- Funding for Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTW, Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation and Kansas Department of Commerce.

Today on Working Capital, we go someplace where it sounds like some felines may be making you a coffee, but it's a much bigger deal than that.

Stick around.

You're watching Working Capital Today I have the very fun afternoon of traveling to the Topeka Cat Cafe, and here with me is April and Grace to talk a little bit about this magnificent experience here.

So welcome to Working Capital.

- Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks for having us.

- I, I'm guessing animal lovers a little bit.

Oh yeah.

It's just a little bit.

A little bit.

So as a lot of us know, helping Hands and other shelters kind of have been around forever and that's kind of what we think of.

But places like the Cat Cafe have really filled in huge gaps because there's so many animals out there that need places to go.

But also, even if you're not looking for someone at home, 'cause it's someplace to come in and get an experience with these kittens or the cats.

I know some people that have allergies that love cats and can't have it at home.

They'll come in here.

Yeah, yeah.

Just for an afternoon.

Just because they love the feline so much.

So how did this mission come about?

- Well, about seven years ago I learned about cat cafes and growing up I always wanted to work with cats, but I never, you know, had an opportunity.

So when I learned about Cat cafes, I thought this would be a great idea to bring to Topeka.

And then, so a couple years ago I was, you know, just driving home one day and I thought, I'd still really like to do that, but I don't wanna do it alone.

And then that same week, an old high school friend posted in a Facebook group that she wanted to start a high, a cat cafe.

So I thought, well that's definitely a sign - Serendipity.

- Yes.

So reached out to her and that was in summer of 23.

And then we met and just here we are today, met up and made it happen.

- You say made it happen.

Like, it's so easy just to throw this together.

I mean, what, what was your first step then once you knew you were going this route?

I mean, is it, is it finding a place?

Is it finding a rescue to work with?

- Oh, what, so they, that was always, always our question is like, what's the first step?

But I felt like there was like a, a bunch of first steps, you know, like your research, learning what it takes, you know, how much money it's gonna - Cost.

Yeah.

- The investment, things like that.

Just setting up a business plan.

- Is it something where the, the, well, first off, when did you open here?

- We opened July of 24.

- Okay, so you've been at it almost two years.

- Yeah.

- So with that learning curve, you say kind of getting used to like the cost of, of the cats.

I mean, over time have you really seen it kinda narrow down?

Like, - You know, we do offer visits, the visit fee.

People come in, they spend time with the cats or the kittens, and that supports us.

And then come into the gift shop and purchase things in the gift shop.

And then we have memberships.

So those are people who wanna be here all the time for unlimited - Membership.

Oh, that's kind of cool.

- Yes.

You can have a membership so that, that supports us a lot.

- I, I think I read in your first year you kind of had a plan to, to hopefully get so many cats home, but I think maybe you blew that out of the water.

Can you talk bit how, even just right off the bat, how the reception was and, and was it anything that you thought it would - Be?

Well, I think my hope was to adopt out maybe 50 to a hundred cats the first year.

And I think we, we did closer to 300 or so.

It's hard for me to know.

I mean, right now we're at eight, 800 and it's not even been two years, so.

Wow.

Yes, - Unfortunately for the cats, sometimes I bet they, you've created such a, a good space here.

They, they probably hate leaving at first until they get used to their new, new, new spot.

They - Love it here.

It's a great place for them.

I - Mean, I had never been in yet some of my, my coworkers have been in before with their family.

They love it.

But I'll say when we first took the little tour, some people may be worried about a smell.

- Oh - Yeah.

I didn't even think about that until you showed me the big litter areas in the back, you know, and the filtration, everything else, it doesn't smell at all.

Like, like some people may think it's smell.

So it's, it's, it's an experience for everybody around.

So you're, you're catering to the cats, but you really are thinking about driving that continuous membership.

- Yes.

- Or, you know, getting someone coming in, I think someone stomp in that had been from out of town a little bit ago.

So it's, it's amazing how that word spreads.

So Right.

