We’re in a cat café boom

The venue: New York. At the end of April, the pet food manufacturer Nestlé Purina Petcare opened the first ever cat café in America in lower Manhattan, a pop-up for only four days, where visitors could drop by for coffee, conversation and cat health education. Every day the cat café by Purina featured different cat experts and interactive demonstrations to foster education so cat owners could gain valuable insights about their cat and cat health. With local health codes preventing food from being served alongside live animals, a 50 m2 room sold light snacks and drinks that patrons could carry into the 150 m2 cat-roaming area filled with couches, climbing trees and 16 cats at a time.
Successful Purina campaign
One of the pet food manufacturer’s main aims was to introduce cat owners to Purina One’s 28-Day Challenge. Cat lovers had the opportunity to sign up for this offer to help see the changes in their cat’s health after switching to Purina One dry formulas. For the cat café, Nestlé Purina worked inter alia with North Shore Animal League America (NSALA), the USA’s largest no-kill shelter, to provide companion cats to mingle with patrons at the Cat Café. The success of the Purina cat cafés left nothing to be desired: Nestlé Purina gained widespread media coverage, and 36 cats were adopted. Yet the manufacturer had no interest in opening a permanent café according to newspaper reports.

Trend from Asia
However, such facilities already exist in countless countries. In Asia in particular, where many cat lovers are not permitted to keep pets in their apartment, cat cafés are extremely popular. The world’s first cat café was reportedly opened in Taiwan, and the phenomenon then spread like wildfire to other Asian countries. There are now allegedly over 100 in the Japanese capital Tokyo alone. Locations where you can serve sandwiches, cakes, teas and coffees – the only difference from a normal café being that it is filled with cats, which roam freely for its patrons to pet and play with.
In March, Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium opened in London, the first cat café in the British capital. For $5 guests can lounge, enjoy free books, Wi-Fi, board games, and cat company. Animal enthusiasts appreciate that the café adopts the cats from local animal shelters, making…