It's here, it's here, it's finally here!
There's a tiny bit of frustration at having sought to become the first cat café in the Bay Area only to see Oakland's Cat Town beat it out by about six months or so, but that's the San Francisco permitting process for you. The tricky part was threading the needle of how to manage food service in a newly built space that was crawling with animals, but a service window through which quiches could be inserted untangled most of the knots.
KitTea co-founder Michael Wiggins took me on a small, casual tour, during which I stopped paying any attention to him on at least three distinct occasions because cats are cute. Wiggins and his team sought to re-create the cat cafes that are all over Tokyo and Taipei (being cities with tiny apartments not always suited to animal companions) but without their emphasis on dollhouse furniture and other kitsch.
"They're not always environments you'd spend time in, absent the cats," Wiggins said.
Being a zen space for both humans and felines in equal measure, KitTea is different. There's a cat-less café section with cookies and seats, and a bigger, sunnier room (that you must be buzzed into) full of laser pointers, vaguely Scandinavian wall-mounted cat furniture, Simon and Garfunkel on the stereo, and some well-socialized cats. There are sticks with leather strips strung to them, to keep the cats amused and active. (They're made and donated by a neighbor, although KitTea may sell them in the future.)
While KitTea does allow room for walk-ins, reservations are strongly recommended — and weekends are already booked a couple months out.
"We found there was a lot of pent-up demand," Wiggins said.
While the tea selection is customized, this is not and never will be a laptop farm; it's a place to relax and maybe adopt a new friend. In just the soft opening period, and through its crowdfunders, KitTea has already found forever homes for seven lil buddies. Meanwhile, I was entranced by Priscilla and her brother Pax as they lay in the sun, and Mother Goose was sleeping in her bed, giving me paw cuteness.
"We're thinking about maybe putting a selfie stick in there," Wiggins said.
I couldn't tell if he was serious or not.
Comments are closed.
