Sacramento region’s only cat cafe just opened — a long-awaited place to paw around

Cat Tales Feline Health Center fills 4,039 square feet in Davis’ Anderson Plaza shopping center, twice as large as most cat-focused veterinary practices. Yet customers, many of whom don’t own cats, show up for a small, cramped room adjacent to the lobby.

Opened on Dec. 16 at 606 W. Covell Blvd., Cat Tales is home to Tabby Tea Cat Lounge & Adoption Center, the Sacramento region’s first cat cafe. It’s a long-awaited place for cat lovers to get their feline fix — and maybe come home with a new pet.

Owners Julie Cole and Chris Shacoski, who also run the attached veterinary clinic, keep up to four adoptable cats at a time in Tabby Tea from the Yolo County Animal Shelter. Hourlong visits to the cat cafe can be reserved online and cost $10, including the customer’s choice of seltzer, tea, yerba mate, kombucha or coffee.

That price is designed to attract UC Davis students, who might miss their cats back home or aren’t able to adopt. Even cat-owning students such as Laura Ellison, a senior studying animal science at UC Davis and a veterinary assistant at a nearby clinic, may visit to play with others.

“I think cats in general are just very therapeutic to be around ... especially for people that don’t have pets,” Ellison said. “I know I was still in my freshman year at UC Davis, some place like this would be definitely a big help, especially with general school stress.”

To keep a calm, rescue-friendly environment, Tabby Tea only allows children when accompanied by an adult. Guests are asked to dangle toys from wands rather than handle cats with their bare hands, and keep from waking any felines sleeping in their circular nooks.

Overstimulated cats can retreat to a visitor-free area through a small door to recharge their social batteries. The rest of the veterinary is designed to soothe cats: phones don’t ring, machines don’t beep and all animals’ eyes in decorative paintings face away from the real-life veterinary patients.

“This whole clinic was designed from the moment it was dreamed up with only cats in mind,” Shacoski said. “In most (animal) hospitals, cats just fit into the dog world. The colors on the walls, the fact that it’s calm and quiet, everything we do, the way our staff is trained, the way we handle the cats is all the latest knowledge base for treating cats the best.”

The world’s first known cat cafe opened in Taiwan in 1998, sparking a craze across Asia and, later, the United States. Cole and her daughter visited their first cat cafe in Salt Lake City and fell in love with idea, adding similar businesses to their itineraries for Florida vacations and driving to Chico Cat Cafe, KitTea Cat Lounge in San Francisco and Cat Town in Oakland closer to home.

Cat cafes, however, have struggled to take off in the Sacramento region. Capital Cat Cafe first teased its opening to huge fanfare in 2021; more than three years later, the aspiring Boulevard Park business has yet to open its doors, bedeviled by one delay after another.

A previous Davis concept called the Pawrlor hosted some pop-ups but called it quits in 2018 before its brick-and-mortar location could open, citing issues with its building and a lack of funding. Lincoln has Champy’s Catfe in FieldHaven Marketplace, where beverage service has been discontinued but customers can bring in outside drinks while playing with adoptable rescues. Bradshaw Animal Shelter in Mather had a small cafe prior to the pandemic, which has also been nixed.

Tabby Tea, thus, has essentially no regional competition. But its greatest business advantage is that the owners don’t need it to make money.

Cat Tales’ veterinary care will generate far more revenue than Tabby Tea’s $10 covers ever could, Shacoski said. The owners are at the tail end of their careers — both came out of retirement to start Cat Tales, in fact — and included Tabby Tea in the business simply because they wanted a cat cafe in Davis.

“We’ve been vets for a long time. We’ve owned practices. We’ve done OK, and we really just want to give back to the community,” Shacoski said. “We’re not worried about making money from the cat cafe. In fact, if we ever generate any income, we’re giving it away.”

Cole and Shacoski were already interested in opening a cat cafe when Shacoski caught wind that a group of Da Vinci Charter Academy high school students had pitched a similar business proposal for a class project based on the TV show “Shark Tank.”

The couple met with the students and incorporated several of their ideas into Tabby Tea, including the logo and serving prepackaged boba tea. They’ve also donated money to help start a Pets And Wellness Sessions (PAWS) program through Meals on Wheels Yolo County, which would deliver pet food to people in need and establish “senior hours” at the cat cafe.

For now, Tabby Tea Cat Lounge & Adoption Center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Visit Cat Tales’ website at cattalesdavis.com to book a slot.

This story was originally published January 20, 2025 at 5:00 AM.