She’s on the prowl.
Queens comic MichellaDonna, nee Michelle Reiss, has turn into a TikTok sensation profiling NYC’s greatest bodega felines for her viral present Store Cats.
On Tuesday, the 26-year-old Ridgewood native visited Midtown’s 24-hour bodega, Port Authority Meals & Deli, to highlight Oreo, a 5-year-old black and white kitty with piercing inexperienced eyes.
“I heard there was a juicy bodega cat in right here — let’s go test it out!” MichellaDonna stated for the digital camera, holding a mic and sporting winged black cat-eye liner and pony tail.
Oreo, who hails from Brooklyn and was a present to bodega proprietor Sammy Faisal by a good friend 4 years in the past, has lengthy been well-known within the neighborhood.
“Some folks are available in simply to see Oreo,” Asam Alhder, who runs Port Authority Meals & Deli with Faisal, informed The Submit. “He lives like a king.”
Due to MichellaDonna — whose Mad Realities-produced present has 695,000 followers — he’ll quickly have a wider fanbase when his episode goes up on social media later this month. MichellaDonna stated he has a star high quality.
“He’s a chunk-a-licious diva,” she informed The Submit, of the kitty who held courtroom in a cardboard field in a storage room within the deli atop cans of Coors Mild, Budweiser and 2-liter bottles of root beer earlier than noshing on its tuna flavored cat meals.
He additionally has six toes on every paw. MichellaDonna stated the additional toes are widespread to “Hemingway Cats,” which hail from West Florida.
“Earnest Hemingway supposedly purchased some land on Key West the place he obtained the cats to have infants – these infants had a complete further little [toe on their paw],” she defined.
The concept for the Shopcats present, which launched in September 2024, stemmed from a personality MichellaDonna, an actress and comic, developed on her personal social media. She was seeking to mix her love of cats along with her ardour for bacon egg and cheese sandwiches.
“I by no means actually had a pet – each cat I noticed in [bodegas and shops] rising up have been my pet,” she stated.
Whereas MichellaDonna stated all of the cats she’s featured are “Pur-fect,” she does have some favorites.
Luna, a big Tuxedo cat with beige fur from NYC Flower Market in Chelsea, was one memorable feline.
“She was so foolish. She would simply take a look at me like, ‘why you laughing?” MichellaDonna stated.
One other standout was Simba, a Crown Heights kitty that prospects name the “Bergen Road protector.” The orange cat has a full determine that belies his love of popcorn.
“He’s a really cussed cat, he begins crying that he needs snacks,” a buyer explains in a Store Cats episode that posted in March.
Throughout every episode, MichellaDonna determines whether or not a cat is a “hunter or gatherer” dangling a string with a mouse to see if the kitty prays on it or stands again.
As befitting a pet named after a personality in “The Lion King,” Simba was decided to be a hunter.
“Are you a lion?” MichellaDonna quipped in a video from March.
Whereas followers Store Cats followers click on for the kitties, MichellaDonna says she hopes they’ll keep for a facet of tradition. She’s bi-lingual and generally interviews bodega homeowners and prospects in Spanish.
“In the event that they communicate Spanish, I’ll communicate to them in Spanish. Among the homeowners train me Arabic. For me, to talk the language is a spotlight. These homeowners are open and obtainable to folks always,” she stated. “It’s a fantastic factor.”