Meet some of the shop cats of Baltimore

Barbara Haddock Taylor / Baltimore Sun
Neither Bernardo Vigil Rendon nor any of his colleagues at this worker-owned bike shop in Station North know precisely how old this orange and white cat (named for the luckdragon in "The Neverending Story") is or how he arrived in the city. "I think [he's] anywhere between 15 and 20," Rendon said. "He had a microchip, and so we know that his origins are actually in Parkville. I have no idea how he got down here, nobody does. And the number associated with the microchip is disconnected." The staff-owners do know that Falkor arrived outside the shop around six years ago. Their neighbors at Artist & Craftsman Supply called because the cat somehow got inside there; the next day, Falkor actually got into Baltimore Bicycle Works and has been posted up ever since. Falkor's appeal looms so large that Baltimore Bicycle Works prominently features him in its branding, including a t-shirt, collaborative coffee with Thread Coffee Roasters (another worker-owned property) and even a cyclocross racing team.
This stunning black cat arrived at Diamondback through the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter's (BARCS) "Working Cat" program. Co-founder and head brewer Tom Foster said that the brewery brought Inky in to fix some of the pest issues they faced early on. "We're storing a lot of dry good, grain, which mice, in particular, really love to eat," he said. "We had grain bags ripped open, mice sightings here-and-there, and we were looking for an all-natural solution to that." Inky stayed on beyond his trial periodpurriod and now lives in the brew site full time. Foster noted that cross-publishing and popularity of The Baltimore Sun's 2017 story about the BARCS program spread Inky's image across the country, and children (including a school field trip from the Midwest) often swing by to say hello. Purrsonality: Despite his fame, Inky doesn't often venture up from the brew site to the taproom to visit customers. It's not for a lack of trying or familiarity with returning customers, and Foster noted that he's very friendly. "We have a food program now, so he's not technically supposed to be in the tap room, but we have a little gate [between the taproom and brewing area], and more times than not, he's sitting there, staring on the other side," Foster said. "I've seen him jump on top of a pallet stacker, eight feet high, but he won't jump over the gate!" Did we forget your favorite store cat? Let us know at srao@baltsun.com so we can possibly include them next time!
Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun
Annmarie Langton, the co-owner of the hybrid restaurant-food truck, said she first encountered a grey kitten in the restaurant's current Hampden lot about three years ago. Fatty Kakes followed her around the yard, begging for food scraps. Eventually, she caved, and brought him to the Maryland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) to get neutered. "And then we brought him back into his habitat, and he's been here ever since," she said. "He's president of pest control and he is, basically, the boss." Fatty Kakes is very friendly to humans, but will make sure they and their canine companions don't "get out of line," Langton said. "He demands perfection," she added. Occasionally, he'll wander down the road to Waverly Brewing Company to say hey, but he always knows where home is.
Barbara Haddock Taylor / Baltimore Sun
This tuxedoed tiger was a part of David Carpenter's family before he became the owner and head brewer of this relatively new Canton brewhouse. Bert, along with his brother/fellow Mobtown denizen Ernie and two other cats, first belonged to Carpenter's mother. When she died in 2009, the cats went into Carpenter's father's care; when he died in 2015, Carpenter took them in. Finding his Canton rowhouse too small to comfortably house five cats (including his own), Carpenter took the two of them saw a oppurrtunity to take two to Mobtown. "I chose Bert and Ernie because they were a little bit more friendly than the other two, and they're brothers, so I didn't want to separate them," he said.
Barbara Haddock Taylor / Baltimore Sun
Stanley, the resident cat at the Ace Hardware store in Canton, sits in a box on top of a row of shopping carts. It's one of his favorite spots in the store.

PUBLISHED: August 21, 2019 at 5:00 a.m. | UPDATED: August 21, 2019 at 5:15 a.m.

If “the dog is man’s best friend,” as poet and longtime Baltimore resident Ogden Nash once wrote, then the cat is most certainly humankind’s best frenemy. You know, the kind that smacks your face every morning when they’re hungry, passes up the new $50 cat tree for the cardboard box it came in, proudly brings you all-but-dead rodents and sharpens their claws all over your new furniture — and has the nerve, after all of that, to contemptuously stare at you, like you did something wrong.

Despite these quirks (or maybe because of them), cat lovers can’t get enough of their feline friends. For those that host cats in their stores or businesses, their furry colleagues offer not only the expected adorableness, but also pest deterrents, branding inspiration and extra incentive for customers who like cats more than … well, anything else.

Numerous whiskered workers call the city of Baltimore’s commercial sector home. Learn about five such retail cats before visiting them the next time you need some craft beer, a bite to eat or some gardening shears.