Cat cafés are a trend in Japan that became hugely popular and eventually made its way to Europe and the United States. Yet as cat cafés began popping up more and more, naturally, questions about their safety and quality of life for cats arose as well. For instance, are cat cafés bad for feline friends?
Cat cafés can be bad for cats depending on the conditions the animals are kept in. For instance, in Japan, cat cafés must pass the country’s Animal Treatment and Protection Law, which ensures proper cat cat. In other parts of the world, the cats might be kept in cages after-hours or in cramped quarters.
In this article, we’ll talk in a lot more detail about cat cafés, including what they are, what they’re like, whether you can adopt cats from a cat café, and whether such establishments are legal. Make sure you keep reading!
What Is a Cat Café?
Before we get into their legalities and ethical morality, let’s discuss what cat cafés are.
A cat café is a themed café that’s filled with cats. Yes, real cats. The cats live in the café. As patrons sit and enjoy cappuccinos, lattes, and other caffeinated beverages, they could encounter a cat or several. Patrons might be able to pet and cuddle with the cats and even offer them treats.
Most of the food and drink served at a cat café is themed as well, with foamy cat art added to lattes and kitty-shaped treats decorating the bakery trays.
Unlike a Starbucks or a Tim Horton’s, to enter a cat café, you pay a cover charge. The fee might get you 60 minutes in the café (or longer), so it’s like renting time with the cats. The cover fee is in addition to the money you’d pay for snacks and coffee.
Although Japan is very well known for its cat cafés, that’s not the country in which these themed cafés originated. That would be Taiwan. In 1998, Taipei opened the Cat Flower Garden, which was the first cat café on the planet.
By 2004, Japan established its first cat café in Osaka called Neko no Jikan, which translates to Cat’s Time. From there, cat cafés blossomed throughout Japan.
The reason wasn’t solely that fuzzy four-legged creatures like cats are so adorable.
Rather, since Japan is highly populated, most people who live there are in small condos and apartments, neither of which usually allow pets. A cat café lets Japan’s residents enjoy the multitude of benefits of being around a domestic animal but without owning one.
Throughout the rest of the world, cat cafés have popped up too, everywhere from the US to Canada, Scotland, England, Sweden, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy, Thailand, and nearly anywhere in between.
Are Cat Cafés Bad for Cats?
The cats that occupy cat cafés are not like the baristas working there. As we said, the cats live in the café, and that includes during closing hours. You can’t help but wonder how safe and ethical is it for a cat to live in a café around the clock?
That’s a hard question to answer. Since cat cafés are so prevalent around the world, the standards and rules that the cafés follow will vary drastically. That’s why we thought we’d take this section and split it into two: the bad and good sides of cat cafés.
The Bad Side of Cat Cafés
Let’s start with the bad stuff. As we said above, the differing standards for what makes for a clean, safe cat café can be an issue. We’ve read of some countries with cat cafés where the cats are kept in cages.
That seems to occur when the café is open, but who knows what happens after-hours?
This certainly takes away from the cat café experience, and it also erases the original purpose of the cafés, which is supposed to allow people and cats to connect in a way that they might not be able to otherwise.
However, we can understand the logic here. If a cat scratches or bites a patron, then who’s liable? That’s right, the cat café.
Even if cats aren’t caged, many cat cafés are small spaces. Cats don’t walk on leashes like dogs (or most don’t, anyway), which causes some people to assume that cats don’t need exercise. This isn’t true.
If a cat doesn’t play for periods of 15 to 20 minutes at least twice per day, then they’re not being active enough. A cat that doesn’t get enough physical activity is at risk of becoming overweight or obese. Their rate of misbehavior can also skyrocket.
Cats might not have enough space to romp and play in a cramped cat café. Also, they may not have enough people to play with them if the café has a small staff compared to the number of cats.
There are other issues still with cat cafés. People are constantly coming in and out of the café, many of whom don’t return. This steady stream of strangers can be tough for a cat.
Cats also like peaceful, quiet environments, and a bustling café isn’t exactly that. For the hours the café is in operation, there’s the constant whir of the coffee machines, the sounds of many conversations happening at once, not to mention the music in the background.
In short, it’s chaotic, and cats don’t do well in chaotic situations. If a cat feels stressed, its health can go downhill. The cat might begin to develop runny eyes and nose like they have the flu. They can overgroom and cause bald spots. They might have more diarrhea and vomiting than a healthy cat.
The Good Side of Cat Cafés
Cat cafés are not all bad, though. As the cafés have boomed, regulations and requirements have been enacted in cat cafés across the world.
