Perfect Purrcolation: Wasilla Teen Opens Cat Café

“Everything other than paying for staff and overhead all goes in [the nonprofit]. There’s not a penny that goes to our pocket. Tahlya doesn’t even get a paycheck. She will—hopefully, eventually; we’ve got to get into that point. But right now, it’s just a labor of love for her,” says Tara.

As Alaska’s first (and currently only) cat café, setting the admittance price was tricky: how to keep it reasonable while also helping cover the costs that go along with cat care and adoption? Tara has more than a little monetary wisdom—she’s the owner of Alaska Tax Lady, next door to the Alaska Cat Café—and said they tried to strike a balance. A half hour in the Cat Cottage is $10, a full hour is $15. That’s on par with other cat cafés: the Hawai’i Cat Café charges $21 for an hour. Seattle Meowtropolitan collects $19 for a 50-minute session (or $29 for a one-hour yoga session with cats). Cat Town in Oakland, California, which claims to be the first cat café in the United States, charges $14 for a 50-minute session with the cats.

The money gets visitors through the two-door entry and into the lounge area, where there are tables and chairs, a comfy couch, and, of course, cats. How many furry felines are there varies by the day, but local laws limit the total. Cat Cottage is not an animal rescue—it partners with animal rescue groups—so up to five full-grown cats can be there at once, and unlimited kittens, up to six months old.

“There are also resident cats here, which are cats owned by Tahlya and myself,” Tara notes. A white and orange cat, Nermal, falls into this category. He’s the designated cat mentor, she says. He takes the kittens under his proverbial wing and shows them how to navigate the Cat Cottage—litterboxes are upstairs, nap areas abound, no need to be afraid of the people, and if a cat gets overwhelmed, a cat door provides an escape to a quiet place away from people.

Finding Homes and Funding

As one might expect, staff working in the café enjoy helping out in the Cat Cottage. But there’s always at least one staff member overseeing cat visits, to make sure cats are safe and to answer questions. A frequent question: Can I take this one home?

The answer is generally that most cats—aside from the “house” cats—are adoptable, but sometimes there’s a waiting period. One policy of the Cat Cottage is that all cats must be spayed or neutered before they can head to new homes. While the surgery doesn’t have an age limit, it does have a weight limit: a kitten must weigh two pounds before it can be spayed or neutered. For some kittens, like tiny Nacho Tot who just hit the one-pound mark, adoption might be a few weeks away.

The adoption price—$195 per cat—doesn’t cover the cost of the spay or neuter procedure, let alone vaccinations, food, litter, and other costs. Ask any animal rescue organization: fees generally don’t cover operational costs.

In the two months the café has been open, about a dozen cats have been adopted, and Tahlya has learned a lot of lessons. One kitten had health difficulties and it died, which was a tough loss for the staff, and the Cat Cottage had to shut down for ten days while a necropsy ruled out any health concerns for the other cats. The kitten was ultimately diagnosed as failing to thrive, which can affect up to 30 percent of kittens but isn’t a spreadable disease. Throughout the shutdown, the café side was still open—but without the ability to make reservations for cat visits, business was slow.

“I think we ended up spending about $8,000 out of our pockets to keep [the café running],” Tara says.

Tahlya and her parents have built partnerships with veterinarians—they partner with Animalitos Clinic in Palmer, which offers low-cost spay, neuter, and other basic veterinary services, and with VCA Far Country Animal Hospital in Palmer, which provides kitten well-checks, deworming, and vaccinations. Far Country trained Tahlya to administer vaccinations herself, which helps defray costs, but vet bills are still one of the largest expenses of the Cat Cottage. Grants or partnerships might offset some of the nonprofit costs, and Tahlya recently decided to start classes to become a veterinary technician. For now, the Cat Café and Cat Cottage are a labor of love—and a learning experience for everyone involved.