This Burbank Vintage Mall Has Two Shop Cats And Up To Eight Adoptable Rescue Cats At Any Given Moment.

Meghan Cassaday moved from Wisconsin to Los Angeles for a relationship that did not last, and ended up staying because of cats. She opened Yes Baby! Vintage on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, built a following, and then in 2023 expanded into what she describes as her crazy idea: Catnip Coalition Vintage Mall, a collective of more than 40 independent vendors selling vintage clothing, jewelry, pop culture items, and cat-themed goods, with a rotating cast of between two and eight adoptable rescue cats living inside the store at any given time. Two permanent shop cats named Franklin and Nigel oversee the operation from their preferred positions: Franklin tends to patrol from high atop the shelves, watching the room from above, while Nigel prefers to be in the middle of things, greeting shoppers at floor level. Both came from the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah after struggling to adjust to the shelter environment, were placed together as an experiment, and immediately brought out playful sides in each other that the sanctuary had not seen before. A suggestion from Best Friends LA photographer Lori Fusaro put them in Cass's path, and a month after Catnip Coalition opened, Franklin and Nigel became the shop's most well-known employees.

The adoptable cats currently in the store come from Kitten Rescue, Northeast L.A. Cats, and Stray Cat Alliance, local rescue organizations that rotate cats through the shop's showcase windows, where passers-by on Magnolia Avenue regularly stop to watch kittens sleeping or playing in full view of the street. The store donates a portion of all proceeds back to those rescue organizations. To date, more than 120 cats have found permanent homes through Catnip Coalition, a number Cassaday tracks with the same care she gives the merchandise. The shop carries caution-tape collars for cats who seem overstimulated by the foot traffic, lofted beds throughout the store for cats who need to decompress, and signage at the entrance alerting shoppers that free-roaming cats are inside. Regular customers, many of whom come not primarily to shop but to spend time with Franklin and Nigel, describe the store as something Burbank did not have and clearly needed: a place that is equal parts vintage destination, community gathering spot, and small-scale rescue operation with a cat sculpture guarding the door. The Los Angeles Times covered it as part of a September 2026 feature on why the city has become one of America's great cat towns. The cats were unavailable for comment but appeared unbothered.

Source:https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2026-09-07/catnip-coalition-vintage-mall-burbank