This app encourages users to map — and pet — every shop cat in Philly

Welcome to Philadelphia: Dozens of shop cats are waiting for you.

At least that’s what David Martin — the creator of the aptly titled ShopCats app — wants you to reiterate. Launched in July 2022, ShopCats encourages users to help map the employed kitties in a given city by letting them take photos and leave comments along the lines of “very fluffy and enjoys head scratches, five stars.”

“My motivation is to create more mundane moments of joy in the world,” said Martin, a Seattle-based software engineer. “The moment when you meet an animal for the first time is delightful, so I just wanted to create more of those moments at scale around the world.”

ShopCats began as a love quest for Martin, who promised his then-girlfriend (now wife) that “he would find all the cats in the world for her” after she began sending him photos of the store kitties she would encounter on her commute in San Francisco. Now, the app has tracked more than 10,000 cats across dozens of cities, from Tokyo and New York City to Amsterdam and Philly.

» READ MORE: Meet Leo, the TikTok famous cat who lives inside a South Jersey Home Depot

Martin added the first few thousand cats to the app by using a web-scraping tool to parse reviews on websites such as TripAdvisor for mentions of felines, and then used an algorithm to determine the likelihood that a cat actually resides at a business.

Now, users can leave scratches (in lieu of likes) on their favorite cats and earn feline-themed rewards guided by ShopCats’ mascot Tarô, a cherubic purple kitty.

Nearly 30 shop cats are mapped on the app in Philadelphia, which is chock-full of bookstore cats and pet parents who aren’t afraid to drop bands on their kittens for Christmas. Being listed on ShopCats can be a boon for business owners, who say their kitties often have customers of their own who stop by mostly to give pets, tummy rubs, and the occasional treat.

» READ MORE: Philly pet parents pamper their fur babies during the holidays with overnight hotel stays, custom photo shoots, and $100 or more in gifts

“Sometimes people will just come in and be like, ‘I heard you had a cat,’ and it can feel like we’re just props,” joked Miro Bullo, the general manager of the Book Trader in Old City, where shop cat Dr. Abraham Horatio Pickles holds court over boxes of used books.

Meet four of ShopCats’ most-scratched (re: liked) cats — from a tango studio-dweller with a song named after him, to a pair of thrift store kittens who can upsell chairs.

The first thing customers at The Book Trader in Old City typically notice is a sign on the door: “Please do not let the frisky cat outside!”

The frisky cat in question is Dr. Abraham Horatio Pickles, the bookstore’s live-in orange tabby who’s more of a snoozer than a runner, said Bullo.

Dr. Pickles came to the Book Trader in 2019 by way of another business owner who had to give away his two cats ahead of a cross-country move. Dr. Pickles ended up at the Book Trader full-time.

Dr. Pickles is “laid back and unbothered, which makes him a good bookstore cat,” said Bullo, who likened the doctor’s day-to-day to scenes from Norman Rockwell paintings.

Right now, Dr. Pickles likes to nap on a cushion in his favorite wooden chair on the second floor, catty-cornered to a large window and the store’s gaming section. In the summers, Dr. Pickles enjoys people watching from a crate on the first-floor window sill. After hours, he plays hide-and-seek with staff, running around the stacks until he’s found over and over again.

Dr. Pickles’ true talent, however, is modeling. Bullo started an Instagram account for the cat, @thedrpicklesofbooktrader, in November 2021. Shortly after, the store began selling black-and-white postcards of the cat for $2 each.

They’re a hot commodity, according to Bullo. “Dr. Pickles gives good face,” he said.

» READ MORE: There’s a Santa’s workshop for homeless pets. It’s in NE Philly.

This shop cat inspires symphonies. No, really.

Sheldon lives at the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School in Fishtown, where he has three jobs: greeting guests, correcting tango technique, and being a muse to Latin Grammy-nominated pianist Emiliano Messiez.

Messiez released the three-part tango “Sheldoneando” in June as the first track off the album Psicoporteño, which was coproduced by Sheldon’s owner and tango school director Meredith Klein. The title translates to “Sheldon-ing” — or the act of being Sheldon.

That, Klein previously told The Inquirer, boils down to “having the life of dreams — living in a tango studio, having admirers — yet yearning to escape to have adventures.”

Sheldon (whose true age is unknown) is a former outdoor cat who Klein rescued from Palmer Park in 2017 after his former owners abandoned him. He attempted to escape after three days, she said, and he used to canvass the neighborhood for multiple dinners.

Now, Sheldon spends his days perched on the front window where he can be admired by passersby and angle for snuggles from the tango school’s visiting instructors. He has no idea that he has a song named after him, let alone what a Latin Grammy is.

“Sheldon’s not humble,” said Klein. “He just doesn’t know anything about music or composition.”

» READ MORE: A Latin Grammy-nominated composer wrote a tango for a shop cat in Fishtown

Thunderbird Salvage owner George Mathes can remember the moment Vader and Rey wandered into his life: When a car crashed into the thrift store’s warehouse near Temple University in 2017, the two former strays walked in through the car-shaped hole to look for food.

“It was a nightly occurrence for a while,” said Mathes. “Eventually they just stayed.”

Vader and Rey moved from the warehouse to Thunderbird Salvage’s Fishtown store in 2018, where they’ve taken to performing several jobs. Vader and Rey like to sit by the cash register “like a pair of guardian Sphinxes,” said Mathes, and lead quality control by sniffing everything that comes in the store.

The cats are also skilled sales reps.

“I’ll see people buy stuff the cats are laying on just because the cats are there,” said Mathes.

Vader and Rey, who are named after opposing Star Wars characters, are also beloved by the community.

When Rey was hit by a car in 2020, her jaw was smashed and she suffered a severe eye injury. The surgery bills totaled $12,500, said Mathes, so the vet recommended he put Rey down.

Mathes didn’t, partly because he raised $12,500 in a month — thanks to hundreds of small donations from customers, neighbors, and friends via GoFundMe.

“I never had cats before. I wasn’t even thinking about having any pets,” said Mathes, while feeding Vader and Rey treats. “But, they found me.”