With that, how did you get involved - Here?

Well, I was looking for a job.

I just needed a job.

But then I saw there was an opening on a cat cafe and I'm like, well that sounds better than a, a normal everyday job that you would have.

So I came in, I met with April and their other owner Tony.

I was immediately blown away when I walked in here, like you said, how good it smells in here, how clean it's 'cause I've been to other cat cafes.

Yeah.

And they're not all so clean.

And I walked in, I immediately, you can tell how well the cats are taken care of.

- Yeah.

- I met some of the staff here.

They all love the cats so much.

And I'm like, this is the kind of environment that I wanna be in like every day.

And so I, I started here about eight months ago and it's a joy to be here every day.

Truly.

I love it here so much.

It's very rare in life to have a job where you are excited to get up in the morning and go to work.

And it doesn't feel like work here minus the cleaning, but that's okay.

It's all for the cats.

But yeah, it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like work.

It's just such a joyful environment to be in the joy I get every week from seeing cats find their homes.

Yeah.

It's just, it's really unbeatable.

I'm just happy to be here every single day.

- I mean, as much as I can tell, all the cats here are having a lot of fun and seem to enjoy it.

So, so you get to see that side and like you say, all these people coming in and finding some, some fur companions.

Yeah.

Seeing their faces light up.

- Yeah.

It's very rare that anyone comes in here and has a bad time.

Everyone's usually in a good mood to be in the cat cafe bag.

- I couldn't, yeah, I think you'd, it'd be a really weird circumstance.

Where - Would they come in in a bad mood?

They - Good.

Well, I guess if maybe their favorite cat had been adopted out since they, that may be happens.

May the only, the only downfall.

- But it's a very joyful place.

- Well how do you find all these kittens and cats?

Where, where do they come from?

Because I, I know it's not the same avenue as say the Humane shelter.

So who do you work with for that?

- We partner with a local rescue called Teen Kitten.

They're an entirely foster based rescue.

So they don't have like a shelter facility, they just work with foster homes all around the Topeka area and beyond that.

So all the cats they rescue, they mostly focus on pregnant mom, cats and kittens, hence the name Teen Kitten.

But if they have space, they'll also take in juveniles and adults.

And then all of those cats, once they're spayed and neutered and microchipped and vaccinated, they get to go to various foster homes.

So they get to be in an environment where they feel comfortable and safe.

Not, you know, shut in a cage.

And then if we feel like they'd be a good fit to have the cafe, they get to come here.

- That's awesome.

Well, and I, I think with that foster system then, are you, is it more easily able to tell that if a cat is good with kids or good with other pets, like, like multi cats or even dogs?

- Absolutely.

And that's what one of the great things is by the time they come in here, we usually know if they're good with kids, if they're good with dogs, if they're good with cats.

And that way we're able to tell potential adopters if the cat they're interested in would be a good fit for their home.

What you don't get as much in a shelter environment 'cause they just don't know - What if you get home and that cat just does not fit with that certain dog or whatnot.

What, what, what happens at that point?

- So when we have people come in that are interested in adoption, we sit down with them, the team talks to each person individually, goes over, you know, the animals they have at home, their lifestyle, things like that.

And it, we always recommend to go online and watch Jackson Galaxies, like YouTube.

- Great.

Yeah.

Great information there for sure.

- And we say, you know, keep the cat in a separate room, follow his method.

And it may take two days, it may take two weeks, but it's, it'll work and we just remind him to be patient so that it, so that it will work.

- Yeah, yeah.

Because a lot of times people get, oh let's good with dogs.

It was these two and it grew up with that little foster dog.

But yeah, the smells are different.

- The - Location's different.

So like any person going in a new spot, they really need a little bit of time to to acclimate.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Do you have a, a favorite story from when you first opened up?

I mean some of where you just saw those eyes bright, like I'm sure you have a lot of Oh lot something, - Some kind of a stick lot.

Grace, do you wanna share yours?

Yeah, I can totally share one of my favorite stories.

