The millennials spent all their money on avocado toast. For Generation Z, the indulgence of choice might just be the cat cafe.
A cat cafe can take different forms, but the unifying feature is that you pay money in exchange for the company of cats. Coffee is included either directly or indirectly. Getting the cats adopted is a primary goal of these institutions. The supposedly therapeutic value of kitties is something of a loss-leader.
As young people find marriage and family formation harder to come by, or just undesirable, they continue to need domestic companionship. San Francisco, it has been reported, has more dogs than children. But dogs don’t fill the void for everyone. In some hearts, there is a fever, and the only prescription is more cats. Thus the spread of cat cafes across the country.
Sioux City, Iowa, is changing its zoning laws against the keeping or boarding of cats so as to allow cafes to have a frolicking throng of felines. Northern Colorado is also about to greet its first cat cafe.
Even the least winsome residents of cat cafes find homes at Christmastime. Whiskers Cat Cafe in Kansas City, Missouri, put out a plea in mid-December for someone to adopt its “Grinch” of a cat. Little Percy the Persian cat hates children and other pets and demands outrageous accommodations such as heated blankets. Shortly after local media aired the cat cafe’s request, Percy found someone masochistic enough to adopt her.
Flesh and blood need flesh and blood, I suppose.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tiny Lions Lounge and Cafe offered any teenagers with anxiety or stress free time with the kitties (normally clients pay by the half-hour) over Christmas week as the children waited in uncertainty about whether school would reopen in January.
When President Joe Biden replaced his disobedient dog Major with an appropriately militaristic German shepherd named Commander, the commander in chief made it clear he would also move a cat into the White House. Crumbs and Whiskers, a cat cafe in Washington, D.C., called on him to adopt from its stock. “The cafe said it has many cats to choose from, including Mr. Sweetie, a black and white 9-month old, a couple of tabby cats named Mario and Walter or a Black cat named Inky,” according to a report from local news outlet WTOP.
Maybe cat cafes will make inroads with the baby boomers after all.
