This April Fools’ Day was Buddy’s 10th birthday.

His mom, Paula Doucette, wanted to do something special to mark the occasion, so she took the mini Australian labradoodle to Woof. Play. Eat., the new dog park/restaurant and bar in North Deering. There, he sniffed and scampered with some new furry friends in the sprawling off-leash indoor park.

After playtime, the birthday boy retired to the on-leash dining area to scarf down “mini mutt meatloaf” balls from from the adjoining restaurant’s doggie menu, while Doucette and a friend sipped rosé wine and Bark and Stormy mocktails, and snacked on a tray of fries.

“People today, their dogs are like their kids,” said Woof. Play. Eat. co-owner Brad Sterl. The “kids” and their parents faithfully followed all three directives in the venue’s name that evening.

Golden retriever Ellie Mae frolicked with the pack, smiling from ear to fluffy ear, while her folks, Kim and Jason Worcester, enjoyed a bingo event at the Woof. Play. Eat. bar on their date night. Jessica Dudley and Ryan Baker drank Maltese Mai Tais at a table in the play area while watching their year-old Frenchie, Nola, burn off some of her limitless energy. The couple regularly drives half an hour from Buxton because Nola loves it so much, and they’re also fans of the restaurant’s hooman food.

The trend of combination dog parks and restaurants has gained traction nationwide over the past 10 years; Sterl reckons there are now as many as 50 across the country. This year, it’s taken root in Maine, with both Woof. Play. Eat. and South Portland’s The Barkery fully launching in February.

At the same time, cat cafés are having their moment. The state now has at least three feline foster homes where people can enjoy coffee or a meal in a roomful of adoptable kitties, with more cafés reportedly in the works.

Sterl and his co-owner wife, Marissa, are already considering places in Biddeford and Scarborough Downs for potential future Woof. Play. Eat. locations. “All of the data we’ve pulled together show that people are looking for this social experience with their pets,” he said. “I believe 100% this concept will take over the United States.”

FOOD WORTHY OF PORTLAND

The combination concept first sprouted in the South in the early 2010s. The appeal was clear from the outset. They offered members (who pay daily, monthly or annual fees) dedicated play space that “dog-friendly” bars didn’t have, with experienced supervisory staff, unlike public dog parks that have no way of vetting aggressive or unvaccinated pups.

“A lot of people think, ‘The average dog park is free, why would I pay?'” said Haley Fawcett, a certified dog trainer and park manager at Woof. Play. Eat. “You’re paying for this to be overseen by staff who are trained and well versed in canine body language, so you can sit back and mingle and relax.”

Places like MUTTS Canine Cantina in Texas were among the first, launching as outdoor dog parks that featured bars with limited food menus — burgers and fries, breakfast sandwiches, chicken tenders. To meet health and sanitation codes, nonservice dogs aren’t allowed inside the bar and restaurant facilities, which are walled off from the parks. But owners can enjoy food and drinks — in nonbreakable melamine and acrylic plates and glasses — alongside their fur babies in designated adjacent areas.

As the trend spread nationwide — and particularly northward — many of the newer venues necessarily included indoor parks. You bring the concept to a dining mecca like Portland, though, and you better up your food game.

“Portland has exceptional food. I was not about to have a restaurant that was average,” said Sterl, who found in his research that food seemed almost like an afterthought at many other dog park/restaurants around the country. “The food at those places wasn’t designed to have people come back and stick around.”

Sterl’s 40 years of experience in the food industry includes serving as CEO of Foodee’s, a former pizza restaurant chain in the Northeast. His friend, private chef Adrian Martin of Bravo TV’s “Below Deck,” helped develop the scratch-made menu executed by Chef Jason Kennedy.

Dishes include bar food classics like burgers, chicken tenders, and pizzas baked in their Italian stone oven, along with more ambitious vegan and vegetarian items like roasted vegetable lasagna with house-made cashew cheese, and black bean croquettes over edamame couscous with arugula-mint pesto. There’s also a selection of sandwiches using their 72-hour cold fermented pizza dough as bread.

The restaurant takes its doggie menu — made with all human-grade ingredients — just as seriously. Sterl has taste-tested all of them, including sweet potato puffs with applesauce, oats and a touch of cinnamon; vegan lasagna ground with oats and baked into loafs; and chicken and woofles, with lightly seasoned poultry over pieces of oat-based pancake.

“Our restaurant is the best-kept secret in Portland right now,” Sterl said. “I will put our food against any casual restaurant in Portland.”

MORE ON THE WAY FOR MAINE?

Nate Viens, co-owner of The Barkery in South Portland’s Mill Creek Shopping Center, said while dog park memberships cover costs for his business, the food and beverage is the profit center. “One of our challenges is letting people know that we are also a restaurant and bar,” he said. “Honestly, we’re probably a restaurant and bar first.”

Viens has heard from many customers who came to The Barkery for the dog park, and were subsequently surprised by the quality of food. “We could’ve gotten away with OK food. But we didn’t want to do that.”

He’s particularly proud of the restaurant’s jumbo chicken tenders, buttermilk marinated and breaded to order, and the bacon smash burger, their top-selling item. “It’s just a true smash burger that you don’t find anywhere else around here,” Viens said. “What people call smash burgers are often really patties. We’re able to get it smashed really thin on a really hot griddle, so we get a good crisp on it.”