One of my favorite stories that we had recently is we had a cat come in, his name was Ernie.

He was about 10 years old and it's, it's rare that we have an older senior cat come in, but he was about 10 years old.

He probably lived most of his life outside, you know, fighting for survival.

You could see on his face his ears were a little crumpled.

He had kind of a sad, somber, looked to his face and of course all of us were here like, - Oh my - Gosh, love that.

He's so cute.

And so we did all, did our best here to make him comfortable.

And then we made a lot of posts on our social media about him and his story.

'cause we knew he was gonna need a very specific kind of person.

He had to have most of his teeth removed.

So he was gonna need a lot of extra care.

And the community really gathered around him and his story.

All the comments were like, go Ernie, like, you know, sharing the post.

It was so fun for all of us to see that.

And then literally two or three days after him being here, a woman comes in, she owns a sanctuary called Misfit Farms where she takes in special needs animals.

And she was like, I'd love to have Ernie join us.

And she could not have been a better fit.

His name is PPA now and he is doing great.

We get updates and yeah, it's stories like that that really emphasize why the work we do here is so important.

Because if Ernie had gone to a shelter, the odds of him getting picked out, especially next to all the adorable kittens, he probably would've been there a long time.

And in an environment that probably would've been stressful for him.

So that's one of my favorite stories from recently that always brings us a lot of joy to talk about.

- That's great.

- Anything that sticks out for you?

- Oh, there's so many.

I mean, we've had, how can you choose?

- Yeah, - I know probably eight, 900 cats come through our door, so it's hard to choose.

- What about those ones from Team Kitten that you, you say you, you kind of pick out some that you know will be be great for the Cat Cafe.

Do you through your website or do you guys help Team Kitten in another way?

Help get those others fosters out there or So, because I know only so many can come here, - Most of the time we're doing probably 90 or 95% of the adoptions now.

Okay.

So I mean, during kitten season, more adoptions are gonna happen in the homes, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- But right now I think all of them are happening here where it's lower, you know, numbers for kitten season.

So we, we facilitate all the adoptions here and take all that through plate, talk to the adopters, go through applications and do the pickups and everything.

- And I know some people probably understand what kitten season means, but, but give us a little bit what happens honestly through all these shelters when there is that - Explosion.

Right.

So when the, in the springtime, when the weather, when the weather warms up, you know, there's a lot of baby kittens that are going to be born.

Too many baby kittens.

We're gonna, we get calls every single day.

Even in the wintertime we're getting calls for, for kittens being found.

So that's gonna be a lot of, a lot of kittens and there'll be about a hundred throughout the foster homes during kitten season.

That's, that's about, I think that's about their capacity is about a hundred to 120.

Unless we get more fosters on board to, to help out.

- So there is a way then if people want to help Foster, maybe look at a Teen Kitten website - Or Yeah, yeah.

There's a, I think there's a foster application on their website so they can help.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

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- Welcome back to Working Capital.

Okay, so we were just talking about Teen Kitten and some amazing stuff they do that helps you out, but it helps out the community.

On that note, if you do find kittens during kitten season or cats during any time of year, do not bring them into the Cat Cafe 'cause they're not ready to work yet.

They gotta train 'em to be baristas and how you make that coffee and all.

So it takes a little bit of time.

So contact Team Kitten or the Humane Shelter or someone else in your community who helps with that first step.

'cause really you guys are the, the end step to help to help home these, these precious cats.

Yeah.

And and it's pretty amazing 'cause when I walked in you're greeting all over so you see the personalities right off the bat.

Yeah.

You see the ones that kind of wanna be acrobatic on the walls.

The kids in here, they all have favorites.

I mean, they have their own chairs even.

- Yes, they do.

- I, I, I can't get over the experience here.

So when you come in, you can come in it, it is kind of a timed kind of a time ticket.

Right.

So you can reserve your time, days in advance or come in that day if there's any openings or can you walk in?

- Yeah, you can walk in any time.

On our busier days, like Saturdays especially, you want the kitten room.

