Don’t Stress Meowt cat coffee shop concerning Tulsa after instant success in OKC

Twain said that, when he wished to delight in “the society of cats” while on trip, he would “rent cats by the month for the summer, and return them to their good homes at the end of it.”

That is sort of the concept behind the principle of the cat coffee shop, a business where individuals can hang around engaging with — or being specifically neglected by — any variety of friendly felines for an hour approximately.

Cat coffee shops came from Taiwan in the late 1990s however truly ended up being a phenomenon in Japan, particularly in populous city locations, where pet ownership is at finest bothersome.

Today, cat coffee shops can be discovered all over the world — with Oklahoma being a significant exception.

That is something Michaela and Adam Fitzpatrick set out to correct previously this year, when the couple opened Don’t Stress Meowt, 1900 Linwood Blvd. in Oklahoma City.

And the action has actually been such that a 2nd area, this time in Tulsa, is already in the works.

“We’ve only been open for about three months, and we’ve been booked pretty solidly from the start,” Adam said. “It’s to the point where people have to take what, in my opinion, is an uncomfortable amount of advance planning to visit us. But that doesn’t seem to be a problem for a lot of people.”

Don’t Stress Meowt has anywhere from 15 to 25 cats in residence, who have the ability to wander easily in between the Cat Lounge, where approximately 8 visitors at a time might share the cats’ space for an hour, and a more personal location to which the cats can get away when they’ve had enough of the human touch.

The Cat Lounge is equipped with furnishings developed for relaxing, in addition to devices helpful for scratching, climbing up and setting down, toys to bat about, and vending devices that can give unique treats to show the pawed people.

Cost for a one-hour stay among the different members of the Felidae family is $15. A part of the profits from these costs is contributed to regional not-for-profit companies, such as Read to OKC, the literacy program of Oklahoma City Public Schools, and ReMerge, which assists ladies who have actually been through the justice system get re-established in society and with their households.

“We want this to be a platform to give back to the community and maybe make a difference in peoples’ lives,” Adam said.

Like lots of cat coffee shops in the United States, the cats at Don’t Stress Meowt originate from a rescue firm, Safe Haven Animal Rescue, an Oklahoma City not-for-profit committed to discovering houses for homeless and abandoned animals.

“So far, we’ve had about 60 cats come through the cafe,” said Michaela Fitzpatrick. “And we’ve been able to help 43 cats find permanent homes.”

While the Cat Lounge might be the apparent draw for ailurophiles, the Fitzpatricks wished to ensure that the “cafe” element of Don’t Stress Meowt cat coffee shop was treated with the very same attention to information.

“When we decided to do this, we went to a lot of cat cafes around the country, both to get ideas for what works and more importantly, for what doesn’t work,” Adam said. “In a lot of these places, maybe you can get a can of soda or a cup of coffee from a machine. We made the decision that this was going to be a full-service coffee shop as well, and I think we’re on a par with the best coffee houses in town.”

The coffeehouse part of Don’t Stress Meowt, which likewise uses baked products and sandwiches provided by a regional vegan restaurant, needs no bookings. Because of the glass wall that separates it from the Cat Lounge, coffeehouse clients can vicariously delight in seeing the cats tackling their business in the lounge if they want, or merely take care of the typical coffeehouse activities of delighting in drinks and adjusting electronic gadgets.

Adam Fitzpatrick said one element about Don’t Stress Meowt that he is personally most delighted with is the reality that it doesn’t… well… smell like a cat coffee shop.

“People think it’s magic,” he said, chuckling. “But there’s a lot of thought that went into it. My job is as a mechanical engineering manager for an architecture and engineering firm, and I’m responsible for building codes and HVAC design and indoor air quality. So much of what we did has been significantly over-engineered to avoid the smell problem. That’s truly one of the things that sets us apart.”

The Fitzpatricks said that, while they had no concept the business would show to be as effective as it has, they had actually thought about broadening to extra areas as they developed their business design.

“We also knew that Tulsa was the other logical place for a business such as this,” he said. “We spent a lot of time designing this business so that everything would be streamlined, to make it as easy as possible for our employees, and also to make it a business model we could easily replicate — so if we wanted to expand, it would almost a ‘cut-paste-revise’ situation.”

The Fitzpatricks at present have no opening date for the future Tulsa area of Don’t Stress Meowt, however they are wishing to discover an area along the stretch of 11th Street that is likewise part of historical Route 66.

One position the couple discovered particularly attractive is the 918 Coffee area, at 2446 E. 11th St. They came across it some weeks ago when hunting for possible areas, prior to the owners of the shop revealed they were retiring.

“We talked with the owners, and they came down to Oklahoma City to see what we’re doing here,” Adam said. “They are great people, and they seemed interested in what we were doing as a good concept to go into that building. But it’s still very early in the process, and it’s very much their decision as to what they want to do with the building.”

The concept of beginning a cat coffee shop business started almost as a joke, the couple said.

“Before the pandemic, I came across an offer for round-trip airline tickets to Tokyo and went ahead and bought them and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to Japan,’” Adam said. “Michaela was really hesitant about it, so the way I convinced her to go was to tell her about Tokyo Disneyland, and then I said, ‘Didn’t you say there were cat cafes in Japan? That was how I got her onboard with the idea of the trip.”

Prior to the journey, the couple checked out the South Beach location of Miami, Florida, and occurred to discover an indication marketing a cat coffee shop.

“We ended up talking with the owner, who mentioned that Oklahoma was something of a ‘cat cafe desert,’” Adam said. “A short time later, we were having dinner with my mother, and this came up, and she said, ‘Well, why don’t you start one?’ And she laughed, like it was just a joke. But I ended up just running with it, and within a week, we had a business plan.

“Once we put it out on social media, that we were going to do it, things just blew up, and we knew that it was something we had to do,” he said.

That prepared journey to Tokyo, nevertheless, never ever occurred, as the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to such journeys.

“But we’re absolutely going to get to Tokyo,” Adam said. “It’s now more important than ever, because we have our own cat cafe now.”

“And I still want to go to Tokyo’s Disneyland,” Michaela included, chuckling. “That’s just as important.”