The age-old hardware store cat is a beloved and familiar tale of fluffy store managers, diligent mousers and friendly greeters, often becoming local celebrities.
At several local shops and spots, guests are welcomed, delighted and sometimes surprised by a friendly meow.
“When customers are in the store, they’ll often hear us yell, ‘Somebody get Jesus!’” West Ashley’s True Value Hardware store manager Jeanne Hagood told the Charleston City Paper.
“People that don’t know him will turn and look at us like we have three eyes.”
Jesus — yes, like that one — is a sweet relaxed gray and white cat that likes to lie on the stacks of leaf bags kept near the front of the store. Though it’s the bags themselves that he enjoys. When they have to be moved to make room for different merchandise, you’ll find Jesus lying at the top, wherever they end up.
“As the stacks go more and more down, he gets more and more disappointed,” Hagood said.
As the story goes, Jesus was a young kitten living outside behind the hardware store about five years ago. When one of the young girls that worked there at the time went outside to try and coax him to come up to her, she tripped and stubbed her toe. She exclaimed, “Jesus!” And he came running.
“There had been so many kittens out back for so long, but he just belonged here,” Hagood said.
“We’ve had a couple litters since then, and we’ve found homes for them all. And this is his.”
An upstairs neighbor
At the charming neighborhood cafe City Lights Eastside, guests sitting inside are often met with the sad stare of Condolezza — Condi for short or Loaf for fun — through the glass door to the patio.
“She doesn’t ever come inside, but she’ll hang out by the back door staring at everyone,” said co-owner Candace Patterson. “Someone always sees her, and people always move outside to be with her.”
A black-and-white tuxedo cat, Condi has come a long way. She’s 16 years old, and used to belong to Santiago Zavalza, the founder behind local favorite Santis’ Restaurante Mexicano. When he retired to Mexico, the restaurant’s manager Javier Valladares inherited the spot
— and Condi.
Now, the pair live in the apartment above City Lights, and while Javier tends to the downtown restaurant on the other side of town, Condi heads to the downstairs patio to hang out with the cafe’s patrons close to home.
“Javier didn’t want her outside much since she’s so old, but this was a way to give her that access,” Patterson said. “She used to come down once or twice a day, but now, she comes down almost 40! She used to be a lot more shy, but now, she’ll fully jump into people’s laps.”
Patterson said some people come to City Lights just to see Condi, and they’ve even started making merchandise with her face, with some designs inspired by Shepherd Fairey’s Obey Giant posters.
Making a difference
But as cat owners will tell you, it’s more than just having your loving pet at work with you. Having them in the store or on the patio really makes a difference to the customers’ experience.
“[Condi] has really brought so much joy to the cafe,” Patterson said. “Our space is so special already, but she just provides companionship to all of us. During the day, her dad is so busy, but she gets all the attention and pets she could ever want and goes back up when she needs her alone time.”
And across the Ashley, Jesus has slowly worked his way up the totem pole to becoming a store manager himself, Hagood joked.
“Having him here brings us so much humor and joy,” she said. “We have some of the best laughs over him, and some of the most tense moments, too, when a dog comes in.”
He’s a pretty strict manager, turns out.
Lasting memories
Asking around the Charleston community, there’s no shortage of people who know or remember some of their favorite local spots’ furry friends. People brought up downtown recall hardware stores and Mount Pleasant shops with resident cats inside or out of the buildings. But one that came up several times was a longtime resident of Artist and Craftsman Supply on King Street.
Customers remember the striped tabby Gamblin (like the paint) who was calm and regal with customers, perched on shelves and always watching over the store with quiet vigilance.
Gamblin lived at the store for 15 years, stealing snacks and delivering cold stares before passing away in late 2024. He was immortalized with a plaque that still hangs on the wall, and regulars still share their stories and memories of him on social media.
New partnership means more cats at the cat cafe
Pounce Cat Cafe, opened in December 2016 on Meeting Street, recently closed its doors when all of its resident cats were adopted out. But, thanks to a new partnership with Mount Pleasant-based foster program Feral Cat Helpers, there are more furry friends to share a cup with.
“There are still plenty of cats in the Charleston area that need help,” said Pounce owner Ashley Brooks.
Since opening nearly 10 years ago, Pounce has helped more than 3,000 cats find their forever homes at its Charleston location. More than 2,000 more have been adopted from the Savannah location.
“We pull cats from foster programs and bring them to the cafe, and they live with us full-time until they find their forever families,” Brooks explained, saying that this is her dream job.
“I’ve always been a crazy cat lady,” she said. “I thought the idea of a cat cafe was so cool, but there weren’t any in the United States when I first heard about them.” While in grad school in Washington D.C., she got a job at a newly opened cat cafe, and that sparked her idea to open one for herself when she returned home to Charleston.
“I was young and dumb, and I had no idea how to run a business,” she laughed. “My parents weren’t happy, to say the least.”
But a successful Kickstarter campaign and partnerships with local animal shelters helped their doors open, and they’ve stayed open ever since.
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