The guava goes in the freezer. The heavy cream goes in the fridge. Natassa is on her one day off trying not to check her phone, but her team has questions about the new summer matcha.
Chateau le Woof sits on Vernon Boulevard. It is a coffee shop. It is also a place where dogs come, and where the people attached to the dogs come, and where some of them stay longer than they meant to. Natassa wanted it that way. A standalone shop with real coffee. Not a gimmick with a dog in the window.
The idea arrived as a dream. She had just come back from a month backpacking across northern India and a heartbreaking stop in Hawaii when her twin sister lost her partner the same night she arrived. She came back to NY with less attachment to how things were supposed to go. Then she got fired. That turned into three months with her dog King and no job, walking the neighborhood every morning looking for a cortado.
She found one at Astor Bake Shop, the only coffee in the neighborhood then. She tied King up outside one day and someone tried to walk off with him. She put up one hell of a fight – yes, a physical fight – to get her pup back. A few weeks later she dreamed she was sitting in a cafe with King beside her. She woke up and said it out loud. A dog cafe. Her partner at the time asked what she'd name it. Chateau le Woof came out with no thought. It was a joke until it wasn't.
She came to the dog cafe by way of a whole life in hospitality. Born in New York in the early eighties, she moved to Hawaii as a kid and came back as a teenager. She got her GED and started college early. Her father worked in nightlife, and he got her her first job at seventeen. She came up through coat check and bar backs and worked her way into managing rooms. The cafe was a turn, not a start.
She has been in the Piano Factory building for about sixteen years. She watched the block when there was nothing on it. Garages. One baker ahead of his time. Her first shop, Le Woof, opened where Compton's is now. When she outgrew it, she moved to the Vernon Boulevard space, the old Bareburger offices. Building it out, her contractor walked off the job and she had a breakdown on the corner. One of the guys from Bareburger saw her, went inside, came back out, and handed her his business card. Two of the founders, both named George, helped her build the space. She paid for labor and materials. They gave her leftover supplies from their own building. George and George drink free at Chateau for life.
She knew nothing about dog health when she opened. A customer told her about a high-protein food made by an old South African man, Dr. Wessel, the founder of Abady. She called to order it. The company said it didn't work that way. Then Dr. Wessel walked into the shop and quizzed her. He gave her things to study, came back, told her she wasn't ready, and sent her away. Three times. She studied for weeks before he let her carry the food.
The business almost didn't survive COVID. She lost her whole staff. The shop stayed open on rotating shifts with her now fiance and a landlord who didn't charge rent for three months. Now she hires through the city's youth employment program, six interns this year. Her longtime baristas train the new ones. The ones who have been in coffee a long time get something back when they teach someone who is just starting.
She did not set out to build a culture. She says she has no idea how she did it. Being herself, doing what she loves, and hoping people felt it. People come in and tell her their dog got them through cancer, through loneliness, through a stretch when the dog was the only family they had. She knows that one. King was her partner and her kid wrapped into one animal for a while. She feels it now in the people who walk through her door.
A safe space in a chaotic world. Her little corner of peace. She means the dogs and the coffee, and she means the people too.
Natassa Contrini owns and runs Chateau le Woof on Vernon Boulevard in Astoria. Chateau le Woof can be found at chateaulewoof.com or @chateaulewoof.
Women of Astoria publishes monthly. Nominations via DM at @womenofastoria.