As you know, Comic-Con is just around the corner. Comic-Con will take place July 21-24. We here at The Cat Cafe are very excited to welcome all of the visitors who will descend on downtown San Diego.

Those of you who have visited before know that we typically allow people to enter the cat playpen after purchasing a drink. We have a limited number of reservations available during our peak times. But, our goal here at The Cat Cafe is to make sure we allow people to come to visit us on a spur of the moment basis.

During Comic-Con, however, that system becomes unworkable. If we were to do this, we would have extensive waits for just a few minutes with the cats. That’s not the experience we want to provide to our customers, both regular and visitors, so we’ve put a system in place to handle things more smoothly.

Many of you took advantage of our Comic-Con special last year, and we’re bringing it back to The Cat Cafe again. We made one change to the special based on customer feedback but it’s pretty much the same.

For $15, you will get half an hour of time with our friendly cats. This is down $5 from last year. You will also receive a food or drink item. And you can make additional purchases of our souvenirs if you choose to do so. This is something we changed, because many of our visitors left without a souvenir since they already had so many!

We will limit the amount of people who will be in the cat playpen to 15. We’re doing this to make sure the cats don’t get overwhelmed by the number of people they see. We’re also going to give them a 15 minute break after every 30 minute session. This way, they’ll be much more interactive than if we had people constantly coming through the playpen.

Ensure that you can escape the crowds of Comic-Con by booking your spot today. If you show up and there are spots available, we’ll sell them to you. However, last year, many of our sessions sold out. Avoid disappointment and make sure you book your session today!

We’ve had a lot of feedback from customers since we opened our doors in January 2015. One of the most common comments was that our decor could use an upgrade because it was boring. This shouldn’t be a surprise. A practically minded general manager and contractors can be expected to make this decision. It was more practical to leave the existing wall the same color and paint the others to match.

We here at The Cat Cafe listened to comments from customers about the decor and kept track of them. We didn’t really get a chance to implement the changes customers suggested as quickly as we would have liked. But we definitely knew we needed to improve the decor a little. That task was less of a focus than making sure we got the operations of The Cat Cafe up to speed.

Starting in February 2016, we started to improve the decor. Gone were the practical yet boring shelves that we had in place when we opened. We replaced those with a cat wall created by Urban Feline. We’re happy to say that added a lot of color to the room, and the cats love playing on the wall now.

After that, we worked with Elise McKenna to change the look of the opposite wall. It wouldn’t do any good to have one wall looking colorful and festive while the other wall was plain. And now, we’ve got two colorful and festive walls. Elise has done a great job of painting a cat themed wall for us.

Finally, while most of the customers here at The Cat Cafe really don’t care too much about the bathroom, we figured we could make it a little more interesting. While you’re going to be spending most of your time in the playpen, that doesn’t mean the bathroom has to be boring. And that is why we had an intern from High Tech High help us with the wall there.

Please come by and visit us to see these changes. Hopefully you enjoy them as much as we here at The Cat Cafe enjoyed bringing them to you!

Last week, we said good bye to long term resident Olivia as she went to her forever home. She definitely enjoyed her time here at The Cat Cafe and hopefully, she’ll have as much fun hopping to the top of cabinets and other high places as she did here with the Eiffel Tower replica.

Twin was not here as long, but we also said good bye to her as she went to her forever home. She was adopted by someone who was missing their cat, who they recently lost, and who was so taken by how Twin looked and acted like the cat they lost that they had to adopt her right away.

When we bid cats farewell like we did Olivia and Twin, we bring new cats in. And that is what we did with two really cool boys, Jackson and Gray Baby.

Jackson is a young guy, at a year and three months. He was found by a kind person who brought him in so that he could be cared for. Initially, Jackson was very shy and didn’t like being around people. But after lots of love and of course, being fed, he learned to trust people. Jackson now likes interacting with people, which is why you will find him actively soliciting attention from people in The Cat Cafe. He’s a great example of how a little love and patience can go a long way.

Gray Baby is a little older, at two years. He’s definitely not a shy one. He arrived at The Cat Cafe after being transferred in to San Diego Humane Society and then being at another facility. He didn’t like the cages there, so they decided that he might do better in the cage free environment we have here at The Cat Cafe. Gray Baby can be a little feisty, so it’s best to use a little caution when interacting with him. Wand toys are best if you want to be safe.

It’s always fun for us here at The Cat Cafe to both send cats to good home and to welcome new arrivals. Come on in and see these guys and the rest of our clowder.

We had a lot of adoptions last week. First Nixon and Onyx went home. Then it was time for Doobie to make that trip. And on one day, we had two adoptions, with Moxie and Tiny heading home from The Cat Cafe.

We of course are sad to see these guys go, but it means we had the chance to welcome a bunch of new cats. Four cats have joined The Cat Cafe clowder and we’ll introduce you to them.

We’ve done well with sending bonded pairs home at The Cat Cafe and that’s why we’re glad we got another one in. Say hello to Tiger and Smokey.

Tiger is eight years old, and he’s a big boy, weighing in at 14 pounds. That’s a little heavier than we like, so whoever takes him home is going to have to work on helping him drop a little weight. He’s a friendly and curious cat and it took almost no time before he started roaming through the playpen.

Smokey is a year younger and a little smaller than his brother. He also is carrying a little more weight than he should at 12 pounds. He’s very friendly, but he’s a little more shy. You may see only glimpses of him, but we’re hopeful that having his brother around will help bring him out of his shell.

Boogie came to us because her person got sick and could no longer care for her properly. She’s an 11 year old, 13 pound girl who is very playful and inquisitive. When you see this girl running around the playpen, you’ll quickly learn that despite being older, she’s got plenty of energy.

And then there is Twin. When she arrived, she immediately became the youngest cat here, at a little over a year. Sadly, Twin arrived at The Cat Cafe because the roommates of her person decided that they no longer wanted at cat. While we’re sad about that, we’re very happy to have her here because she’s a fun and lovable cat who enjoys attention.

In addition to these new arrivals, we’ve got six other cats who complete The Cat Cafe clowder. Come on in and say hello to them!