New Cat Café Trend Could Hit San Francisco This Year, Feline Lovers Rejoice
A new trend might be slinking into the America's food industry that is just purr-fect for cat lovers.
Soon, San Franciscans David Braginsky and Courtney Hatt hope to open KitTea, America's first cat café, which will allow visitors to "sit back, take a deep breath and relax with a cat on your lap and a kettle of tea steeping by your side."
"It's more something where you can actually connect with the community and help cats and just be a part of something physically rather than on the Internet all day," Hatt told Fast Company.
The plan is to have patrons pay for their tea, which will include flavors like catnip-infused tea, by the hour. Kittens from a shelter will be on location, all of whom are available for adoption. Currently, Braginsky and Hatt are working with two animal rescue organizations and will eventually work with a cat behaviorist.
"We're not doing this to make a lot of money on tea because that's not going to happen," Hatt explained. "It's really a passion project."
The catty prospective business owners will exhibit cat control by only allowing a certain number of people in the café at a time. They will also prohibit same-day adoptions.
"What really drew me to the concept was the idea of a space that was relaxing and didn't have a high frenetic energy like coffee houses do," Hatt told TIME. "If this can be successful, I think there will definitely be people who follow suit. It's going to be pretty big."
In order to make KitTea a reality, the pair will have to work their way around San Francisco's health regulations. According to the county's health department, the café could be approved if the food and the cats are kept separately.
"They cannot operate in the same physical location," Colleen Chawla, San Francisco Department of Public Health spokesperson, told TIME. "You can't have cats in the same place as food."
Therefore, KitTea would basically have to be broken into two entities: a tea house, and what Hatt calls a "cat sanctuary."
Hatt and Braginsky are currently working on leasing a building for their business and hope to open KitTea this year.
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