I would recommend booking online 'cause it fills up all day.

- I get so, - And sometimes this room fills up every hour on Saturdays too.

So weekends, book online, walk-ins during the week.

- What's the largest amount of kittens in that room you've had and cats here in general at one time?

Yes.

What's your record or Arlis - Close?

So when we first started we would have about 12 kittens at a time.

They're under four months.

And then out here we would have about 17.

Yes.

And we, we did that for a really long time.

It was probably just the last six, seven months where we started reducing the numbers.

It was a lot of stress on the team.

Yeah.

A lot more cleaning.

- Oh yeah.

- A lot more, you know, paying attention to their health weights.

We, we check - Those every watching watching the front door.

Yes.

Front door.

Because some people find their forever home without that person knowing.

- Yes, exactly.

Yes.

So now we keep about eight kittens and 13 on this side.

So it's more manageable for us, you know, less stress on the cats and it works out great.

- And with it being a cat cafe.

So you come in, you can play with the cats, but you do have snacks.

Now they're all prepackaged.

'cause - Yes, - If we didn't do that, I don't know, I I've seen some others, we have to They're disconnected.

Yes.

And they're not all together.

It's more like one thing here and one thing here.

- Yes.

- This you can't come in and have, get your snacks, get your treats, be here with your kids.

- Yes.

- And just relax, have fun, read to some cats.

Kind of make your own day of it.

So like what do you see being people's favorites when they come in?

You also sell some little stuff if you wanna take home with your cats.

I mean, do you have a little bit of everything up front there?

- I think that people really enjoy grabbing one of our bottle drinks.

Whether it's coffee, whether it's an energy drink, whether it's the bubble tea that's been a big favorite recently sitting down, especially during nap time, that's probably the best time to have a snack.

Yeah.

Because that way they don't take it from you.

So right now, if I had a little drink and a little snack, I think I'd be all set with my friend here.

- Do now my problem is I'd curl up with this guy in my lap and then I'd fall asleep.

So.

So how nicely do you wake people up when they're falling asleep with your - Cats?

I have woken a few people up before, you know, if you're relaxed enough that you need to take a little snooze with the cat, it happens.

And I'll just poke you on the shoulder or maybe throw a cat on your head and say, alright, hope you enjoyed your nap.

Thanks for being here.

- So they come in from the, the cat from Team Kitten.

So does Team Kitten take care of, of, or you, how do the shots and, and the first rounds of vaccines, how does that work with a facility like - This?

Yeah, so Team Kitten takes care of all the medical expenses.

You know, they're initially the ones that spay, neuter, vaccinate D worm, flea medicine, all that stuff.

They do pay for the, the food in the kitten room.

And then everything else we're paying for here.

So the lights, the, the rent, the staffing, cleaning supplies, cleaning supplies, furniture, litter, pretty much everything else we pay for.

We don't keep any of the adoption fees.

That all goes back to Team Kitten to cover the medical expenses.

And then we run off the visits the Okay.

You know, sometimes we have people send reoccurring contributions to us through some of our - So you take donations?

Yes.

Both monetary.

And, and do you take supplies also?

Is there a place where they can see - Supplies you need?

Yeah, we have an Amazon wishlist and a Walmart wishlist.

So people can buy from that.

It'll come directly to us or sometimes they'll bring some, you know, litter in, carry in here, treats, things like that.

- Well, some of these success stories, like you talked about with the 10-year-old, do you have people from outta state even sending donations because of, of what they've seen online?

Because I, I know social media is huge with these kind of facilities.

'cause really, I mean that's, that's what caught my eye first is seeing these cuties out there.

- No.

Yes.

Yeah.

We do have people from far away that can't visit and they will send us some contributions or donations throughout the year and it's really nice to have that support.

- Okay.

So I walk in the door, I'm just in here for fun, but then I find one I wanna go home with.

Tell us how that process kind of works.

One, once you've fallen in love with somebody, how quickly can you go home or, or what is it, you know, how, what is that vetting process?

