Coffee and cats are coming to St. Paul’s Grand Avenue

Twin Cities residents will soon be able to get a cat and caffeine fix at the same time.

The Catzen Coffee Bar & Den being planned for St. Paul’s Grand Avenue will feature coffee, food and felines for petting and purring, according to owner Vanessa Beardsley.

She’s turning a 2,000-square-foot commercial space at 1416 Grand Ave. that formerly housed a hair salon and a chiropractor’s office into a coffee shop — with a difference.

In addition to coffee and locally sourced food, the building will feature a “Coffee Lab” community meeting space for book clubs and game groups and regular classes on coffee tasting and coffee making.

“The Den” will be a separate seating area where customers can sip coffee while hanging out with a group of cats living there, according to Beardsley. Beardsley said she hopes that the space will be home to four to seven cats.

Unlike another Twin Cities cat coffee shop, the Cafe Meow, the Catzen cats won’t be up for adoption, they’ll be permanent residents of the shop. Beardsley said the cats will have a window to view foot traffic on Grand Avenue and vice versa.

She’s also planning to set up a “Cat Cam,” a small camera that one of the cats will wear so patrons can stream video of what the creatures are up to when the coffee shop is closed.

Beardsley, who lives in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood of St. Paul, has worked as an attorney and has been a stay-at-home mom.

“I like coffee. I like cats. I want to do something that adds to our neighborhood and brings people together,” she said.

Beardsley said she’s only had the keys to the 1931 building for about two weeks and doesn’t expect to be open for business until the fall. But she said there’s a lot of neighborhood interest in the coffee and cats combination.

“It’s been overwhelming how excited people are,” she said.