KitKat the Bodega Cat: San Francisco's Viral Firestorm

A beloved cat, a self-driving car, and a city with a history of tech backlash collide in one of the weirdest, most emotional internet controversies San Francisco has seen in years. This is the story of KitKat—the Mission District bodega cat whose death sparked a viral firestorm and ignited new debate about technology, community, and who really gets to decide what’s safe on our streets.

On October 27, 2025, at around 11:40 pm, KitKat—a nine-year-old tabby—was sitting in front of a Waymo autonomous vehicle stopped outside Randa’s Market on 16th Street. For seven seconds, neighbors watched as KitKat, known for being “particularly friendly,” sat near the right front bumper of the car. As passengers boarded the Waymo, a pedestrian tried to coax KitKat away. Instead, the cat moved farther under the vehicle. When the Waymo pulled out, its right rear tire ran over the back half of KitKat’s body. A bartender on a cigarette break rushed in, using a sandwich board as a makeshift stretcher to get KitKat to an emergency animal clinic. An hour later, KitKat was pronounced dead.

Waymo confirmed three days later that one of its cars had killed KitKat. By then, the Mission District was already boiling over. People built an altar outside Randa’s Market, covering it with flowers, candles, written notes, cat food, and Kit Kat candy bars. When a city worker removed the memorial for fire safety reasons, neighbors rebuilt it. Within days, the controversy spiraled beyond the block and onto the internet, as surveillance footage of the accident started circulating in December.

For those outside San Francisco, the idea of a “bodega cat” might sound like a New York thing. But working cats are a tradition that stretches from the Bronx to the Bay. Shop owners keep cats like KitKat as a kind of living pest control—domestic shorthairs whose job is to keep rodents out of food stores. Mike Zeidan, owner of Randa’s Market, adopted KitKat as a stray around 2018. Locals say customers started dropping by more often, sometimes just to see the cat, and regularly brought KitKat treats and gifts. In 2022, he got his own spot on a viral “shop cats of San Francisco” map.

What made KitKat’s story go viral wasn’t just the accident—it was the collision of tech anxiety, city politics, and a genuine sense of loss in the neighborhood. San Francisco, ground zero of the driverless car experiment, has seen a surge of autonomous vehicles in recent years. Waymo vehicles, which operate at Level 4 autonomy—meaning the car drives itself without human intervention—had already been involved in 14 animal collisions, with 5 fatalities reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration before KitKat’s death.

The backlash wasn’t just about one cat. Supervisor Jackie Fielder, a local official, organized a rally called “Justice for KitKat” a week after the accident. The goal was to support a city resolution calling for self-driving car decisions to be made at the local, not state, level. The resolution itself was non-binding—meaning it didn’t actually force any change—but it reignited San Francisco's long-simmering tension with the tech industry. Critics immediately claimed the resolution was performative, arguing that local control would make it nearly impossible for companies like Waymo to operate across city lines. Others pointed out that autonomous vehicles are still statistically safer for animals than human drivers.

Into the fray stepped Elon Musk, who posted online that “many pets will be saved by autonomy,” a statement that sent the debate into meme territory. Meanwhile, multiple meme coins inspired by KitKat sprang up online, showing how quickly a local tragedy can morph into internet spectacle.

For San Francisco, KitKat’s death touched a nerve that goes beyond pet lovers and tech skeptics. The Mission District has a history of grassroots activism and anti-tech protest—so a driverless car killing a community mascot felt like a symbol, a flashpoint in the city’s ongoing struggle to balance innovation with neighborhood culture. In this case, a nine-year-old tabby became a rallying cry for people feeling left behind by Silicon Valley’s relentless push for automation.

Autonomous vehicles, like the Waymo car that killed KitKat, are programmed to follow the law, but they have limited ability to interpret unpredictable behavior from animals or people. In the minutes leading up to the accident, the car’s sensors saw KitKat as an object in the roadway, but the system failed to predict his movement as the car pulled away. According to Waymo’s report to the NHTSA, the passengers on board didn't have their seatbelts on, having just entered the vehicle—and the car departed as soon as the pickup was complete.

The controversy also highlighted the odd legal position of bodega cats themselves. In cities like New York, health codes actually ban live animals from food stores—with fines of $200 to $350 for violations—yet an estimated 30 to 40% of bodegas in New York City keep cats anyway, because the fine for a rodent infestation is $300. In practice, cats are often seen as the lesser evil. San Francisco has no official bodega cat count, but the viral map and KitKat’s celebrity show the tradition is alive and well on the West Coast.

There’s a long history of store mascots becoming community legends. In New York, the 2019 theft of Lexi, a bodega cat from Manhattan, made local news. KitKat’s story, however, became part of a bigger cultural fight about who controls city streets and what risks communities are willing to accept in the name of progress.

The “Justice for KitKat” rally drew a crowd of tech critics, animal lovers, and everyday neighbors. The altar in front of Randa’s Market became a gathering place for mourners, and the store itself saw an uptick in foot traffic from people coming to pay their respects—and to argue about autonomous vehicles.

The accident report from Waymo included a detailed diagram of the event, which some critics said looked more like an illustration from a technical manual than an acknowledgment of a neighborhood tragedy. Animal advocacy groups expressed concern that as self-driving cars become more common, so will incidents like this. Autonomous vehicle companies, meanwhile, have said they’re working to improve detection of small animals, but the technology isn’t perfect.

KitKat’s death became one of the most talked-about animal incidents in San Francisco since the 2018 “Dog Poop Drone” hoax, which claimed city officials were using drones to track dog owners who didn’t clean up after their pets. This time, however, the controversy was real—and it played out on national news.

One detail that stuck with people: after the city removed the original altar for KitKat, neighbors rebuilt it, adding even more flowers, candles, candy bars, and handwritten notes. The act of reassembling the memorial, twice, became a symbol of neighborhood resilience and defiance in the face of what many saw as tech overreach.

The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone all ran feature stories on KitKat, with headlines like “Death of KitKat, a beloved San Francisco cat, reignites fury over robotaxis.” Some stories noted that the incident had already inspired several meme coins—cryptocurrency tokens named “KitKat”—launched within days of the accident.

The most specific and surprising fact: Prior to KitKat’s death, the NHTSA had logged exactly 14 collisions between Waymo cars and animals nationwide, with 5 confirmed animal fatalities. KitKat was the sixth.