So they're protected also?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So how that works is anyone that's interested in adoption, we want them to come in and spend the full 50 minutes with the cats.

That way, you know, you might see one online that you, I want that one.

But then you come in and you fall in love with a different one's personality.

- It's the personality really not the look - Personality.

Right.

It's what's on the inside.

And so they come here, they spend a full 50 minutes with all of our cats and kittens.

And then one of us here will kind have a conversation with them where we get to know them.

We figure out, you know, what kind of pets do you have at home already?

Making sure we find a cat that's gonna fit their lifestyle and get along with their other pets.

And then they go online and they find the kitty that they're interested in and they fill out an application.

And then when the weekend comes around, we start going through those applications and finding those kitty's homes.

- What happens if more than one person wants the same cat?

Which I'm sure has happened before.

- Oh, it happens every - Week.

Oh, I mean, - It's hard.

Good - Problem to have.

- It's a good problem for, for, for the cats.

It's the's for the - Cats.

Yes.

Not, yeah.

- Yeah.

That is really nice to have where we can like, look through the application, say what's the best fit for the cat here?

And you know, it might be how long they're gone every day.

Or if they have other pets.

One great example is we had a cat that was very popular out here, but she was just really scared of the bigger - Cats.

She - Loved the smaller ones.

We had two applications and one had older pets at home, big older pets and one had a little four month old kitten.

So we decided to place her with the home with the younger kitten because we knew that was her preference and she would do better there.

- Yeah, - Yeah, - Yeah.

Because even the short period that you guys are with these pets, you can really start seeing personalities, seeing ones who maybe are a little more, don't wanna be around people so much or really do need to cling, - You know?

Yeah.

- 'cause some, some cats are babies who, if you're home, they're gonna wanna be on your lap.

- Exactly.

- I how do you, how do you in such short period of time and is it pretty apparent or, or how do you judge that per cat basis?

I mean, I know you're doing been doing it for a while now.

- Right.

Sometimes it's very apparent and you can get to know them very well.

Sometimes we have cats that are very shy that like to hang out in the back.

We call it their apartments and they like to hang out in there.

And a lot of times they're harder to get adopted.

But every now and then we'll have a real special person come that comes in that wants, you know, to put in the work to adopt - 'em.

- And then those shy cats will get home.

And a lot of times we get reports that they are not shy and in fact that they are quite wonderful and personable and, you know, sometimes the cat cafe can still be overwhelming for some of the, the more scared cats.

So a lot of times some cats just need to be in a quiet home.

And usually when they get there we get reports from a doctors that they've opened up and that, oh my gosh, that's like my favorite thing to hear in the world - Because I could see that.

'cause I know there's sometimes where I just, I like to be alone, so, and you need the right person to bring that outta you.

So, so that's great.

You know, you guys give them time.

There's Right.

You don't forget about any cat - Here.

Oh, never.

No, no.

My favorite ones are usually the shy ones or the ones that give me a harder time.

It's like a challenge.

- Yeah.

And, and you know, I mean they all love you, but those, you definitely see the extra love in the end because of that extra trust and them kind of coming outta their shells.

- It's always worth it.

- Where where do you see this headed in the future?

You've had such a a, a grand reception in these first almost two years.

I mean, do you see more growth here?

Do you see opportunities down the road for maybe more of these across the area?

Or what do you guys see?

I mean, I, not to put too much on you, but this is so great pressure.

- Yeah, no, I'd love for this to continue year after year and, you know, eventually find a bigger place.

And some, you know, you always, the first time you build, you do your best and then you realize the things you could have done better.

So in the future, I'd love to find a bigger place where we can, you know, make things better than we have now.

Yeah.

And would love to do that.

And then Grace is interested in opening her own cat cafe, but probably in one day, one day in Colorado.

So she's, she's learning a lot.

- Well that'll, that'll be fantastic.

Yeah.

- It is true to, to April's credit here and, and Tony, our other owner of the, you could not even begin to imagine the amount of work they put in behind the scenes.

