Katy's Cat Cafe — Restaurant in Sarasota

I came here on the cafe's grand opening. I thought the prices were reasonable, unlike what some other reviewers may say... the cafe has to make money somehow and paying for spaying and neutering multiple kittens, scheduling them for vet visits, purchasing food, etc. is not cheap! Additionally, I've been to other cat cafes that charge twice as much AND set limits on the time you can spend with the cats. So I do not fault the cafe for that, but it seems to be a difference in understanding between Sarasota residents and people from other cities with cat cafes...

That being said, I enjoyed my experience playing with the cats, but have some safety concerns. When I first arrived, the cats were playing around and getting stuck in a mechanical lift that was left in the middle of the cat room, which definitely screamed red flag to me. There were rusty screws on the floor, plastic wrappers from toys, wood chips and paint peeling from the walls that the cats were trying to play with and eat, and I had to take away from them and dispose of. As a cat owner, I am aware that cats can and will eat anything, but I think the owner should be more mindful of what the kittens have access to. Additionally, I overheard the owner saying the kittens were spayed and neutered yesterday, meaning that they were let out and about the day after to be played with and handled by customers. I don't feel like this is necessarily safe for the kittens, and I worried with seeing how some of the other customers were handling the kittens (lifting them up, carrying them around, etc.) One of the kittens (longer haired tabby kitten) seemed really scared and was panting and breathing quite heavily, and I was concerned it may have had an upper respiratory infection. Finally, the adult cats wouldn't even come out because the kittens had just been brought into their space with no introduction, so they were obviously being very guarded and protective of their space (I can't blame them), but I wasn't able to pet or play with the older cats which made me sad. People repeatedly tried to grab them and bring them out into the main area, but this obviously wasn't effective and probably just made them more irritated. I only saw one litter box, food bowl and water bowl visible in the cat room inside of a crate, which if that was for all of the kittens is deeply concerning. I hope this was not the case and there were more scattered elsewhere, because one litter box for 5+ kittens is not acceptable.

As far as food and drinks, I did not try them so I can not give them a review. I do like that the food area was separate from the cats for sanitary reasons, and the cafe was quite spacious compared to other cafes I had visited before. I believe the cafe has potential, but the glaring safety concerns and seemingly lack of attention by the owner/staff to these concerns made me worried for the kittens and hesitant to return in the future until some improvements...

I’ve been to so many cat cafes and this is the first and only one that made me sad for the cats. I work with a cat rescue and have lots of experience with animals and unfortunately I feel like this place was thrown together just to have the title as “the first cat cafe in Sarasota” with no regard to cat safety and welfare. There were 5 cats. First things first, no staff member was in the room where people were interacting with the cats- this makes me extremely concerned as they also allow all ages to come in (younger ages with parent supervision but unfortunately from what I’ve witnessed firsthand is that a LOT of parents do not watch their kids interacting with animals and don’t them to behave). I’ve seen young kids, and even adults, that don’t handle the cats properly and the cats become distressed, so no one being in the room watching poses a big safety risk to the cats and makes me very upset.

There was a cage in the middle of the room that had a teeny tiny litter box that was full, and some food and water. Later we learned that they put the kittens in the cage at night, because they don’t trust them to be out? That made me upset as a big point of cat cafes is that they get socialized and are free roam, so I don’t like that they get locked away at night. There were things like flat scratching posts tied to the cage doors with twisty ties and zip ties, and as someone who knows that cats get in to everything, this is concerning. The whole place is painted a super dark green, almost black color and there’s no furniture so you sit on the ground, and only a handful of toys.

They don’t do reservations, also the first cat cafe I’ve been to that doesn’t do reservations, and I don’t know if they have a maximum occupancy (which also raises a big concern). There’s no phone number either so really no way to know if they have availability for you to actually see the cats before you drive all the way there. On top of that, there’s no time limit to be with the cats, so I don’t fully understand how they control how many people are in there and how to allow new people to come in. Logistically it doesn’t make sense at all.

There were 5 cats total, although in the hour we were there we only saw 4. Again, with there seemingly being no limit of people in there, this is a major flaw in the ratio of cats to people. We didn’t try any drinks but the cafe part seemed to be very extensive as they have coffee, mocktails, pastries, and ice cream. The interaction we did have with the staff was kinda awkward and not very friendly, they seemed very bored. Overall I think there’s a lot of room to make changes for a better experience for both the cats and guests, but we were pretty...

If I could leave less than 1 star I would. The whole experience started off bad. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to have but couldn’t see a menu anywhere and the dude behind the counter was just sitting behind the register staring at my fiance and I. We didn’t get a welcome in or a here’s the menu at all. He seemed clueless. Then I was trying to figure out which mocktail I wanted because I don’t drink coffee and they had abunch of different ones on a random board at the end of the counter with no descriptions. So I tried asking the guy behind the counter if he thought a combination would be good ( they had a make your own version ) and he barely gave me an answer he just stared at me and kinda shrugged like yeah so is that the one you want? My fiance got an iced americano and that was the only thing about this place that was good. We wanted to play with the cats , it’s the whole reason we came to this cat cafe! We paid 20$ each and when we got inside the room there was no cats….a young lady in the room that was about to leave told us that they just took 3 of the cats to the vet which is totally understandable but wouldn’t you think that the young gentleman behind the counter should’ve let us know that?? We were sitting in the room and there was literally 0 cats to play with lol All together we spent about 60$ and that was the biggest waste of 60$ I’ve ever spent. I wanted to ask for a refund at the counter but I had a feeling the kid was just going to continue...