Coffee and kittens for adoption in Manresa’s first cat café

Have you ever thought of going to a café to pet cats? Ninus Cat Cafè, a coffee house in Manresa, central Catalonia, has been fostering animals and serving beverages for more than a year. 

Working with the animal shelter Aixopluc, the café opened in April 2023 and has already found new homes for 35 cats.  

The establishment has a license to shelter up to 20 cats, but usually fosters around 16 at a time. 

Francesc Flores and Sandra Seuba, the owners of the café, were inspired by these kinds of bars that can be found in Japan. 

The cat cafés in Catalonia are oriented towards "promoting responsible adoptions," as the kittens live in the café until someone adopts them. 

The animal shelter they work with chooses animals that are more used to spending time with other cats: "We cannot have aggressive animals here as they have to be in contact with people and with each other," Flores explains.  

As such, the customers must follow some rules. They cannot feed the cats or hold them in their arms, but they can touch them and play with them as long as people do not scream or run around.  

Most of the clients that visit the café are younger people, between 15 and 30 years old, and families. "We do not have that many visits from people who are older, as a lot of them do not really understand the job we do sheltering them," Flores points out.  

Some of the adoptions can also be of more than one cat, as some of the animals are siblings and double adoptions are required.  

Clients who want to enter Ninus Cat Cafè have to pay an entrance fee with a drink included and an hour in the café costs six euros. "We are not a usual coffee place and people do not pay for the adoption, but we make customers pay for the time they spend here," Sandra Seuba explains.