Calling all cat lovers! If you didn’t know, your shopping experience in Columbus can be elevated to new heights by visiting furry friends who call local storefronts home.
With the ShopCats app, locals and tourists can log, share and find businesses around the area that run operations with the help of feline colleagues and pets. From tarot cards to bouquets, antique furniture and rare records, check out these four small businesses where you can browse, shop, meet small business owners in your community and, of course, pet some cats.
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Euro Classics Antiques: Yellow
This gentle, chunky beast coming in at a whopping 20 pounds, aptly named Yellow for his golden coat, lives at Euro Classics Antiques on 3317 N. High St. With warm woody textures all around, smooth jazz music in the background and the earthy scent of incense, this cool cat fits right in with the vibe of the store, which offers furnishings in arts and crafts, turn-of-the-century and mission styles from greats like Gustav Stickley. The store also offers furniture refinishing and repair services at its in-house wood shop.
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This family-owned business has been in the community since 1982, and Sylvia Zamora helps look after the store alongside her father. The cat-loving family (according to Zamora, she and her father each have five cats of their own) stumbled upon Yellow fending for himself after he got kicked out of a home.
They set up a temporary shelter for him in a family member’s garage, but as he started getting older — he is now 12 — they decided to try and see how he fared in a store environment, especially with their previous shop cats Felix and Ray now gone. Yellow passed with flying colors.
“Everybody always just calls him the manager,” Zamora said. “Technically, that’s my title, but I’m happy to share that with him, or I’m happy to be his assistant, even.”
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Part of his important daily duties as co-manager are to conduct quality assurance checks on the furniture.
“Anytime we get a new cushioned item, he kind of claims it and then that becomes Yellow’s seat,” Zamora said. “And then he has to go and pick another another spot, but I always feel very guilty when I sell his favorites.”
Zamora said as mellow as Yellow is, he does have a sassy side that he likes to express with the flick of his tail. But he’s friendly to customers and appreciates pets for his service.
April’s Flowers & Gifts: Sophie and Tulip
Sophie and Tulip are the darling sweethearts of April’s Flowers & Gifts, 1195 W. Fifth Ave., a full-service flower shop with gifts and delights, many of which are cat-themed. Owner April Bates Volpe opened up the shop 41 years ago, and over the years, she’s brought in several shelter cats to reside among the floral and fauna.
When her co-worker, Glen Huber, starting working for April’s, he wasn’t much of a cat person, Bates Volpe said. But that soon changed.
“I always say, ‘April writes the checks, but they’re in charge,'” Huber said, referring to the cats.
Luckily, the two ladies rule over the shop with sweet demeanors and generous purrs. Sophie, a little calico cat with a raspy meow that makes Bates Volpe suspect she was a heavy smoker in her past life, is on the older side compared to Tulip. She’s not as outgoing as Tulip, but a gentle introduction will have her purring like a motor. As for Tulip, Bates Volpe saw her easygoing personality at the shelter, and with the serendipitous name she came with, it was destiny.
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“They pretty much just assume people come to see them,” Bates Volpe said.
Elizabeth’s Records: Jonesy
Watch out ladies — this mitten-wearing, tuxedoed feline will capture your heart. Perched on the counter at Elizabeth’s Records, 3037 Indianola Ave., is Jonesy, who helps run the store with owner David Lewis, his wife and their daughter, whom the store is named after. According to Lewis, the store started out as a stall in a flea-market hall, but eventually grew a customer base to open its storefront in 2010.
Years later, Lewis adopted Jonesy from a stray litter of kittens. He’d had taken in several cats to help rehome them before then, but, it was finally time for a permanent addition to the family with Jonesy’s arrival, he said. Out of his orange-tabby siblings, Jonesy was the only one who was born donning the suave suit.
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“I think he’s a reincarnated ladies’ man,” Lewis said. “If you give him a lot of attention coming in and then you dare to go away and look at records, he’ll kind of jump down and he’ll come around the corner and meow, saying, ‘Hey, you left me up there.'”
Now at 6 years old, Jonesy boasts an impressive stature, a majestic scattering of whiskers and has a personality as big as his fluff. In all his sass and demand for attention, Lewis said Jonesy is a great colleague, friend and a comfort to him; he would often spend his shifts alone at the shop.
“He’s such a perfect mascot for the store,” Lewis said. “You couldn’t ask for a better one.”
You can look out for updates from the store and catch cameos of Jonesy on the store’s Instagram account, @elizarecords.
The Magical Druid: Marty and Fresco
Entering The Magical Druid at 2887 N. High St., you’ll be immersed in a mystical world of tarot cards, spirit boards, candles, crystal balls and, of course, two black-cat familiars.
According to James “Seamus” Dillard, one of the owners, on top of offering metaphysical supplies and hosting various workshops, the store also partnered with Cat Welfare Association to foster adoptable black cats in search of a loving home. The idea came from a National Black Cat Awareness event that the store and the association hosted together.
“There’s a lot of different cultural myths about black cats being lucky or unlucky,” Dillard said. “But from a modern standpoint, they’re usually the ones that are harder to adopt because people do have those superstitions around them.”
The storefront has now helped find loving homes for several black cats throughout this year, and now, Marty and Fresco, a package deal, are hanging out at the store until they can find a forever family. At first, The Magical Druid hosted only one foster at a time, but it soon became clear to Dillard that the bonded pair was inseparable.
Upon his arrival to the store, Marty was despondent, sitting with his face to the wall.
“They brought Fresco in and they opened up the door to his little crate; he meowed once and Marty jumped off the couch and ran over to him,” Dillard said. “They started kissing each other, their little tails just entwined and I knew right then, there was no way those cats could be apart.”
Because the two are a bonded pair, Dillard said, it can be more difficult to get them adopted. But he isn’t in a rush. Doubling as ambassadors, the two have excellent customer-service skills, are great with kids and become conversation starters that help customers learn more about Cat Welfare Association and its mission, Dillard said.
Still, the cats often like to channel their mischievousness and playfulness nature when they play fight, zoom throughout the store chasing each other or mess with customers with the life-size Krampus statue that The Magical Druid keeps in storage until Christmastime rolls around.
“Marty will go back there and get behind him in his cloak,” Dillard said. “And then, when a customer asks to use the restroom, Marty will make Krampus move, which kind of freaks out the customer. I swear, you go back there and go ‘Marty, what are you doing?’ and he’s grinning. He’s like, ‘I got ’em!'”
