Regal Cat Café opens its doors (PHOTOS)

Jun 25 2017, 8:36 am

Ready for some good news right meow? Regal Cat Café is now open, and you can now get your caffeine kick with a side of cat cuddles.

With local food vendors like the Purple Pastry Chef and Ollia Macarons and Tea supplying decadent treats including macarons with cat ears and drinks supplied by Tearrific and Coffee Concept, it doesn’t take much purr-suasion to visit Kensington’s Regal Cat Café.

Regal Cat Cafe

Milena Petrovic/Daily Hive

Proud furr-parents of four cats and owners of Calgary’s first cat café, Tia and Kevin Wieler are the husband and wife duo that wanted to bring together their love for coffee, community, and cats to Calgary.

“Tia wanted more cats and I kept saying four is enough so now with this space she gets more time with more cats,” Kevin says laughing.

Regal Cat Cafe Calgary

Milena Petrovic/Daily Hive

From the idea of the café to opening the doors, the project took just over a year to complete. Tia and Kevin reached out to the MEOW Foundation, a cat-specialized humane society with a no-kill policy—a policy that Tia and Kevin support.

Debbie Nelson, director of operations at the MEOW Foundation says: “It didn’t take us long to say yes.”

Regal Cat Cafe Calgary

Milena Petrovic/Daily Hive

Celebrating its 17th anniversary this July, the MEOW Foundation fills up the cat hangout known as the Kitty Kingdom with up to 10 well socialized cats that can be adopted through the MEOW Foundation’s website.

All cats are vaccinated, micro-chipped, spayed or neutered with adoption days hosted every two weeks.

Regal Cat Cafe Calgary

Milena Petrovic/Daily Hive

Mattson and Company worked closely with Tia to design the vibrant, light-soaked space with the cats and café culture in mind.

The Kitty Kingdom is separated from the café area by a glass wall that lets the felines get all the attention without the bustle of the café crowds. The vivid turquoise floor, crisp white walls, and gold accents give the space a modern feel.

Regal Cat Cafe Calgary

Milena Petrovic/Daily Hive

Filled with scratching posts, toys, nooks, and climbing structures, the Kitty Kingdom that makes up most of the storefront gives the felines the chance to flaunt their cat-itudes to 10 Street passerbys as much as they do to café visitors.

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To enter the Kitty Kingdom, you must reserve a spot and pay $10 that goes towards maintaining the space and caring for the cats. When the cat queens and kings need to take a break from cuddling they can escape through a hole in the wall to a thoughtfully designed resting nook where only staff can visit.

Regal Cat Cafe Calgary

Milena Petrovic/Daily Hive

You can bring your coffee into the Kitty Kingdom—a place where smiles are guaranteed to spread and plenty of purring is heard. “We want people to come here and relax,” Kevin says.

There are plenty of cat-commodities sold like cat shaped mugs, typography shirts with feline-praising mottos written like ‘Cat Hair is My Glitter’, cat themed colouring books, and cards. This is a place where we all go to become (if you already aren’t) a crazy cat lady.

Regal Cat Cafe

Milena Petrovic/Daily Hive

Open 9 am to 9 pm every day of the week, you’ll find it easy to make plans to hang with the cats often.

Regal Cat Café

Address: 303- 10th Street NW

Instagram: @regalcatcafe

Milena PetrovicMilena Petrovic

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