NYC’s first dog cafe closes Brooklyn spot months after locals raised $250K to keep it open
This is a tough bone to swallow.
People who donated money to the Big Apple’s first canine cafe to keep it from closing just two months ago are now barking about where their money went after the business announced this week plans to shutter its Brooklyn spot.
In February, locals drummed up $250,000 to save Boris & Horton from closing its locations on Avenue A in East Village and Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg.
On Tuesday, however, co-owners Coppy Holzman and Logan Mikhly wrote on Instagram that they were permanently closing the Driggs Avenue cafe.
“Will you be returning the $250,000 donated 2 months ago to keep this location open?” reads a reply to the post with 292 “likes.”
“Imagine if everyone who’d donated had just supported their local animal shelter or homeless outreach program,” another griped.
Some called for a probe into the cafe’s fundraising and finances.
“Someone should look into this,” one commenter wrote, while others demanded that Holzman and Mikhly be “transparent” by opening their books to the public.
But the father-daughter duo insisted to The Post this week that donations have been used to hire a general manager and an event manager, repair the East Village cafe’s HVAC system and introduce monthly merchandise subscriptions — and that all of these additions will remain in effect at the East Village location.
Another $20,000 of the funds raised went toward paying 25 Boris & Horton employees’ wages for the two week period they were closed from Feb. 26 to March 11, Mikhly said.
“We love all of our customers and we’re heartbroken about leaving them in Williamsburg, but we just don’t have enough customers there, and the area just doesn’t have enough pedestrian traffic. We just weren’t able to sustain it even after [the fundraiser],” said Holzman, 69, adding “we’re still using all the donations, just in one location.”
“Since reopening, the East Village cafe has significantly outperformed Brooklyn. Therefore, to ensure its continued success, we have no choice but to close Brooklyn and focus our efforts on our original location in the East Village,” explained Mikhly, 34.
“We’re hoping that consolidating to one location will be better and people can still sit with puppies and enjoy our happiness. [East Village] is just one subway stop away” from Williamsburg, Holzman said.
