Meow Cat Café Essex — Restaurant in Colchester

3 staff members who all disappeared after letting the customers in. We had been sat 20 minutes before someone came out to take orders for drinks which then took almost 15 minutes to arrive. Hot chocolate, tea & 2 prepacked brownies.

Unfortunately we were in with a girl (around 11) Who was chasing the cats. Kept picking them up, all yeeted out her arms in distress. She was going over to other tables, came over to ours and scared away the cats that seeked sanctuary from her Toy Story 'Sid' behaviour. At one point she slapped one of the cats that scratched her! No cat was safe, even the sleeping ones! Despite being scratched multiple times by multiple cats the girls mum kept allowing her to be a nuisance. My daughter got upset seeing the cats being mishandled.

I ended up having to go find a member of staff to let them know what was happening downstairs as they all disappeared again immediately after bring out the drinks.

They then all came and sat downstairs for the remaining 15 minutes.

All round not the best experience, the rules are clear, a staff member should be present at all times and intervene when needed so everyone can enjoy the experience. The girl was told a few times when we first arrived to be gentle and not to pick them up, that should've been a sign to the staff to monitor not hide away.

It is concerning the staff watched her get scratched and hissed at multiple times upon entering and still left everyone unattended for the majority of the session. Surely for health & safety and insurance purposes it is vital a member of staff is present during all sessions from start to finish.

I emailed management to inform them. I was told the cctv had been watched and areas of training were identified. I have since seen other reviews that shows the lack of staff monitoring sessions was brought to the attention of management a month prior to my visit, clearly no changes were made.

The colchester cafe has some serious issues with staff, poor management, cleanliness ( over powering smell, dirty floors, dried cat food on the walls ) and welfare concerns...

Absolute shambles of a booking system at Colchester. I was let into the foyer where they check your booking confirmation, mine was checked then he checked the couples behind me in the queue, they were then seated only for me to be told that was also my table and it had been double booked. What a cheek! I should have been sat down before the couple behind me, but then they would have lost £14 instead of £7 so chose to screw me over. They suggested I have a chair with no table. So I was supposed to juggle a drink a cake and a cat in the air apparently. The guy said double bookings have happened 'a few times' so why let this keep happening to people!?

I don't live in Colchester so had paid for travel and parking and had built my whole day around the visit to the cafe. This ruined my day and all this cafe owner can do is delete my review. I've had no reply to my messenger message and no refund yet 🤬 Edit: received a very rude reply from the owner blaming me for everything! Trying to say I was hostile to staff, a complete fabrication. No apology, no responsibility taken just rudeness. This business is being run very poorly by a petulant child, which is proven by the tone of her reply to some of the negative reviews on here. She has serious...

I visited today and the concept is great but unfortunately i was disappointed by the lack of communication and interaction by the staff. For the majority of my hour visit there were no staff on the cafe floor as they were all in the staff area. It would have been nice to have had some information reference the cats in the room and the circumstances surrounding them being in this position. We had no staff in the room to question. When we looked it up online whilst in the cafe only the Halstead store have back stories to the cats. At the end of our time slot we spoke to a lovely member of staff who answered a few of our questions but as we were leaving.This was such a shame as even though it was lovely to interact with the cats it would have been a much more enhanced and educational experience if some information was given by staff during the hour time slot. I was also disappointed that these cats have come from abroad and not any of the local cat shelters in the area who are desperate to find homes for lots of cats. As I’ve said great concept but plenty of room for...