Indiana's First Cat Café Coming to Bloomington

By Kylie Fife on November 2, 2015

City Kitty and Brews will be the newest cat café in the fast-growing sensation where coffee shop meets adoption center, but this time, it’s bringing the joy of coffee and cats to Bloomington, Indiana.

Cat cafés originated in Taiwan in 1998, but they only became a national phenomenon in 2004 when Japan got its first café. They began showing up in the United States in 2014, and today about 30 exist in the U.S., most of them located along the coasts. City Kitty and Brews will be the first cat café in Indiana.

“There is a distinct and unfortunate lack of cat cafés in the Midwest,” said Elizabeth Rettig and Jessie Wang, the owners of City Kitty and Brews and Bloomington residents. “Since they’ve taken off and done well along the coasts, we believe they will do well here in the Midwest too, they just need an introduction.”

These cafés are places where people can go to drink a variety of café drinks and foods while also being able to interact with adoptable cats from local shelters.

Image via http://www.citykittyandbrews.com/

According to Rettig and Wang, one of the only similarities that all cat cafés share is that they are required by health code law to separate the café zone from the cat zone so the cat germs never get near the food storage and preparation. Other than that, they are all pretty different.

“Cat cafés in the U.S. all operate uniquely. There is no traditional cat café formula,” they said. “Our vision is for our café to feel comfortable and home-like, a place where you don’t mind doing homework and spending a few hours with cuddly cats.”

Rettig and Wang plan on City Kitty and Brews being student — and family — friendly, since their café will be one of the first cat cafés in a predominantly college town.

They first thought of opening a cat café in January of 2015.

“The two of us love Bloomington’s people, love food and coffee, and really, really love kitties,” they said. “So when we saw a need for a place that combines all of these wonderful things, we thought, why not us?”

Their cat café will serve many of the kinds of drinks you’d find at a regular café, like coffee and tea–the coffee will come from JavAroma in Mitchell, Indiana, and the tea from The Healthy Choice Shop in Indianapolis. As for food selection, City Kitty and Brews will offer handcrafted grilled cheese sandwiches and waffles. They plan on gradually expanding their menu as they get established.

Image via https://flic.kr/p/9bHHgV

By partnering with a local animal care and control center, Rettig and Wang hope to contribute to cats’ adoption rates in their own way.

“We have partnered with Bloomington Animal Care and Control, and will essentially be fostering five or six of their adoptable cats at one time,” they said. “The emphasis on the cats’ adoptability is important. Other cat cafés experience phenomenal rates of adoption, and we expect to experience that in Bloomington, too.”

Since City Kitty and Brews is a two-person operation, Rettig and Wang have been struggling to raise money in order to get the café off the ground. They contributed as much of their personal funds as they could before creating a GoFundMe account.

“We believe our business has a greater chance at success if we are not in debt,” they explained about their decision to go for crowdfunding rather than loans. “If everyone who is interested in a cat café in Bloomington pitches in via crowdfunding, we’ll be able to take that small investment and return it directly to them.”

So far Rettig and Wang have raised $4,000 towards their $25,000 goal. Recently, The Back Door bar in downtown Bloomington hosted a fundraising event for them where they raised over $500.

“We’d like to continue reaching out to the community at events like that,” they said.

Aside from raising $25,000, Rettig and Wang also have a personal goal for their cat café.

“Our main goal for the café is to create a safe and cozy space for cat and coffee lovers where they can enjoy quality coffee, homestyle food and cat cuddles, and hopefully find a buddy to adopt if they are in a good position to!”

Image via https://flic.kr/p/baAvSR

As for the future of City Kitty and Brews, there is no set opening date.

“Once we’ve raised enough [money], it’s full steam ahead to put the space together and open … obviously we hope [to open the café] as soon as possible, since this café is our dream and we cannot wait to make it a concrete reality!”

Rettig and Wang are hoping that the grand opening will be a success, and that over time they can continue to draw people into their unique café experience.

“We have all kinds of promotions and ideas for events up our sleeve! For example, specials for students around midterms and finals, senior to senior adoption programs, events for little kids, etc,” they said. “We can’t wait to do these cool things!”

To learn more about City Kitty and Brews, their website is here. And if you are interested in helping them reach their goal, you can find their GoFundMe account here.

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