Tricks and Treats
It’s the Friday before Halloween, the sun is streaming through the almost floor-to-ceiling windows into the bright, colorful interior of Boris and Horton. The shelves on the white painted brick walls are adorned with painted pumpkins amidst the usual merchandise of dog apparel, toys and treats. Dressed in a cozy red button down sweater and jeans, Logan Mikhly stands at the register behind a doggie pastry case watching first time patrons enter thru the specialty double doors, (modeled after the dog park gates), their faces lighting up in delight at the dogs roaming around off leash, playing, begging for treats, or simply just sitting on the concrete floors at the feet of their owners, who are drinking, eating, and working on their laptops. Mikhly greets each guest, checking their vaccine cards while also fielding questions about the types of milk they carry, whether a mug bought on the shelf in the dog side can be filled with a beverage from the cafe side, ever mindful of the specific Department of Health guidelines, as well as doing her regular weekly administrative work. “I’ve always thrived on doing like a million different small tasks, like that’s how my brain works,” she confessed. And the pooches of the East Village and their owners are all the better for it.
In February of 2018, Boris and Horton, New York’s first and only dog-friendly cafe opened for business to much fanfare. Named after co-owners Coppy Holzman’s fluffy pit-bull mix Boris, and Logan Mikhly’s chihuahua-terrier mix Horton, the place was an instant hit with the locals and press, receiving attention from The Today Show, USA Today, Bravo, The Wall Street Journal and even being featured in the Netflix documentary, Dogs. Mikhly had the events calendar full of activities like breed meetups, senior dog bingo, paint your pet, birthday parties and themed trivia nights hosted by Puppy Bowl referee Dan Schachner.
The cafe was born out of a shared love of dogs and coffee, and the difficulty in securing both at the same time. Mikhly, 31 and her father/business partner, Coppy Holzman were taking a walk with their dogs in the West Village one day when they both wanted coffee. They each had to wait outside with their dogs, while the other went in to order and noticed several other patrons with the same dilemma. So the father-daughter team set out to solve this problem. Having previously worked together at Charitybuzz, a philanthropic business Holzman founded and later sold, and inspired by the cat cafe trend, they reached out to the Health Department to see how to go about creating a dog-friendly cafe and brought their dream to fruition.
Boris and Horton became the place to be for regulars from all over the city, as well as for social media influencers, canine and otherwise. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting lockdowns. The East Village restaurant industry was one of the hardest hit in the city, with more than double the closures of the next hardest hit neighborhood, West Village. How does a business that relies so much on the novelty of being able to hang out with your dog inside while you eat and drink survive when it was then reduced to merely a walk up coffee window?
“Well, it was something.” Mikhly responds. “It was really nice to connect with the community, and we kept doing trivia nights online, and we didn’t make money on them or anything. We just tried to stay relevant and stay in touch with everyone.”
This strategy worked. With the help of the federal Paycheck Protection Program, a small business grant, and the support of the community buying merchandise from the online store or joining their coffee club, Boris and Horton continues to occupy its sunny corner on 12th Street and Ave A.
Mikhly acknowledges that sticking it out wasn’t always easy, “We had that time where we could open but it was like limited capacity and there weren’t vaccines yet and it was like a really weird time because it felt like everyone was being risky by being inside. It just felt strange and kinda depressing to go from what we used to be to this reduced and like kinda sad version.”
Sad is the antithesis of what the cafe is now. It’s a packed house today, seats are hard to come by. One of the boons for Boris and Horton has been a result of the pandemic, “Everyone got dogs and more people have been able to work from home. It’s just been amazing!” Mikhly marvels.
Things are going so well, Mikhly and Holzman are looking to expand and have Boris and Horton in multiple neighborhoods around the city. Ideally while still being able to have a community feel to all the cafes. When asked what her favorite part of this venture has been, she quickly responds, “Community building, the fact that we get to know people and there’s so many familiar faces and people talk to each other in here and the community cares about each other. It just feels very different than what people think of when they think of New York, which is like keep your head down and stay to yourself. It’s just not like that. We’re still in awe of it.”
New York born, Connecticut raised, Mikhly is the youngest of three children, and has always had a passion for dogs. While studying to be a teacher in New Orleans she came to volunteer and eventually run Used Dogs, a small shelter. Once she successfully got all the dogs adopted or in sanctuaries, and the property sold, Mikhly decided to get out of the rescue business, finding it to be too emotionally draining and difficult. However, continuing to pursue teaching was no longer her dream either. “I realized all my lesson plans were about dogs, and I was like oh I think I care more about the dogs, and I kinda pivoted from there.”
Running Boris and Horton hits the sweet spot of being very involved with the rescue world, getting all of the warm fuzzies without the stress. To date Boris and Horton has helped 515 dogs find homes which is particularly rewarding for Mikhly to witness, especially when she’s connected customers to the dogs. “We get to see them come back to the cafe. They’ll be like on the adoption van outside the cafe looking kinda sad and then they’ll come in a week later with an awesome bandana and a fancy leash and they’re eating donuts.”
Many donuts and treats will be consumed at Boris and Horton this weekend. Among the events on tap is The Pupper Cup dog ice cream pop-up, the founder of which, Kelly Crook happens to be in the cafe today. At Mikhly’s request, Crook brought cardboard ghosts with cutout face holes for dogs to pose with in the photo booth on-site. She comes to the cafe with her ice cream cart every weekend and has been for the past two years because she just can’t imagine anywhere she’d rather be.
In addition The Pupper Cup cart, the other highlight of the weekend is the 3rd annual Boris and Horton Halloween Party. Mikhly will soon be dashing out those double doors put in place for dog safety, “Party City is really low on decorations and I have to get ready for the party Sunday night!” Last year’s Halloween party was cancelled due to the pandemic so Mikhly wants to make sure this year’s event really makes up for it. Of her relationship with Mikhly, Crook says, “Logan is really easy going to work with. I think we share the same goal to give back to dogs some of the joy, fun, and entertainment that they offer to us every day.”
Judging by the number of tails wagging, it’s safe to say, mission accomplished.
