Today I finally got around to visiting KitTea, San Francisco’s first (and only) cat cafe. The goals of KitTea are to provide adorable cat-based entertainment, but also to find permanent homes for the cats — all of which are rescue cats up for adoption.
The basics are pretty simple: you can either walk in or make a reservation, and for your 30 or 60 minute session you can play with cats while drinking unlimited tea. The tea is quite good, but you could be forgiven for not noticing when there’s kittens everywhere and all manners of cat toys.
I should mention that most of the cats are kittens. I only spotted one adult cat, but if you know anything about cats you know that they spend most of their time sleeping. The “cat wranglers” at KitTea are very adamant about letting sleeping cats sleep, though you are allowed to pet them if you’re gentle enough not to wake them.
As for getting fur in your tea or food you don’t need to worry. The kitchen is in the waiting room outside of the cat play area.
Overall the cats seemed very well taken care of. If I was going to adopt a cat, the relaxed environment of a cat cafe seems to me like a better way to see if a cat is right for you than the jail-like environment of your average pound.
So if you’re looking to adopt a cat — or if you just want to hang out with some feline companions for a while — consider giving KitTea a shot. What do you have to lose? Aside from your dignity when you come home covered in cat hair, of course.