LanCATster Cat Cafe — Restaurant in Lancaster

Came here with a group of friends, one of which was visiting all the way from California. My Californian friend wanted to get a good feel of Lancaster, so we went into the heart of the city itself.

Like with most businesses, we simply googled the Cat Cafe and went off of the search from Google. I do acknowledge that some more research could have been done for this trip, but as a business, most customers operate off of the results they get on the front page, and we were no different. After parking and walking to the cafe, we almost missed it due to no signage or any indicators outside. When we walked in, we were immediately faced with a sign that said “Cat room is reservation only,” which was massively disappointing, but we decided to stay and at least enjoy the food and drinks. We walked in and were greeted by three staff members which also explained the same “Reservation needed” sentiment, before one of them made a passive aggressive comment about “At least you’ll know better for next time.” This immediately killed the vibe for our group.

We then proceeded to wait in line for 10-15 minutes, as the staff conversed with the group ahead of us for extremely long. They never acknowledged us after the initial walk in, and we were never able to order anything, as we were so tired of waiting. The menu that we got to look over for way too long is extremely limited, and pastries aren’t listed anywhere. We watched as someone ordered a latte, and realized there was only one coffee machine, meaning ordering for large groups would be extremely slow. As we stood in line awkwardly, all three staff members just seemed to idle, not even checking on the group who had reserved the room. We also overheard the staff discussing how the constantly booked hours leave the cats socially and physically exhausted at the end of the shift, which didn’t sit well with me. Eventually, we gave up on the slow and rude service, and went to Rachel’s Cafe and Crêperie (Were we were seated within 5 minutes and served immediately.)

A few tips I would give this business as someone entering the business industry: Get more cats and allow them to rotate which is in the room so they aren’t overstimulated. Increase your menu, as your dining room needs to sell as much as the cats do. Shorten the time with the cats so that more customers can enjoy the selling point of this place.

TLDR: If you don’t make a reservation, there’s nothing special here. Go to Rachel’s for great prices, great service, and a fun experience for everyone no matter when...

So I drove with my girlfriend over an hour to come see this place. And let me tell you it was AWESOME! We really needed an activity to lighten our moods, and heal ourselves a little bit and this was great for that. To start off when we arrived the staff was amazing kind and immediately helped us check in with our reservation. (We made this btw less than a day in advance and we were mostly by ourselves during the visit and it was a 2-3PM slot ☺️) They also have so many cute local artists pieces for sale: stickers, prints, soothing beans, etc! I will say, with cat cafes you get one of two things: More cafe over cat or More cat over cafe And here it is cat cafe. Which is fine because we paid to see the cats. Most of the drinks were hot coffee based which isn’t my taste, but they had free water w/ reusable cups (we love a sustainable place) I did buy the monster cookies but didn’t want to tempt the cats, but eating them a day later after baking in the car I can confirm they were still delicious 😭 The overall atmosphere is cutesy and safe- if I lived closer I could so see myself studying here in the cafe and watching the cats through the windows! They had so many kitties and were very upfront about the new arrivals and how they’re still adjusting etc. There was also a little boy (5-6) who asked what was behind the door with the cat door, and she had shown us that this is where the kitties come when they need a potty break or people break! I love how all of their staff truly care about the wellbeing of their animals. No shoes to prevent fleas/disease, washing hands before entering, monitoring while visitors are present etc! And now to the cats, they were all so sweet- even Franz with the “DO NOT TEMPT IMMEDIATELY” sign (it was a fake sign he was a purring love bug the whole time 😭) Anika melted my heart- Shay sipped my water despite having fountains, and Mello was such a cute void. I would highly recommend this place for all ages really, kids, LGBTQ+ and straight people (ones with a sense of humor of...

I visited the Carlisle cat cafe recently that opened last month, and I’m happy to now have visited the Lancaster cat cafe that also opened last month. It’s so great that there are now two cat cafes around south central PA and I don’t have to drive more than an hour to visit cat cafes anymore. I love that there is a decontamination room before entering the cat area. I could tell that they really care about the well-being of the cats here. There were only 5 cats at the time I visited with friends. Only 3 of the 5 cats were friendly and playful. The other 2 were both very skittish and shy. I wish there would have been more kitties because it felt like there weren’t enough sociable cats for the amount of people in the room. We had to take turns playing with the 3 sociable cats. I do realize that this cafe opened very recently, so I’m sure more cats will come in the future and make for more fun visits. I loved the cat mural in the cafe area where you first enter. The entire cafe is very welcoming and relaxing, and it was great to be surrounded by other fellow cat lovers. For $15, this experience is very affordable. I’m happy to have supported this new cafe in its early start and I’m sure it will be an even better experience next time I visit. I’d like to offer some feedback, which is that I wish you could stay with the cats for a full hour instead of only 50 minutes. I feel like the time went by really quickly and I would have loved extra time with the cats. I’ve been to some other cat cafes that offer 1 hour or 1 and a half hour visits. I’m not sure if this will ever be available at this location, but it’d be nice to have more time options available if you’d like to...