It’s taken a lot longer than I expected, but I’m glad to be able to say that The Cat Cafe is open!

Because of the holidays, we’ll be doing limited hours for a while. We’ll be open from 10 AM until 2 PM until January 4, 2015. Wow. Did I just type that? 2015?

We also do not have our full complement of cats in, so I’m bringing in guest cats. Two of the guest cats are mine. The one who is here the most is Bagheera the Diabetic Cat. He’s a polydactyl bengal, and he’s a big boy. He weighs in at 20 pounds which is more than he should weigh, but he’s not obese.

Bagheera was born in the spring of 2005, and he was adopted in May of that year. In the summer of 2012, Bagheera was diagnosed with diabetes. Since then, he’s had two insulin shots per day to control his blood sugar. But other than that, he’s just like any other cat.

Another cat you may see in The Cat Cafe is Jacey. Jacey is a silver bengal who is an amazing ambassador cat, but she doesn’t like the carrier. She sometimes outsmarts me and makes me give up on bringing her to The Cat Cafe. The funny thing is that as soon as she gets here, she loves it. But it’s that carrier she can’t stand.

One thing that you’ll be able to enjoy, even with guest cats, is our high quality coffee. We get our coffee from West Coast Roasters and our espresso comes from Cafe Virtuoso. Both of these companies are based in San Diego, so you get coffee that’s roasted in small batches from a locally based company.

Come on in, check out the facilities, and enjoy your drinks! As always, if you have questions, you can email or call. Thanks for all your support and we look forward to seeing you soon!

I know a lot of you are wondering what’s going on here at The Cat Cafe with the build out and when we will open. We are very close.

We had to deal with a delay when the city inspector didn’t make it to our facility last Thursday like we wanted. That meant that we couldn’t schedule the additional inspections as we would have liked. But we are still on a very fast track to opening.

On December 16, The Cat Cafe will have its final electrical inspection. This will consist of the electrical inspector coming in to make sure that our emergency exit signs are working properly. He’ll make sure they light up, and then he’ll kill the power to them. If the lights still continue to shine — and I just checked to make sure they do — we will pass.

Assuming that goes well, I’ll schedule the pre-final inspection for the next day. I’ve corrected the issues the inspector pointed out. I’ve put up both the handicapped decal for the front door and the triangular sign that shows where the restroom door is.

It’s kind of silly that I have to do this, because I’ve got a sign that shows where the restroom is about three feet away from where the door sign is. But The Cat Cafe can’t open unless it’s ADA compliant, so we’ll do it.

If there are no problems there, or if they are minor ones that can be corrected for the final inspection, the inspector will sign off and I’ll correct anything he brings up. Once that is done, the final inspection will be scheduled for December 18.

And then after that is completed, The Cat Cafe can get an occupancy permit and finally open for business.

Beyond what is required for the City, The Cat Cafe is working hard to make things good for the kitties! It was just fine by the City to leave a crawl space open. But we weren’t going to do that with kitties that could work their way in.

Since only the cats and employees will be able to access this room, I’m not going to spend much time painting or making it look nice. I don’t think the cats will mind for some reason. If they do complain, I’ll make sure to pretty it up.

Thank you for your interest in The Cat Cafe. As always, if you have any questions, please call or email.

I know that many of you are anxiously awaiting an update on what is going on with the build out of The Cat Cafe. I’m happy to share some good news with you.

See that? It’s not quite finished yet but it looks a lot different than when The Cat Cafe passed the drywall inspection about a week ago.

You can see that we finished the texturing of the ceiling, painted, and made it a much more welcoming place for both cats and people. We also installed new lighting, which was required by changes in the law. No longer is track lighting, which we had, an option for a commercial facility. The lights that went in use less energy and provide more lighting, which will make visitors and the resident cats here at The Cat Cafe happy.

Another milestone in the construction of The Cat Cafe was passed when the electrical inspector came by yesterday and signed off on the work that was done so that the four exit signs required by code can be installed. We’re working on completing that today.

We’ll put the doors required to separate the cats from the coffee in first thing in the morning tomorrow. And then it’s time to sweat out another visit from the inspector as we get our pre-final inspection done.

Assuming that goes well, The Cat Cafe will have its final inspection the next day. Anything that needs to be corrected in the pre-final inspection will be addressed by then.

And then, once that is passed, our long journey to being the first cat cafe in Southern California will be complete.

For those of you who can’t visit but would like to take a little piece of The Cat Cafe home, you can order a t-shirt. I’m selling those from now until the end of the year at $15, plus $5 shipping, within the United States.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to email or call. Thank you for all of your support and patience!