Sometimes they're humble about it, but they work so hard day in, day out, keeping this place going.

And a lot of people, I think, oh, the cat cafes just hang out with the cats and you just get, so much work goes into this because we want the best lives for these guys and that means you gotta put a lot of work in and they, no stones goes unturned, no service goes uncleaned.

They're incredible.

Yes.

- I mean, any entrepreneur is usually a, it's a 24 hour seven day week job, but when you add in other lives, not just employees, but lives that are literally depending on you, that, that probably has kept you awake a few nights here and - There.

Oh yes.

I have a hard time stop stopping thinking about it at night.

Usually.

- Yeah.

- It'll be 9:10 PM and I'm thinking about something that happened earlier in the day.

So it's hard, hard to keep your mind off the cats.

It's a lot of - Work.

Gosh.

- And our team is, our team is really great.

The team spends probably about 10 hours a day cleaning just during the week and then on deep clean day.

And there's three of 'em.

And it's a total of, what do you think?

20 some hours?

Yeah.

Between the team, one day a week, 20 hours, they'll just, every surface - I gets - Disinfected.

It's yes, - You can tell - Work.

- I mean I, I I honestly would've thought you opened last week.

- Okay.

- You know, just, just, just 'cause the way people, a lot of people would think without going in these places.

- Yeah.

- You would expect it to wear down, but when you have a good team - Yes.

- That, that love it just as much as you do.

You know, everyone's bought in on that, that, that scheme.

So speaking of the team, so how many people work at the Cat Cafe usually?

What's, what's the, - Usually we have about six employees at once, plus me and my business partner Tony.

Oh hey.

Waking up.

- It looks like, it looks like nap time's.

Almost over might, it might be time to get another one of those copies from over here.

I know.

I just wanna play with cats now every day.

Yeah.

This is, yeah, I mean good place to practice, practice your cat wrangling for kind of our profession.

- Well, some other things that might be interesting.

We do host birthday parties and private parties.

Okay.

We did have a group from an office come last week and they just wanted some, you know, time to bond as a team and have fun.

So they rented out the space.

We've had Girl Scouts and we've had graduation parties.

So - Yeah.

Any slumber parties yet is that - We've thought about slumber parties, we just need to figure out - The logistics, figure out how much that would Yeah.

How much that extra overnight would - Cost.

- Yeah.

- Speaking of logistics, you know, a lot of, a lot of places do have, you know, they'll go to other events.

Do you ever go out in the community with a few cats, do any of these other events to kind of drum up any interest?

Or is that something that you kind of got at outta - Downtown?

Well, the one time we went with cats, we went to Lexington Park assisted living and we took the Kit kittens there and, you know, let the residents hang out with them for a couple hours.

And it was a lot of fun.

It was, it was a lot of fun.

But it's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work to take them.

Cats don't like to travel very - Much so.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

Our rescue partner team kitten, they take the cats out a lot, so they'll go to like s or other, you know, events where there's boots and then you'll find the little like kitten playpen set up and people can go and play with the kittens for a while at the event.

- So really, I mean, team Kitten is a great partner for you, but Oh yeah.

A great partner for the community.

- Oh yeah.

Yes.

They're, they're amazing.

They take in a lot of kittens that like the Humane Society can't because you, you know, sometimes you have to bottle feed every two hours and no one's gonna be there volunteering overnight.

So they go, they'll, that they'll take's - What the foster system really helps because you really do need one-on-one or - Oh yes.

- That's fantastic.

Thank you both today.

This has been a pleasure meeting both of you and meeting all these cute kittens around, like we talked about earlier.

I don't think you can leave here without having a smile on your face.

So - It's true.

It's very true.

Thank you.

Thank you.

- I hope you enjoy today's show and if you're looking for a, a fun little friend or even just a great afternoon, this is definitely a place to check out.

So don't forget about the Topeka Cat Cafe.

Thank you for watching.

It's been working.

Capital Funding for Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTW, Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation and Kansas Department of Commerce.