The Cafe Industry has been changing from time to time. It is all begun with who is making the best coffee and tea in the town??? As time passed, people are getting richer these days, normally branded cafe shop like Starbucks will dominate the cafe industry because consumer's mindset is they paid for quality by recognizing a brand.
Therefore, small cafe business is unlikely to compete with those branded cafe in a city. Then suddenly, human being are intelligent enough to save their cafe business by introducing THEME Cafe. Such that, the interior design and decoration become the primary attraction. It can be some cultural theme where the cafe filled with the traditional design or perhaps pop culture theme would be more popular like anime, manga, Hello Kitty and etcs.
For the pop culture theme like Manga theme, consumers can just enjoy their coffee while reading the manga other than the interior decoration with the posters and mange-themed furniture and utensil. Or perhaps, Taiwanese most famous theme cafe is the Toilet-themed cafe. Other than the utensil and furniture that are familiar in our bathrooms, their food and drink also look like those bio-material that we dumped in the toilet.
However, such business is harder to be sustained if the cafe owners are not creative and innovative enough to upgrade their business. On the order hand, consumers won't forget that their secondary reason to enter the theme cafe is the drinks and food. Even though the theme may attract the consumers, their first visit probably will be their last if the food and drink are not satisfied. In my experience, normally less than 30% of the theme cafe I know outside of Japan could survive their business more than 2 years. The first year of operation is like a major success however the following years, their sales were declining exponentially eventually they just shut down their business once they can't afford the rent.
Now the cafe industry has the popular cartoon/bizarre themed cafe and the traditional BRANDED cafe that are dominating. If the entrepreneurs are not creative and innovative, indeed, they can't really compete any of them so someone from (Japan or Taiwan) come up an idea of CAT CAFE ???
Cat Cafe is unique because probably the first time cafe industry involved real animal and this animal is as common as a typical pet available in any home. Indeed, it is a fresh idea and it definitely attract a lot of cat lovers.
So how does Cat Cafe operate???
There are many style but the most common style is are you lucky enough to get the cat attention. In the whole cafe, the cat are allowed to move everywhere except the exit of course. They can just do whatever they want so it is up to the user effort to get the cat's attention.
Depend which Cat cafe, this is how they charge:
Based on my experience in Hong Kong <貓の茶房>:
1st Hour included a drink is HKD60 (about USD 7.77 based on April 2016)
Subsequent hour would be HKD30 (about USD 3.87 based on April 2016)
Additional item like food included cat food would be further charged.
So what can we do in the cat cafe??
Since it is a cafe, we can order food and drink.
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| Special Green Tea is FREE Hot Dog is extra charge Location: 貓の茶房 |
Even you are able to carry them, they can just leave immediately if they simply dislike you as you know, the nickname of cat owners is cat slave.
If you are lucky or you got your own pick up trick, then simultaneously you will enjoy both food/drink and the cats. However, my experience is that more than 50% of the customers may not really enjoy playing with the cat since it is the cat that select us as their "slave" not us. Most of the time, customers would feel like they pay the price, just to see the cats while enjoying the tea and chatting with their friends. Not many customers I recalled was able to play with the cats.
Really need to do research in order to enjoy your visit to cat cafe unless you have experience with cat. Therefore, my next topics will be dedicated to cat cafe visitors who want to maximize their pleasure in the cat cafe.
Stay tuned to my next topic:
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