The Cat Cafe has never stepped into politics before. We are happy to welcome you if you are planning on voting for the candidate from the American independent, democratic, green, libertarian, peace and freedom, or republican party. We don’t care about your politics as long as you’re looking to enjoy good coffee with friendly cats.

However, we are breaking this silence to urge you to vote no on Proposition 65.

The proponents of Proposition 65 tell you that when businesses like The Cat Cafe charge $0.10 per bag for a paper bag, we’ll get a “windfall.” They say that we’ll be getting a “sweetheart deal” from Sacramento. In addition, they say retailers like us “get $300 million richer while shoppers get $300 million poorer.” Retailers like us can’t keep this “windfall,” they say. Make us send it to the California Wildlife Conservation Board instead.

It’s a compelling story. But when you take a closer look at it, their claims fall apart.

We’ll use The Cat Cafe as an example. The plastic bags we give to customers when they purchase gift items cost us about a penny per bag. We look at this as a cost of doing business. We sell you a t-shirt, mug, or other gift item, and you get a bag to carry it in if you want. And many of you don’t use one.

If single use plastic bags are banned, then we must charge $0.10 a bag for those who opt to use one. However, these bags cost approximately $0.15 per bag. So instead of the “windfall” proponents of Proposition 65 claim we’re going to get, we’re going to lose a nickel per bag. Looking at it another way, our “windfall” is a quintupling of our cost.

The Cat Cafe will accept that as a cost of doing business in a more environmentally friendly way. But we’re extremely disappointed that proponents of Proposition 65 would portray this as some kind of “windfall” for us. And that is why we’re urging you to vote against Proposition 65.

We’re happy to discuss this with you further. Please email us if you have any questions.  And thanks for all of your support!

We’ve had quite a few adoptions here at The Cat Cafe, which means we kept our partner San Diego Humane Society busy. After Dean and Deluca got us to our 200 adoption milestone, we sent home long term resident Sammy as well as Cora and Noah.

San Diego Humane Society worked hard to find us cats to replace the ones who went home. And they brought us five really cool cats, who we’ll introduce you to here.

Calvin is a very friendly seven year old, 12 pound cat. He loves to interact with people, and started exploring the playpen almost immediately upon his arrival here at The Cat Cafe. He enjoys being pet by customers of all ages, and he doesn’t mind getting a little attention when he’s sleeping. Because Calvin has a cold, we’ve cleaned his face a few times. He doesn’t fuss too much when we do this.

Sunflower is only a little over a year, but he’s had a rough life. He was born to a semi-feral colony near a warehouse, and he was suffering from a condition known as entropion. After arriving at San Diego Humane Society, the doctors operated on his eye and it’s a lot better now. It is always going to look a little off, but don’t let that keep you from checking out this eight pound boy. He is very friendly and inquisitive and loves to play with wand toys.

Yoshi was surrendered from the only home she’s known. Nine years ago, when she was a kitten, her adopters took her home. But then they had children, and the children don’t interact properly with Yoshi. Since arriving at The Cat Cafe, this 14 pound tortie has shown that she loves interacting with children who can be respectful of her. She even accepted kisses from a three year old boy!

Finally, we have the bonded pair of Raja and Tibby. They are one of the first cats that San Diego Humane Society has brought to us from their Oceanside campus, and they’re definitely great representatives of that campus. These two must go home together because they are bonded. Sadly, these two lost their home when their people could no longer properly take care of them.

Raja is a sleek house panther who will definitely grab your attention. He’s 12 years old and weighs 15 pounds. And he loves to give head bonks to people he just met. He was out of the carrier in less than a minute when he arrived. And he was out interacting with customers after less than a day here at The Cat Cafe.

His sister Tibby is also 12 years old, and she’s the same size as Raja, weighing 15 pounds. She’s not as active as Raja is, but she’s also very affectionate and loving. After just one day at The Cat Cafe, she was hopping into customer’s laps and purring up a storm.

Please come by and meet the latest arrivals at The Cat Cafe. And don’t forget, we are still working on raising the capital we need to build a sidewalk seating area. We are less than $1,000 from meeting our goal! If you can contribute, please do. And if you can’t please share our campaign.

When we opened The Cat Cafe in January 2015, we were hoping to send one cat per week to a good home. If we did this, we knew we’d be helping San Diego Humane Society fulfill its commitment in the Getting to Zero initiative. This initiative spares every adoptable or treatable animal from euthanasia.

We were really excited when we reached 100 adoptions last year, with the adoption of a very active house panther named Atticus. And we’re just as excited today. When the active and playful brothers Dean and Deluca went home, we reached the 200 adoptions mark!

Dean and Deluca arrived at The Cat Cafe about a month ago, and quickly became favorites of both the staff and visitors. Their playful antics entertained everyone. The staff loved how these two would follow them everywhere when customers weren’t present. And while cats do sleep anywhere from 14-18 hours per day, when these brothers weren’t sleeping, they were playing.

These two are really nice cats, too. No cat likes to go into a crate. These two were purring even though they tried to keep from going into the crates!

In order to celebrate our 200th adoption, we’re dropping the price on all of our pastries to $2.00 for today. Our pastries are always a nice add on, and they’re reasonably priced without the discount. This discount makes them an even better add on to your drink.

Also, after learning that we reached 200 adoptions, one of our supporters decided to contribute $200 to our crowdfunding campaign to build out a sidewalk cafe! That will take us close to $4,000, which means that we’re getting really close to our goal.

If you haven’t contributed already, please do so. And if you can’t contribute right now, please share our crowdfunding campaign so that others can.

Please come visit The Cat Cafe today. Enjoy your drink and a $2 pastry, and help us celebrate reaching 200 adoptions!

In September, things tend to slow down a little. The summer travel season ends, and people head back to work and to school. But we were busy here at The Cat Cafe. We sent eight cats to good homes in September. In addition to sending these cats to their new homes, The Cat Cafe is happy to have raised $255 for San Diego Humane Society in September.

We’re happy with the results we saw in September. We knew that the amount of visitors we saw would drop quite a bit because of the end of the summer travel season. Still, we were able to adopt out an average of two cats a week and raise a decent amount of money to help San Diego Humane Society carry out their mission of helping animals.

We’re also pleased with the results of our fundraising campaign for a sidewalk cafe. We’ve raised 50 percent of the funds we need to build out the sidewalk cafe the way we want in just a couple of weeks! We still aren’t at our goal, and we’re still asking patrons to contribute. Every little bit helps, so please contribute and share our campaign.

You’ll remember we shifted our focus at The Cat Cafe from the total number of cats to making sure we have interactive ones. Doing this seems to have had a positive effect. Right now, we have 11 cats in residence at The Cat Cafe. And all but one of them spends the majority of its time out in the playpen. That means in addition to enjoying your award winning coffee drink, you are much more likely to be able to make a furry friend.

We’ll continue to make improvements here at The Cat Cafe to enhance your experience. We always welcome your feedback. Please visit us, enjoy a good cup of coffee and spend time with our clowder!