photograph here is from one of them.
Greenpoint. On duty.Seth Werkheiser, CC BY-SA 2.0 Astoria
Across the river in Queens, Greek and Egyptian and everyone else’s bodegas along Steinway and Broadway, with cats on the counters and the ice-cream freezers.
On the shelves, which are the cat’s.Alex Lozupone, CC BY 4.0 The Lower East Side
The old tenement district, where the bodegas have been the same bodegas for generations and the cats are part of the lease. Clinton, Rivington, Essex.
Lower East Side issue.Billie Grace Ward from New York, USA, CC BY 2.0 East Harlem
Up Third Avenue, where a bodega cat photographed for this page holds the counter at Heavenly Market IV. Every few blocks another.
Heavenly Market IV, Third Avenue. Named, known, illegal, adored.Deans Charbal, CC BY-SA 4.0 Bushwick
Deep Brooklyn, along Knickerbocker and Myrtle: bodegas on every corner and a cat in a good share of them. The end of the crawl, and the best coffee on it.
Brooklyn. Same cat, different counter.Seth Werkheiser, CC BY-SA 2.0
Same numbers as the list. Worth keeping open on your phone.
The cats you will meet
Ordinary American cats, tabby and black and orange, well fed on deli and adored by a street. They live in the shop, sleep on the stock, and have names the whole block uses. Sociable when they choose and expert at ignoring you when they do not.
Counter cats
On the counter, by the lottery machine.
The greeters. Will accept a chin scratch between customers.
Stock cats
Asleep on the rice, the paper towels, or the chips.
Do not move the merchandise. The cat is the merchandise.
Back-room cats
You will not see these.
The shy ones. Ask, and the owner will show you a photo.
Everybody says Bodega cats are legal.
Actually They are not, under the health code, and the fines are real if an inspector chooses to write one. A bill would change that with a register and free vaccination. Until it passes, every bodega cat is a small act of civil disobedience the whole city is in on.
How not to be the annoying one
- Buy something. Always. The cat belongs to a family running a shop, and you are in the shop.
- Ask before you photograph. Most owners are proud; some inspectors read Instagram.
- Do not lift the cat off the counter or the stock. It has a shelf and it is on it.
- Do not feed it. It is better fed than you are.
- If a shop has no cat, do not ask why. Ask which bodega on the block does.
