as someone who has owned 6 cats over the years and has done a lot of research on cat health and behavior, this place is absolutely terrible.
almost every single one of the cats are sick. most of them have obvious eye infections, the kittens have absolutely no toys or beds in their small cages where there are 5 or 6 kittens all clumped together in the corner to get away from their diarrhea-filled litter boxes.
kittens need a lot of attention and play but these kittens are just laying all together and sadly mewling at anyone who passes by their cages. some diarrhea was even outside of the cage on the floor. i almost burst into tears looking at these poor, barely living, kittens.
every inch of the floors were sticky and made a loud sticking sound with every step. i expect a cat pee smell at a cat cafe, but not this strong. it's highly possible some of the cats have unchecked kidney diseases or other urinary problems.
the owner's persian and hairless cats look to be in the worst shape. the hairless one looks to be on the verge of death, barely responsive and way too skinny. reminds me of my 17 year old cat a few days before she was put down.
the persian has pink dye in its fur. it's covered in dirt and what i believe is flea dirt (flea poop/dried blood) and very dirty ears (looks infected) and his tail is very dirty as well like he can't clean it. he looks worse than he does in previous pictures on here, so i suspect he's getting sicker and not being properly cared for. all the cats looked to be itching themselves a lot more than is normal so i suspect they probably all have fleas :( several of the cats appeared to have limps as well.
the hairless cat has goop coming from its eyes, signaling a severe eye infection.
one of the cats appeared aggressive towards the kittens and other cats, probably because there is nowhere for these cats to hide! they have beds with covers and such, but there is no separate area for them to get away from humans. that is essential in cat cafes. i've been to 3 other cat cafes, and they were all very clean and the cats were much happier and had a separate room to relax and get away from the people whenever they wanted.
despite having an animal urgent care literally attached to the building, these cats are all still ill! most of the cats appear underfed and bony, and their fur greasy and unhealthy.
the door that leads into the urgent care has claw marks at the bottom, presumably from cats desperate to escape the chaos.
this place either needs to make some extreme changes, like basically scrap everything and START OVER, or it needs to be shut down. it is harming the cats and i feel bad for the clueless people that were in there petting the cats like nothing was wrong because they don't know animals should be treated either.
the owner has replied to a couple of yelp reviews saying that these customers just "don't understand how hard it is to run a cat cafe" but i've been to The Cat Cafe in San Diego, Purringtons Cat Lounge in Portland, OR, and the CatCafe Lounge in Los Angeles, and were all perfectly clean with happy and healthy cats, with a friendly staff that obviously cared about the cats. this is just pathetic.
EDIT: addressing the owner's reply--you should not have sick kittens out in the open for the other cats to be near and possibly spread their diseases. sick kittens should not be able to be adopted, they should be in the urgent care until they are healthy. it's no wonder all of these cats are sick!!!
maybe one or two of those cats looked in an adoptable state to me, but they're probably also carrying a disease from the other sick cats.
second, THERE IS NO PLACE FOR THE CATS TO HIDE. every other cat cafe i've been to has a separate room with a kitty door for the cats to retreat to if they don't want to be bothered. this is inhumane
third, all of these cats are underfed. their food does not have the nutrition they need to be happy and healthy, clearly. if you can't afford to feed the number of cats you have, you should not be accepting any more. if you cannot afford the best quality food for these cats, you should not have a cat cafe. this is animal abuse. period.
i looked at the facebook page and barney is only ~6 years old, according to you. if you think that's "very very old" for a cat, you know nothing about cats. indoor cats have an average lifespan of 15-20 years.
also, there is no cafe. no coffee or food. so it's $20 to have the same experience you would have at a shelter for free. (and the cats at shelters will be healthy before being but up for adoption, unlike these cats)
the website blatantly lies about what it will be like. it says you will have the place to yourself with the cats during your reservation, and that there is a max of 4 people in groups, but there were probably 8-10 people in there with us. read more