Cat Cafés Are Finally Here

If you're snuggled up in your favorite coffeehouse or café with a page-turner and a hazelnut cappuccino you're only missing one thing: a cat on your lap.

At least that's what enough people think to create a market for it and it's finally happening in the U.S., according to the Huffington Post.

The San Francisco Bay area is getting America's first and second cat cafés, KitTea in San Francisco and Cat Town Cafe in Oakland.

Both are only in the planning phases and will function a little differently than Starbucks, but pending health code approval, the business concpet from Japan and parts of Europe will be a reality.

KitTea will specialize in sustainably sourced teas and rescue cats from two shelters who have agreed to partner with the café.

"What really drew me to the concept was the idea of a space that was relaxing and didn't have a high frenetic energy like coffee houses do," Courtney Hatt, one of the founders, told Time. "If this can be successful, I think there will definitely be people who follow suit ... It's going to be pretty big."

Cat Town Cafe will be a non-profit extension of Oakland's Cat Town shelter and will focus more on adoptions, according to the Huffington Post. Right now it has an indiegogo campaign raising funding for it.

The first cat café opened in Taiwan in 1998 and Japan has more than 150 today, according to the Huffingotn Post.

Founders say the cafés will take every health precaution. Walls will separate food-ordering areas from cat-interaction space, cat consultants will be hired, litter boxes will have their own area.