New Yorkers love blurring the line between the creature comforts of their living rooms with the service of public spaces. First we got a dedicated Cat Cafe in Brooklyn; now we might be getting a restaurant specifically targeted to dogs and their owners.
Via DNAinfo today:
Two dog-loving New Yorkers are gearing up to bring their dream of a truly dog-friendly restaurant to Brooklyn in the new year.
The name? BYOD. That’s “bring-your-own-dog.”
Verena Erhart and Lauren Hanlon are raising $35,000 through Kickstarter to open the new restaurant in Prospect Heights or Crown Heights, they said, to cater to dog owners looking for a place to hang out around Prospect Park.
“We’re both dog owners and we feel that people feel bad leaving their dogs at home, [and] even more when they go out and have fun,” Erhart said. “So, we’re trying to combine things … going out to eat and have drinks and having your dog with you.”
They’ll have to do some legal gymnastics to pull it off: New York made it legal last year to hang out with your dog at a sidewalk cafe, but it’s not legal to have dogs inside your eatery (despite what may happen at certain dog-friendly bars that we won’t snitch out here). Their plan is to make a separate area for playing with dogs, like an indoor dog park. DNAinfo checked with the health department, who said that plan would fetch their favor.
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We were going to make a snide comment about how New Yorkers also love blurring the lines between which animals they eat vs. which they let lick their faces, but it turns out Erhart and Hanlon are vegetarians and want to make a “vegetable-forward” menu. Hooray for victories over cognitive dissonance!
The Kickstarter ends Jan 6; so far they’ve raised $2,000 of their $35,000 goal. It might be ruff to reach that total, but if they do they’ll get a new leash on life.
Follow Tim for more dog puns and cognitive dissonance: @timdonnelly.