Katy’s Cat Café owner Marian Morcos, 26, was inspired to open her purring parlor—named after her 17-year-old Russian blue cat—after visiting a cat café in Denver when she was 18. Although these cafés, which foster and help with cat adoptions, started in the 1990s in Taiwan, they spread to the U.S. and have taken off in the last five years, offering comfort to humans as well as homes for felines.

At Katy’s, one side of the space is a beverage and ice cream outlet, where you can view, but not physically hang out with the cats. A separate entrance takes you into the “cat lounge,” where for $20 per visit or $128 for a monthly membership (which includes a 50 percent discount on beverages), you can cuddle adoptable cats and kittens lazing about. If you fall in love with one, you can submit an adoption application to Satchel’s Last Resort, which has assisted with eight adoptions from the cat café already.

Morcos knows the fees sound steep. “We are trying to give our cats the best care and attention that they could possibly have while they’re here with us,” she says. Morcos is also adding fun programming, such as cat yoga; sound baths, in which cats and humans enjoy calming reverberations from sound bowls; and Qigong, the Chinese practice of calming movement and breath control, complemented by, you guessed it, cats.

But are cat cafés hygienic? Never fear. Morcos explains that cleanliness is of utmost importance, and she has full clearance from Sarasota’s Department of Health. The litter boxes are in a separate room only accessible by the cats, and dedicated employees clean nonstop.

KATY’S CAT CAFÉ | 1490 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota, katyscatcafe.com

Cat Café Facts

No. of cat cafés in the U.S.: 280

No. of cat cafés in Florida: 25

Florida’s ranking among U.S. states with cat cafés: 1

Opening of first cat café: 1998 in Taipei, Taiwan

Opening of first U.S. cat café: 2014 in Alabaster, Alabama

Source: thatcatlife.com, July 2025