Like at Woof. Play. Eat., The Barkery gets its share of customers who come without dogs, simply to enjoy the food. Some just get takeout or delivery orders. “Door Dash is 15% of our restaurant sales,” he said, noting that these customers still keep their pups in mind — to-go and delivery orders often include their locally made Lickity Paws dog ice cream.

Viens doesn’t feel a pinch in the market between Woof. Play. Eat. and The Barkery. “We’re 25 minutes apart, and we serve different food,” he said. “We each have our own style, and that’s fantastic.”

Cleanliness is next to dogliness at The Barkery and Woof. Play. Eat., and staff at both indoor parks take great pains to keep the washable furniture, playground equipment, floors and walls spic-and-span at all times. “If it ever, ever smells like a dog anywhere, I want to know about it, because every single day, this entire space is sanitized,” Sterl said, noting that his crew uses noncaustic, pet-safe enzymatic cleaning products. “It was the No. 1 priority we had.”

Viens and his wife, co-owner Haley Michaud, hope eventually to open more Barkery locations in places like Brunswick, Bath or Scarborough. He said he expects the dog park/bar and restaurant trend to gain momentum locally as other entrepreneurs join the game.

“We could see three or four more in Portland alone,” Viens said.

Since opening, both Viens and Sterl have been approached by multiple people wanting to pick their brains, because they’re looking to opening similar concepts.

“People answered our questions when we were in the process of putting this together, and so we want to pay it forward,” Viens said. “As the concept grows and becomes more familiar to the public, it’s going to become easier to secure licenses and financing.”

CHILLING WITH KITTIES

If dog park/bars and restaurants are like a double dose of high-energy joy — Red Bull and vodka, if you will — cat cafés are different vibe altogether: chamomile tea with a side of Xanax.

“The No. 1 feedback we get is that people say it’s the most relaxing experience they’ve ever had,” said Anne Beal, owner of the MEow Lounge in Westbrook. “They feel their blood pressure dropping.”

MEow Lounge houses a couple dozen cats in a bright space filled with scratching posts, cat towers and high-altitude wall perches, as acoustic guitar instrumentals play softly in the background. On a recent Wednesday, the scheduled 1 p.m. group of six visitors softly cooed and stroked the slinking adoptable felines (the foster home has notched more than 1,000 adoptions since launching in 2023). Cats being cats, some stayed curled up on chairs and ottomans, blithely indifferent to their guests.

In its adjacent gift shop, MEow Lounge sells tea, hot chocolate or pour-over coffee — along with chips, chocolates and vegan snacks — that people can bring into the enclosed lounge. Beal spends two hours each morning sanitizing the odorless space, and spot-cleans and empties litter boxes throughout the day.

Customers pay a small fee for visits between 25 minutes and three hours, and can also bring any food and drink they like with them from outside the lounge, though some foods may disturb the zen more than others.

A customer once brought a steak and cheese hoagie to the lounge’s noontime “kitty picnic,” and got swarmed by four cats. “They were fighting over it so badly he had to leave,” Beal said. “That’s the only time I’ve seen somebody not be able to eat what they brought in here.”

‘BETTER THAN THERAPY’

The trend of cat cafés began in Japan around the start of the millennium, before spreading to Europe and North America about 10 years ago. Maine’s newer cat cafés include The Glitter Box in Portland and The Cat’s Familiar in Gardiner, both launched late last year.

Bonnie Caspersen, owner of The Cat’s Familiar, has the most robust food program of the state’s cat lounges, offering an all-takeout menu of house-made soups, sandwiches, pastries and hot daily specials like mac and cheese, lasagna and tuna casserole.

“I love to cook and making people smile,” said Caspersen, whose peanut butter pie won an award some years ago from Better Homes & Gardens magazine. “I wanted to make a place where I had no burgers, no fries, no pizza, and you can come in and get something that tastes like your mom or your grandmother made it.”

Caspersen also gets customers who come just for the food. Those who come also for the cats can take their food into the lounge area, but she makes them aware of the circumstances.

“People are warned, they sign a disclaimer when they go in,” Caspersen said. “You’re welcome to eat food in there with them, but you may get some cat hair in your food, and they may try to take it.”

Lilly, a black-and-white kitty who’ll be 2 in June, is particularly assertive. “She wants whatever you’ve got,” Gaspersen chuckled. “But it’s mostly that she wants your attention. She has the energy of a kitten and the love of a 12-year-old. She’s been here for two months and we don’t understand why, because she’s the sweetest one in there.”

Gaspersen said she’s heard talk of another cat café possibly opening in Bangor. She observed that northern Maine could use one as well.

There certainly seems to be no shortage of cats in need of loving homes. Beal’s kitty count at MEow Lounge climbed to 31 on April 1 when a handler from a Lewiston shelter dropped off her two newest residents, Toothpaste and Tylenol.

The cafés serve a crucial role as waystations for cats, and as serene sanctuaries for humans, too. “A lot of people say it’s better than therapy,” Beal said. “I always say that being in a room full of unconditional love is very healing.”