Shakespaw Cat Cafe. — Restaurant in Stratford-on-Avon

Absolutely lovely cafe, the food was great and generously portioned. The cats were friendly and well looked after. You can tell this from the temperament of the cats. I wouldn't hesitate to go back here again.

The staff were very friendly and welcoming, and interacted with the cats as they made their way through the cafe. They also chatted to customers and shared knowledge of the cats (age, behaviour, history etc.), which is obviously the sort of thing you want from a cat cafe.

The food and drink prices are exactly what you would expect from a small business that obviously doesn't buy in the level of bulk you would expect a restaurant to, so the prices are not 'cheap' but certainly are not expensive or unreasonable by any expectations.

The menu variety is wide enough, even offering gluten free options which many big companies do not.

The cats are friendly and adventurous. Some approached us as we entered and some studied us for a while before deciding that they wanted to say hello. You can tell they are well fed and well looked after by their appearance and how comfortable they are around people.

I have read some of the negative reviews on here and I can only hope that anybody reading them understand the ridiculous nature of them.

~An entry fee of £5 is fairly cheap when you consider the 90 minutes that this allows you. On top of which it goes towards the upkeep of the cats which can be expensive animals. They all need feeding (cats are notoriously picky eaters.) and presumably vet trips/medication and other costs, all while trying to help and possibly rehome the cats, £5 is a drop in the bucket and I would happily pay more to help out.

~I did not smell any unpleasant odours, either upstairs or downstairs during our visit even though I had expected to smell something, as cats, like other animals, do give off their own smell.

~cats are in charge. Cats do what they want to do and if they want to sleep while you're there, there isn't anything you can do about that. The cafe is the cats home and they should be left to their own devices. One cat (Viola) was asleep for the whole time we were there (apart from 30 seconds that she came to see if we were OK, then went straight back to sleep.) and that's just the luck of the drawer. The cats are not toys for anyone to play with, child or adult.

~the cafe has a few rules which realistically in this day and age, shouldn't have to be there in the first place. You wouldn't like someone waking you up whole you're sleeping or picking you up if you didn't want to be picked up. It's simply a case of respecting the cats as you would/should any other living creature.

Overall, a lovely experience and some very lovely cats and kittens. Definitely...

We’ve been to shakespaws 5 times in 2 years including today’s visit. 3 of those times were amazing and very enjoyable.This was when 3 young girls helped out as serving staff. Unfortunately the last two times we have visited have been disappointing once being in may 2024 and also today. During are visit today which was booked at 4pm we understand this time is obviously later on a Sunday evening,and the staff want to go home,but the visit felt extremely rushed from the moment we sat down,being told there is a problem with the hot drink machine so hot drink weren’t available,we over heard a conversation about vegan availability an the only thing that was available was chocolate cake,as an alternative place to eat you would think a vegan option would be available. So after being told the drinks machine was broken,also there wasn’t an mac&cheese either which we understand that this happens. But are biggest disappointment is how the cats were constantly being moved away from us because they were looking in are shopping bags and just trying to climb in the one of the bags which we were extremely observant of as we don’t want them to be scared. This also included the cat Leo which it even states on the information card that he will climb into visitors shopping bags,every single time he came on to the table or anywhere near use,the young girl with black hair would move him away constantly watching him,and constantly interrupting the visit,it wasn’t very nice to be constantly having someone watching us,and it felt like she was suggesting that we would feed the cat food they wasn’t allowed. Yes the food had arrived on the table but as cat owners were not going to give the cat food that could harm them. Previously when we visited Leo sat in my jack wills bag,sat on the table while we were eating and it wasn’t a problem,so why is it such an issue now you pay £6 pp to visit and spend time with the cats not have them continuously moved every time they came near us.It genuinely spoilt are experience visiting today and we will be finding an alternative cat cafe to visit as this place has changed so much over two years and it’s disappointing. I even have a video from a previous visit where Leo was lying on the table and ate food...

Having visited a cat cafe abroad previously for my daughter’s birthday and loved it, I for my own birthday I googled cat cafes and drove an hour to this one based on the reviews. Booked in advance for a party of 4 and paid £6 each for the cat experience. We were shown to a table downstairs, absolutely loved the decor, quirkiness and atmosphere - happily sat there drinking it in. There were 2 cats downstairs who had just arrived and were sleeping in a closed off area. Other than that no cats downstairs. We were told we can wonder around and look at cats upstairs, however with the tables so close together and being fully booked this wasn’t possible. Food was disappointing, paid £6.50 for a cheese and chutney sandwich on white bread served with salad and crisps. For the price I expected crusty, bloomer bread, but was bog standard sliced white. Cheese was pre-packed sliced, salad some rocket and one slice of cucumber, approx 5 crisps. All perfectly edible, but really nothing special. My daughters tuna sandwich must have been prepared using the same utensils as mine as it had red chutney remnants on the bread. On the way out we were asked if we were leaving, we had paused to look at a cat upstairs, I commented we were just having a look at the cats as there hadn’t been any downstairs. The member of staff replied the window was open upstairs today so all the cats had stayed upstairs. I completely understand this and would expect cats to wonder around as they please, but she then held the door open for us and thanked us for coming. Felt quite clear our visit was at an end and we weren’t welcome to linger and look at cats. I understand it was busy and tables were full, but overall don’t feel as though the £24 we paid for the cat experience was...