In a quiet corner of Astoria, a late-19th-century piano factory now plays a different, delicious tune: specialty espresso drinks, dog brunch, and enthusiastic wagging tails. This is Château Le Woof: coffee shop, restaurant, and social hot spot, catering to pet owners and their four-legged pals.
For humans, weekend brunch means ube pancakes piled with strawberries and a latte made with Onyx espresso, crowned with art by a three-time latte art champion who has competed on the world stage. Furry friends, meanwhile, get creative items like “Duckin’ Pancakes,” peanut butter pancakes topped with a dehydrated duck foot, or chicken meatballs placed in a pumpkin puree. They even get their own seasonal pumpkin spice latte, made with goat’s milk. Served in a doggie bowl, of course.
Château Le Woof bills itself as the first dog café in New York, and may even be the first of its kind in the US. A hangout for humans and pups, it’s like a regular café, except here, the customers have more fur. When owner Natassa Contini opened this space in 2015, the field was barren. Today, dog cafés are part of a growing trend, and she’s delighted to see it.
“In the past 10 years it’s amazing to see how dog places, and just more availability for people to hang out with their dogs and go out to eat, have grown,” she said. “Our dogs are our family, right?”
This Menu is For the Dogs
Château Le Woof’s dog menu is no novelty afterthought. An in-house chef creates both dishes for humans, then translates into dog versions.
“It’s human-grade meals with a dog twist,” said Contini. The Duckin’ Pancakes, for example, have no sugar. The scramble is a spice-free take on the French omelet served to humans. The Steak Frites are freeze dried sirloin tips. And offerings adjust with the seasons. Right now, all of the cookies are shaped like mummies and ghosts.
Finally, every new dog menu item has to clear one final judge: Lola, Contini’s own Chihuahua, the restaurant’s official taste-tester.
“She has not very many teeth left, but my girl will tell you if something’s good or not,” said Contini.
For hot summer days, pups can also opt for a Pupper Cup, a coconut milk soft serve in flavors like peanut butter, bacon, and salmon. The brand’s founder, Kelly Crook, a close friend of Contini and a fixture of New York’s pup-loving community, recently passed away. Contini carries the brand in her honor.
Château Le Woof’s bestseller, unsurprisingly, isn’t glamorous, it’s useful. We’re talking about the bully sticks, a reliable and chewable babysitter for when an owner needs to camp out and get some work done. And while brunch dishes are served only on weekends, there’s something to tickle your pup’s taste buds all week.
“We do a ‘raw bar’ of really gross things, but they love it,” said Contini. Think freeze-dried duck heads, pig snouts, turkey necks, and salmon skins, all sourced from dog-product providers.
From an Attempted Dognapping to a Dream
The café’s origin story comes in two parts. One day, while walking through Astoria, Contini tied her red-nosed pitbull King up outside a local café so she could run in for a cortado. She came back out to find someone walking away with him. After a confrontation, King was returned, but the fury of that moment never fully left her.
“I flipped out, got my dog back, and that incident enraged me,” she said. “But that was the moment, and I didn’t even realize it.”
A few weeks later, she had a dream. She was in a café, and King was sitting beside her. She woke up, looked at her boyfriend, and said, half-jokingly, “a dog café.” He laughed, then asked what she’d call it.
“The first thing out of my mouth was Château Le Woof,” she recalled. “I’d never been to France. I’m not French. It just organically came out.”
It wasn’t that far-fetched of an idea. Contini had the background, having worked in nightlife and hospitality since she was a teenager. She scouted out a spot on 30th Avenue and 14th Street and just sat on the stoop, watching people walk by with their dogs.
“It just felt right,” she said.
That first dog café was tiny, with just a coffee counter and a small retail section for dog products. From there, it was a matter of refining the concept. Two and a half years in, she moved four blocks away to 31-01 Vernon Blvd., into a 2,000-square-foot space that finally let her build what she had envisioned in her dream.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, she added another 2,000 square feet. Now, half is dedicated to the café, and half to the dogs. That includes an off-leash dog area for people and pups to socialize, a holistic pet shop section with curated toys and dog treats, an events space, and a weekday dog-friendly co-working space slash brunch space.
She grinned, “That’s where I really get to do some fun stuff.”
A Community Solution
Underneath the latte art and the freeze-dried animal parts is a place that functions as a town square, where the community convenes, right across from Socrates Sculpture Park.
“We have a morning crew. They come in, get their coffees, get their pastries, their dogs play, and then they go about their day,” said Contini. A pet owner could conceivably spend the whole day there, working remotely on weekdays, sipping coffee and eating pastries, signature sandwiches and wraps, while their furry friend plays or spends time at the in-house groomer, who’s known for giving dogs a little extra flair with creative cuts and color.
“She’s fantastic,” revealed Contini. “She made my little Chihuahua look like a rainbow cheetah. Ridiculous.”
Dogs that want to play in the off-leash area have to be vaccinated, uploading their vaccination records to the café’s system. Once it’s on file, it’s good for a year. Ask her for the most memorable thing a dog has ever done and she’ll say it’s when a lab once scaled the play-area fence in a single hop, made a beeline for the cookie display, and cleaned it out while its owner wasn’t looking. A crime of opportunity.
Château Le Woof hosts dog birthdays, wine tasting nights, doggie portrait drawing nights, doggie Christmas photos, and anything else that Contini or the clientele can think of. The café has also planned doggie Easter egg hunts, movie nights, Knicks watch parties, and pet-safe flower-arranging workshops.
When the human side hosts an elevated raclette night, with imported French cheese, natural wine pairings, and cornichons, the dog side gets its own scaled-down version: a little potato, a little unspiced raclette. And you don’t need a pup to join in. You can just have a love for pooches.
“I had a woman rent the entire space for a private dinner for her and her boyfriend. We did a five-course private meal, and as every course came out, a dog came out,” said Contini. “It was awesome, because she didn’t have any dogs, and her boyfriend, now her husband, was a dog lover. I rallied local dogs in the community, and it was white linen fine dining, and then a course, and a dog.”
For Contini, it’s obvious why Château Le Woof continues to grow and thrive, over a decade later. “You don’t build a space to say, ‘I’m going to make money, I’m going to be successful.’ You give back as much as you can, and the universe pays you back.”
In practice, that means partnering with shelters and rescues for adoption meet-and-greets, running donation drives, and, maybe most concretely, connecting longtime residents of nearby Astoria Houses, Queensbridge, and Ravenswood public housing with free spay-and-neuter and vet care through nearby Animal Care Center. This past summer alone, she estimates, 30 to 40 dogs got fixed through word of mouth she spread.
She also sees the café as a bridge between Astoria’s old guard and the wave of newer residents who have moved in as the neighborhood has changed, and she treats connecting them as part of the job. That extends to a youth employment program that brings in local high schoolers, many of them young Latina women from the neighborhood, to train as baristas.
The mentorship keeps the operation feeling like a “modern-day mom and pop.” It’s just one that happens to be 4,000 square feet, with barista art champions and raclette nights that serve natural wine from the same importer as Eleven Madison Park.
Visit Château Le Woof Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sundays 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. 31-01 Vernon Blvd, Astoria, Queens, chateaulewoof.com
