The Cat Café San Diego

LOCATION: San Diego, California

OWNER: Tony Wang

YEAR OPENED: 2015

CAT CAPACITY: typically 10-12 on site, max capacity is 15

SUMMARY

The Cat Café San Diego is located in the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego in a neighborhood known for its restaurants, bars, and nightlife. It is near the San Diego Bay, the USS Midway Museum, and is in walking distance of several museums and attractions, including the San Diego Children’s Museum and Children’s Park. The entrance to The Cat Café San Diego features a red brick exterior and windows where you can see adoptable cats lounging in cat trees. Once inside, the cat lounge is large, open, and features tall, custom green cat trees and plenty of cat beds, tunnels, and toys for play.

In my interview with Tony, the owner of The Cat Café San Diego, we discussed what it was like to open one of the first cat cafes in the United States. In 2013, Tony heard about the popularity of cat cafes in Paris and imagined opening a cat café in San Diego. By 2014, Tony was working on building and permits. Because cat cafes were still so new to the United States, to get zoning approval and funding, Tony had to explain what a cat café is, if the community would support a cat café, and work with regulatory agencies, especially the health department. To explain the concept of a cat café, Tony was able to point to Kit Tea that had previously opened in San Francisco and served as a model for getting the cat café approved.

The Cat Café San Diego partners with The Rescue House, a non-profit, volunteer-based organization that focuses on cat rescue, foster, and adoption. The Resue House’s website highlights that it finds “loving homes for unwanted, abandoned, homeless, and injured cats.” Tony works with The Rescue House exclusively to ensure all cats go through an application process and interview with an adoption counselor before they are adopted.

Tony emphasized the significant role of social media in bringing attention to the cat cafe, “it’s huge, it was what we used to get us known in the first place. Cat pictures, cat photos, things like that, definitely do help us get the word out. They get a lot of attention.” The Cat Café San Diego started with a couple hundred followers on Instagram and now has over 50,000 followers. It also features a 24/7 live cam where online visitors can view adoptable cats in the cat lounge day or night.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

In my interview with Tony Wang, two of the research findings stood out:

Research finding: Cat café owners start with a range of cat rescue and adoption experiences.

Prior to opening The Cat Café San Diego, Tony worked in software sales and wasn’t happy with this line of work. He read about cat cafes in Paris and decided to open an adoption-centered cat café in San Diego. Because The Cat Café San Diego was one of the first to open in the United States, there were few examples to guide the process, and Tony had to “make it up as he went along.” As he put it, “for all small businesses you can throw away the playbook after a day or two. If the playbook is something no one has written, it makes it even more challenging.”

Research finding: Cat cafés are inclusive community spaces.

Cat cafes bring together people who love spending time with cats. At The Cat Café San Diego, visitors are a mix of people visiting San Diego who want a novel experience or who miss their own cats, along with locals who want to do something different or are looking to adopt a cat that they saw featured on social media. Because San Diego is a tourist destination, social media plays a big role in drawing in visitors to the café. Visitors are of all ages and include tourists, locals, families, and cat lovers looking for something fun to do in downtown San Diego.

The role of social media in bringing attention to the cat café.