3 Things You Need to Know About Starting a Cat Café | Owning a cat café is challenging, but the furry little creatures make it all worthwhile. Cat cafés can be very fun to run; nonetheless, it requires a lot of hard work and dedication to succeed. Cat cafés, among other café niches, became popular in Japan in cities like Tokyo, where they have cafés based on almost every imaginable theme. They have cafés that are based on owls, raccoons, anime, robots, maids, ninjas, and movies, to name a few.
If you want to focus on starting a cat café, though, there are some things you’ll need to know prior to beginning your business adventure. Cat cafés need as much planning and investing as the next business. It takes time and lots of preparation to finally open your shop doors to the public.
Here are three things you’ll need to know if you’re planning to open a cat café.
- You’ll need a business plan.
Firstly, you’ll need to write out a business plan that can help you determine what you need to launch and manage your business. This business plan will include an executive summary, a business description, your market analysis and strategy, an analysis of your competition, your products and services, and an operations plan. You will write descriptive information for each section so you can provide your future investors and shareholders with it.
For your marketing section, you can include things like your restaurant email marketing strategies and if you’re going to create a partnership with companies like Gourmet Marketing so you can reward your loyal clients through email campaigns. Gourmet Marketing can also help your cat café set actionable goals and improve your customer interactions. They can work on any marketing area such as strategy, advertising, website design, inbound marketing, and communications. Additionally, they will help you with branding so everyone will recognize your cat café wherever it’s advertised.
- You’ll need a lounge area.
One of the main things your customers will do at your café is to enjoy their food. However, they will also want to play with the cats. So apart from your food services, you’re going to need an area where your clients can chill with their favorite furry friends and enjoy a nice cup of coffee. You can merge your lounging and dining areas so they can comfortably enjoy the cats’ presence.
Likewise, you can create a completely separate area so your guests can play with the cats after they finish their food. You can add cute decorations so the ambiance can be one of relaxation and fun. You can add cat safe plants so the air, as well as your clients’ moods, can be refreshed and enhanced. Cats also love playing with plants, so they will be in close contact with them. It’s important you choose plants like money trees, peacock plants, and star Jasmines so your cats can safely parade around them.
- People will want to adopt your cats.
Lastly, it’s important that one of the most important purposes of your cat café, apart from bringing people joy, is to bring your featured cats joy. Many cat cafés around the world make it their mission to feature cats from shelters and put them up for adoption in their café. This can help a lot of cats find their forever homes with families that will love and cherish them unconditionally.
You can make this happen by partnering with local animal shelters that can provide you with cats for your shop. You can also partner with local pet shops that can supply you with cat accessories and food so you can help your café’s new cat owners find the products they need for their new fur baby.