Greyhound Racing Victoria’s adoption program has a city-based showcase with the opening of the GAP café.
The café, based in King St, Melbourne, is the first in Melbourne to have a greyhound theme and unlike most other food and beverage venues, dogs are allowed inside the premises as well as an outdoor area featuring decking and grass.
The café has been built to promote to people in metropolitan Melbourne our beautiful greyhounds and increase the interest in greyhound adoptions.
The GAP café is based a short walk from Greyhound Racing Victoria’s Chetwynd St offices in West Melbourne and will be officially opened in March.
With GAP’s headquarters based in Seymour in rural Victoria, GRV CEO Alan Clayton said it was important GAP was visible in the city, as evidenced by the Baxter facility in south east Melbourne.
“Since opening in 2015, we have adopted almost 500 dogs from Baxter alone,” Mr Clayton said.
“Given the large number of people in metropolitan Melbourne, we want to promote our dogs to the largest audience possible.”
Mr Clayton said the café was another example of GRV’s focus on animal welfare as its overriding priority.
“It can be an adjustment for greyhounds not only to go from life as racing animals to life as pets. Most of them also have to adjust from being based in rural and regional Victoria to suddenly living in metropolitan areas,” Mr Clayton said.
“This café will make it easier for people to come into contact with our greyhounds.”
The café, which is situated just opposite Flagstaff gardens, has both an indoor and outdoor area for dogs and their owners and will be serving critically-acclaimed Campos roaster coffee sure to appeal to any coffee-loving Melburnian.
It is the latest initiative from GRV to focus on encouraging greyhound adoption. With a record 1314 greyhounds adopted through its Greyhound Adoption Program in the 2016/17 financial year, GRV’s focus has been on ensuring the best possible life for greyhounds before, during and after their racing careers.
“We have seen record numbers of greyhound adoptions in the past two years and word is getting out about the appeal of these beautiful dogs as pets,” Mr Clayton said.
“There is a real community of greyhound owners and the GAP café is a great meeting place for this community as well as other dog owners.”
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