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SHORTCUTS | Travel trends
DETAILS
SYDNEY
Catmosphere Cafe Sydney
66 Foveaux Street, Surry Hills;
catmospherecafe.com/sydney
Cafe Purrfection The Chatswood Cat
Palace, Unit 18, 30-32 Barcoo Street,
Roseville; thecatpalace.com.au/cat-cafe
Sydney Cat Cafe hosts pop-up events, such
as the sold-out ‘Cats on Mats’ yoga for now,
but is set to open a purr-manent cafe in
2017; sydneycatcafe.com.au
MELBOURNE
Cat Cafe Melbourne 30 Guildford Lane,
Melbourne; catcafemelbourne.com
BRISBANE
Lucky Cat Cafe 16 Saint Kilda Place,
Annerley; luckycatcafe.com.au
Cat Cuddle Cafe 160 Musgrave Road,
Red Hill; catcuddlecafe.com
ADELAIDE
Hashtag Meow 499A Payneham Road,
Felixstow; facebook.com/pg/
hashtagmeowcafe
PERTH
The Cat Cafe Purrth 147 Rokeby Road,
Subiaco; purrth.comtheir own needs than mine. Regardless,
they’re ridiculously engaging as they
claw up cat trees, lounge in mini tipis
and snoop under tables.
Brisbane’s Lucky Cat Cafe and Cat Cuddle
Cafe mix things up with cat yoga, while
Sydney’s Catmosphere stands apart with
its sci-fi theme. When I look up Adelaide
newbie, Hashtag Meow, I suspect it’s having
a lend with its Felixstow address. But it’s
fur real. Inside, a poised Bengal overlooks
two Ragdolls as they play on the floor, while
a newly arrived British Shorthair hides
in a kitty cabin. The spectrum of styles is
deliberate, says co-owner Amelia Wang. “I
wanted to show people that different breeds
have different personalities. Here people can
see what cats are like before owning a pet.”
Since opening in November 2016, interest
has been so “overwhelming” that she’s
ditching the glass partition and the dessert
menu and unleashing the entire floor to her
12 furry friends. She and partner Jerry Lam
take different cats home each night to give
them a break from the cafe, where they spend
the day mixing with a maximum of eight
people per visiting slot.
In Perth, all felines, from Mr Fox to Ziggy
Stardust and Mowgli, are rescue cats, and
a percentage of the takings go to animal
welfare. “The vision is to rescue as many cats
as possible,” says co-owner Chris Mewburn
(yes, that really is his surname). When the
social enterprise launched, 24,000 people
jumped online and Purrth was booked out
for six weeks, a trend that hasn’t slowed.
About 1500 people wanted a job there,
including a vet (hired) and a person with
zoological qualifications (no brainer).
Mewburn and partner, Euterpe Platritis, live
20 metres from the cafe, and when they’re
not there, they have CCTV wired into his
phone for monitoring. They take cat welfare
seriously, seeking advice from cat shelter Cat
Haven and Perth Cat Hospital, sending their
kitties for monthly vet checks, and training
their lounge hosts to identify signs of stress
and fatigue. “The space is designed in such
a way that if the cats want to get away from
people at any time, they can,” says Mewburn.
“There’s a cat flap they can access to reach
cat condos out the back. Cats like to escape
vertically rather than horizontally so we have
cat highways and boxes up on the walls.”
The cafe is also closed from 3pm to 5pm
for cat naps and is never open for more
than five hours at a time.
The modus operandi for the rest of
Australia’s cat cafes is largely similar, in that
you must book a visit, generally of 30 minutes
to an hour. Your cat therapy session costs
from about $6 to $20, and most are in a
glassed-off playroom where human numbers
are limited, the cats have free range and only
drinks are allowed. Photos are fine, but no
flashes thank you. Meow.