London has one. So does Paris. Tokyo has scads of them. And now America’s first cat cafe is one step closer to a reality, the project having raised 50 grand via crowdfunding. Because we want cats, and we want them yesterday.
The San Francisco-based dreamers behind KitTea first announced their plans back in January. Their next step was to launch a Crowdtilt campaign to raise $50,000, dangling incentives such as reservations for the cafe’s first two weeks. And sure enough, they just hit their goal and plan to spend the money on finding and preparing a space. They hope to open sometime this summer—provided they don’t run into any trouble with local authorities, of course.
Cat-loving entrepreneurs are trying to get their own cafes off the ground in Toronto, Montreal, Oakland and Boston. There’s even a Kickstarter attempting to raise $350,000 for a Los Angeles cat cafe—which seems optimistic, even for the cat-crazed Internet.
Anyone who’s really, really keen to get in the door as soon as KitTea opens can still purchase an advance reservation. No shoving, guys.