Sansom Street, Meet Your New Chapter: Mad Cat Brewtique Has Moved In
The mother-daughter duo behind it didn’t just find a bigger space — they found one whose history lines up well with what they’re building.
Sometimes fate is funny.
Mad Cat Brewtique co-founders Traci Fairey and her daughter Cassidy were looking for a new home for their Graduate Hospital shop when they landed on 2036 Sansom Street: a long-vacant storefront that, it turns out, had been quietly waiting to become exactly this kind of place all along. Because Mad Cat is part cafe and part boutique, and, coming soon, part bookstore too.
A Space That’s Been Here Before
The space most recently housed The Community Reading Club, a magazine-and-book-club operation that quietly closed sometime between 2014 and 2016 (the trail goes a little fuzzy there, sorry). However, even well before then in the 1950, the address was home to a coffee shop called Humoresque that apparently functioned as a rare safe space for queer couples and interracial couples in Philadelphia. This Hidden City article chronicles the fascinating history here which we highly recommend checking out.
So: a coffee shop that was also a queer safe space, then a book club, now a coffee shop that’s ALSO hosting a bookstore? The universe, or fate, is doing something interesting here, and we absolutely love it.
The Concept: 60% Local, 100% Personality
The Mad Cat philosophy is refreshingly simple — keep 60% of the store dedicated to local vendors, and make sure the other 40% comes from independent brands too. The result is a shop that feels put together by someone who actually knows the makers, because, well, they do.
You’ll find beaded clutches, Studio Bladel earrings, Alex+Ani jewelry, Philly-themed apparel, Pom Pom London bags, and a wall of MagHugg koozies with slogans like “Bird Gang” (obviously). The kids’ section has Friends-themed onesies and planet-print pajamas, and there’s a whole tier of Melmo’s dog and cat treats plus a Phanatic plush for the four-legged Ramblers in your life.
The showstopper for a lot of folks, though is the eye-catching charm bar via Yay Diff where you build your own necklace or keychain from pink velvet trays of gold and silver charms. It’s exactly the kind of hands-on thing you didn’t know you wanted to do on an afternoon.
The Drinks: Themed, Cheeky, and (Yes) Slutty
The Mad Cat coffee menu is anchored by Reanimator Coffee espresso and has grown significantly at the new space, with an expanded matcha lineup, including a house matcha thoughtfully sourced from Yame, Fukuoka, and seasonal specialty sipping matcha. A brand-new juicer for fresh-pressed juices is on it’s way but the dirty sodas, lemonades, and a rotating specialty latte menu that leans HARD into pop-culture themes are available.
The current specialty roster includes the Fluffy Eagle (peanut butter + marshmallow fluff), That Dubai Jawn (pistachio, chocolate, kataifi), the Slutty Banana (banana, caramel, cream cheese cold foam that’s “sweet, messy, and worth every sip”), the Sticky Date, the Borrowed Sweater, and the She Contains Multitudes shaken espresso. Past themed menus have covered Wicked, Taylor Swift, Eagles game days, Heated Rivalr, Bridgerton, Friendsgiving, and Hocus Pocus among many others.
The origin story of the Slutty Banana? Traci was craving a banana milkshake and thought it’d be funny to do a Mean Girls “Halloween costume” spin on it, and now people walk in and say *”I don’t know what the slutty banana is, but I want it.” Same, honestly.
Pastries are coming next, with pop-ups planned for up-and-coming and lesser-known local bakers alongside current partners Guilty Goods, Wild Flour, and Cedar & Sugar Co.
The Vibe: Cozy & Unmistakably Theirs
Seating is intentionally low-key, with a game table and a few conversation nooks tucked between art walls and retail displays. But every area has personality. The pink “Does my sassiness upset you” neon (a Maya Angelou nod for those keeping score) presides over the front room. A gallery wall of framed local art climbs one side. And in one of the coziest corners, on a sage green armchair with a pink pom-pom pillow, sits an original Big Comfy Couch doll, just… lounging.
Page Burners is Coming (to the Basement)
And now the very best part: Mad Cat’s basement is becoming the first brick-and-mortar home of Page Burners — a romance-novel bookstore that’s currently operating out of Little Treat in Queen Village and various pop-ups around the city, with its own book club already built in. Founder Annie, a longtime romance reader and licensed social worker, started Page Burners on the idea that a bookstore can double as a safe, welcoming space for connection, with a particular focus on uplifting LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and disabled authors within the genre.
Mad Cat and Page Burners have been co-hosting a book club since around March, and Cassidy mentioned that it’s grown in the last two months. Once Page Burners takes over the basement, expect author signings, book bedazzling nights and potentially a midnight release party with special editions for the next Fourth Wing drop.
What’s Next
A Rambler has already offered to teach crocheting lessons. The team’s also been talking to vendors for months who are just now getting the square footage to fit in. And with a real event calendar taking shape, from book clubs, midnight releases to pop-up bakers, the goal is to serve as a community space with tons of fun things to do.
Ask Cassidy what she’s most excited about, and it isn’t square footage or sale it’s watching that book club table fill up with like-minded people. That’s the thread running through this whole story, that hopefully we did justice to: a coffee shop that was once a safe space, a mom and daughter building something together, a neighborhood that is finding Mad Cat Brewtique, with a desire support a small business. Sometimes fate really is funny like that.
Follow Mad Cat on Instagram to stay in the know for all the events and exciting things they’re doing in Rittenhouse!
📍2036 Sansom St
