Boris & Horton opened in the East Village, billed as the city’s first cafe for dogs, where people and their pets eat and hang out. It’s like a regular cafe, but there are more customers with floppy ears and wagging tails, and it’s part of a trend of similar shops that have popped up around New York and elsewhere.
The cafe serves snacks and pastries for humans and dogs (coffee is for humans only). After several years of success, Boris & Horton launched a second location in Brooklyn last spring.
To comply with local health department regulations, human food and pet food are prepared separately, and dog food is served in single-use, disposable containers. The cafe part of the business is in a separate, adjacent space to the seating area.
Although Boris & Horton is often busy, business has recently begun to suffer. There were challenges at the Williamsburg location, including a delay in its beer and wine permit, then a mysterious canine respiratory disease began spreading through several states before the holiday season, driving people away during the busiest time of the year of Boris & Horton.
“Holiday events got canceled because of that, some corporate events got canceled because people didn’t feel comfortable,” Mikhly said. “We just didn’t have the holiday bump that we usually have.”
“We’ve had some tough weekends where we normally see our highest revenue and it just doesn’t happen,” he said. “We started to worry.”
Last month, he and his father made the difficult decision to close both locations. They said they felt they had no choice.
“We finished everything pretty quickly. We wanted to give our staff enough time to find other jobs, and the community enough time to say goodbye,” Mikhly said.
But the community doesn’t want to let the cafes go. Almost immediately, customers rallied.
“It’s a complete shock to me that they’re closing,” said Amanda Gerzog, 28, who lives near the East Village location and has been a regular customer at Boris & Horton for the past six years. “I was devastated, but also determined.”
Gerzog, a social media marketer, often works remotely from the cafe. As a dog lover who doesn’t have a dog at home, she takes advantage of the opportunity to be with dogs all day.
“That’s one of the reasons I went,” he said. “There is a unique sense of community that you feel in the cafe. Boris & Horton is a place where I would love to stay for hours.
He knew other New Yorkers felt the same way. So Gerzog started a GoFundMe campaign to save the small business. In just a few days, more than $20,000 poured in.
“I’m so glad the community felt the same way I did,” Gerzog said. “They really are a business that doesn’t deserve to be closed.”
Mikhly and his father were stunned by the support.
“People just went out of their way to help us,” Mikhly said, explaining that some people reached out with other offers, including a technician who fixed the air conditioning in one of the cafes.
“We also heard from people what the cafe means to them,” Mikhly said. “People have a stronger connection to it than I thought.”
With that in mind, Mikhly and his father started their own fundraising effort and raised more than $250,000 — all from individuals. The average donation is about $60.
“We are very grateful,” Mikhly said, adding that they have temporarily closed both cafes for repairs and upgrades. Both the Boris and Horton locations reopened Monday.
“We’re now feeling pretty re-energized and revitalized,” said Mikhly.
Boris & Horton is part of a growing number of restaurants and coffee shops that cater to four-legged customers across the United States — and around the world. For the most part, Mikhly said, the dogs are well behaved.
“Owners are pretty good at knowing if their dogs are right for a dog-friendly cafe,” he said, noting that the cafe floors are cement to prevent damage from dog accidents – which sometimes happen. “We’re taking the cleanup very seriously.”
People show up to hang out with their dogs — who are welcome off the leash — but to socialize. “If you go to the cafe, you will notice that people are looking at their laptops, they are talking to their neighbors,” said Mikhly. “It’s a more social environment than a typical coffee shop.”
They named the cafe after Holzman’s 8-year-old pit bull mix, Boris, and Mikhly’s 14-year-old Chihuahua-poodle mix, Horton.
“We find that dogs are really a catalyst for conversation,” Mikhly said, adding that they also partner with shelters and rescues to host regular adoption events. About 3,000 dogs are adopted from the events at the cafes.
Many regular restaurants are bucking the dog-friendly trend and offering a separate outdoor patio menu for canines — complete with alcohol-free “doggie beer,” seasonally flavored ice cream and grilled steak served with steamed vegetables . Some hotels also welcome puppies, offering doggy bathrobes and treats. Dogs can also attend movies at a British cinema chain.
At Dogue in San Francisco, pet owners can sign up their dogs for a $75 tasting menu every Sunday.
“Our tasting menu is now booked through April,” said Rahmi Massarweh, the chef and owner of Dogue, which opens in 2022.
The multicourse meal has what Massarweh calls “primal proteins” — meats and seafood that “dogs would eat naturally in their ancestral form,” he said, citing wild antelope heart as an example. Dogue also makes and sells packaged dog food, as well as “pawtisserie” — pastries designed for dogs.
Dogue does not serve human food but does offer owners free drinks.
Experts say one of the benefits of dog grooming businesses is that they boost people’s mental health and connection to one another.
“Some of the most important relationships we have are with our canine companions,” says Philip Tedeschi, founder of the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at the University of Denver.
Tedeschi says dogs make us more present and focused. They act as a “social lubricant,” encouraging people to feel more comfortable interacting with others. Being around dogs “reduces cortisol levels, or the stress neurotransmitters that often prevent people from interacting with each other,” Tedeschi said. It also activates oxytocin and serotonin, which make people more likely to be social, he said.
Tedeschi said he’s not surprised that businesses are increasingly catering to dogs — or that a community has stepped up to save a string of dog cafes from closing.
“Dogs and other animals can teach us a lot about relationships and how we treat each other,” she said.