For example, Japan has a law called the Animal Treatment and Protection Law, which we mentioned in the intro. Under that law, all cat café owners or managers must follow a series of rigid guidelines. One such rule is that the owner must get a license to operate the cat café.
In Japan, cat cafés are often kept very clean. The owners or managers will also impart rules to the patrons. For instance, if a cat is sleeping, patrons are supposed to leave the animal alone. A staff member can also step in if a cat is receiving too much attention, such as from an overzealous child.
These kinds of regulations make a cat café a far better place for the animal to be. Is the café maybe their best home ever? No, but many cat cafés use their platform as a chance to educate the public about animal homelessness and cat welfare.
For instance, in Japan, the cats that live in the cafés come from shelters. Some of them are strays and others are abandoned. If not for being rescued by the cat café, these animals would have been euthanized.
Cat cafés are beneficial for the people who visit as well. Petting an animal such as a cat can lessen loneliness, anxiety, and stress. There’s also a connection between feline cuddling and better cardiovascular health, although that’s more in cat owners than those who just spend a few hours around a cat.
If you’re traveling to a country like Taiwan or Japan and you miss your own fuzzy pet back home, a cat café can alleviate your homesickness. Plus, as we said before, in countries where living space is tight, a cat café is the next best thing to owning a cat.
Can You Adopt Cats from Cat Cafés?
Hearing about the cat welfare aspect of cat cafés got you thinking. Can you adopt a cat from a cat café or is that not allowed?
It all depends on the café. For some, the cats that live in the café are like another member of the staff or even family. These cats are beloved companions, and so the cat café staff will not want to part with them.
Other cat cafés that seek to raise awareness about cat welfare might host adoption events. You can ensure you choose a kitty companion better at a cat café than you could at a pet shop. After all, in the pet shop, you have to look at the cat through glass to get an idea of its personality.
When you visit a cat café, you can sit and play with or interact with the cat for hours. At the very least, you can observe the cat to see how they are around other people, from the elderly to adults and kids.
These interactions will help you make a sound decision about whether that cat will gel with your lifestyle and the family members (and pets) you have back home.
Of course, before you take a cat home, you want to ask questions. You need to know roughly how old the cat is, if they’re current on their vaccinations, and if they have preexisting health issues.
Are Cat Cafés Illegal?
Cat cafés might be a huge operation, but they’re not welcome all over the world. This Vox article states that in San Francisco as well as Boston that cat cafés are barred…or that they were. The article was published in 2014, and it does appear that the regulations changed at some point.
Boston had a cat café called Purr Café that closed around 2019, but in San Francisco, you can still visit KitTea Cat Lounge, at least as of this writing.
So why the restrictions on cat cafés in the first place? Well, let’s be real, mixing animals and food and drink is not exactly sanitary. You wouldn’t want a dog in a five-star restaurant nor a bird in your favorite guilty-pleasure fast food joint. It’s gross, right?
Plus, you have to remember that in a cat café, it’s not just a single cat, but sometimes five or seven of them and sometimes close to a dozen, if not more cats. So you have to multiply the shed cat fur, the drool, the bathroom messes, and the number of litter boxes by however many cats are in the café.
That’s a failed health inspection waiting to happen!
Of course, the rules for cleanliness are different for a cat café compared to a regular café or a restaurant, but you can see where health inspectors would be none too thrilled with cat cafés springing up around parts of the world.
That said, we couldn’t find anything that said cat cafés were out and out illegal. Even the parts of the US that restricted cat cafés seemed to have changed their tune between 2014 and 2019, which is interesting!
Should You Visit a Cat Café?
You’ve been thinking about stopping by a cat café, and the information in this article only increased your interest. Should you go?
Yes, we think it’s worth visiting a cat café at least once. Even if you think you won’t like the experience, being able to personally witness how the cats are cared for, what their conditions are like, and how the café is maintained might put your mind at ease about cat cafés. If not, it will only further your conviction against them, and that’s okay too.
Conclusion
Cat cafés are a worldwide institution after originating in Asia during the late 1990s. People love being able to sit and enjoy a latte with foamy cat art while petting a real cat.
Although the mingling of cat and café certainly has its risks (and thus, its detractors), in many parts of the world, there are strict rules on what’s allowed and what isn’t at a cat café. Japan–the country responsible for putting cat cafés on the map–has perhaps the strictest laws of all. That’s not such a bad thing, as it’s within the best interest of the cats.
Although not every cat café treats its cats like gold, many do. Plus, if the café has cats up for adoption, you could just meet your next four-legged friend at a cat café!
