Java Whiskers Cat Café Marylebone — Restaurant in London

5th Visit: 01/11/24: I'm wondering if I shoukd just get an airbed and move in at this point hee heeee....had some great cuddles with the cats they seem to know who needs attention so reach out but also give them some time and distance and they'll come up to you. Next visit is imminent to see the new kitten additions 💕🐈💜💗

4th Visit: 11/10/24: Clearly I can't keep away from this kitty paradise so this time had to spend it with the delightful kittens who are so cute. Panasonic is such a sweetie but they all are!!! 💕🐈💜

3rd Visit: 02/10/24 - More kitty therapy and chilling with these sweet snd beautiful cats. I have a lot of admiration for the founders/owners, staff, supporters and customers who help these blessed animals, many that have been abandoned and I'll treated vut rescued by all these heroes! 💕🐈💜

2nd Visit: 06/09/24 - BACK for the kittens a week later this time and it was marvellous to play with these sweet little furballs. Clara is a superb hunter and you'll love Crumble's marbled grey smooth fur. They are all so sweet and Sampson was adopted but got to see him before his cat parent/s took him home the next day. Tip from Henry: see the kittens in the morning when they are quite active and love to play, if you can. I think visit number three will be due very soon 🐈‍⬛️💗🐈

😻💕💫 1st Visit: 30/08/24 - Immensely CATASTIC! I thoroughly enjoyed my time here and had an 18:30 slot for 1 hour 25 minutes...of course it could always be more but the kitties need to rest too.

The café is extremely clean, well stocked with yummy goodies, things to buy and the cats are Kings and Queens here, superbly looked after. They love to be petted and play so you will be in for a treat but remember the cats are always in charge and it's what they want and when so everytime will be different. Be patient with them and check out some guides on approaching and interacting with cats on YouTube.

Henry was our Cat Expert for the evening and is absolutely wonderful and friendly as a host, with the cats and us visitors and extremely knowledgeable. The lady who does all the drinks and food was lovely too, both of them did a first class job.

I feel very relaxed and my mood totally changes with these precious and blessed animals so do go and check in for a calming experience and break from the hustle and bustle of the city.

I'll be back for the kittens who are housed in a separate lower ground room from the cats who are on the ground floor....and I get a discount too! Fabulous or should I say...

This was a weird and dismal experience. I rarely leave reviews but when places hassle you with follow up emails to review them, as this place did, and when they’re bad, as this place was, they’re welcome to it!

We brought our son as we’re getting ready to adopt kittens and in the meantime he loves to spend time with cats, so we thought this would be a fun, quirky weekend treat. However the cats here are clearly fatigued from too much human interaction — when we arrived almost every cat was hiding or sleeping on a high shelf, as far away as they could get from visitors. The one or two that weren’t looked overstimulated and/ or a bit frightened; they evidently didn’t want to play with the numerous adults and children poking toys at them and crowding them — one of them nipped my son when he tried to reach into the space it was hiding it to pet it. Cats get fed up with humans, but I guess building rest time for the cats into the business model for a cat cafe would make it economically unviable?

Generally speaking the vibe was off and a bit depressing. You don’t really come here to eat or drink— it’s obviously about the cats (the refreshments offer is kind of ‘council-run park cafe’ quality, but with west end prices) and the service is oddly rushed and disengaged. The person who introduced our session raced through her spiel about the rules, tripping over her own words, and then disappeared. There was no personal touch or friendly welcome. For the money charged here I’d expected nicer (or just, less bored and robotic?) treatment. Not the staff’s fault exactly, they seemed like students on minimum wage and I imagine they aren’t cat cafe mission evangelists.

After such a strange and disappointing experience I considered asking for my money back, but fairly sure this would have been outright refused, and I didn’t want to worsen the experience with a confrontation which would just have upset my kid. I felt sorry for my son who’d been so excited to come here, sorry for myself having paid sixty quid not including food or drink (!!) for the experience, but most of all sorry for the poor beleaguered cats. As a side note the single toilet had no hot water, soap or hand towels. Hygiene should be more of a priority really given the context. A solid one star experience. I’d have given an extra star because the cats ARE lovely, of course, but the cats don’t care about Google reviews.

Don’t come here, it’ll give you...

We went for a walk-in visit to the Marylebone branch. But before you can even buy a ticket at the cafe desk you have to scan a QR code that sends you to an online form to accept a waiver.

A responsibility waiver is OK for a place like a cat cafe, since there are some minor risks involved, like being scratched by a cat.

What I did not expect is the obnoxious amount of unjustified personal information requested in order to accept the waiver: – Full name – Date of birth – Postcode – Telephone number – Email address

There is no legal requirement for a commercial establishment like a cat cafe to ask for this much personal information for a waiver to be acknowledged.

I felt blackmailed and abused when I was asked for all the above if I wanted to make use of your cat cafe. This is a blatant disregard for personal data privacy and shows that you have no idea about your GDPR obligations when doing data collection. You are violating the ‘Data minimisation’ principle which only data ‘adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary’ can be asked (search for 'ICO GDPR data minimisation')

Other places with higher risks –like amusement parks– simply put the Terms & Conditions and any waiver online for anyone to check, even for under 18s. Your website mentions 0 times the word ‘waiver’, neither this document can be consulted there.

Why are you creating such an overengineered solution using online services (Roller) that cost you money just to disclose your waiver? Put it online publicly, or on a tablet at the cafe, or print it on paper, and have it signed by customers if you want.

But you have no right whatsoever to ask for all that amount of personal information.

You are simply using Roller waiver software to collect personal data for your own benefit.

And then you have the courage to show the message ‘We value your privacy’ on a big modal the first time your website is visited.

Unfortunately, unless you completely drop the data collection for the waiver I will have to report this indiscriminate collection to the ICO.

Your establishment really left me agitated and disappointed even when I enjoyed the time...