Chicago’s very first Catcade (cat café) is open and people are excited for it.  That’s because nearly half of students surveyed say they have a rescue cat at home! 

In a random survey of 100 students, 56% said that they have a rescue cat at home while 44% said no, they do not have a rescue cat.  In the past year of 2018 Chicago had open their very first Cat café/ adoption center open. The Catcade lounge is located at 1235 W Belmont Ave. The Catcade is a lounge for people to go in to have a drink and relax with the cats. The lounge takes responsibilities to rescue the stray cats and keeping them in a safe warm place with food, bed, and toys. The lounge serves food such as pizza, coffee, and other goods. Also, there is an arcade gaming room for customers to enjoy. The rescue lounge accepts donations to stock food litter and medical care to the cats. “Our mission is to rescue cats from life-threating situations as high-skilled shelters and to find friendly, quality homes for them through our adoption program,” said a quote from the Catcade website.  

“The organization decided to open one here because every day there are cats abandoned and homeless and we are trying the best to rescue as many and hope to be adopted,” said Kate Johnson Catcade supervisor. 

There are over 100,000 homeless cats in the state of Illinois; the cat cade stated that there have been 250 adoptions in the past year of 2018. 

“We have rescued about the total of 290 cats over the past year also counting the ones that have been adopted,” said Kate. 

Besides the location being a rescue department, it’s also a lounge and arcade for gaming; you can enjoy and spare time with the company of the cats and the entertainment of playing in the arcade. 

“We always make sure that the cats won’t hop around the tables, and we always keep them well behaved; we distract them with the toys that we have, and we always tell the customers to not feed the cats the (people) food that they have,” said worker assistant Eric Wallace.   

There are many types of cats that are homeless throughout Chicago. Catcade rescue states that they have been receiving many kinds of different breeds. 

“The most common breed we receive is the domestic medium hair cats, we do get some Persian cats and American bobtail cats,” said Kate. 

Catcade rescue lounge arcade is a great place for the environment and for the animals. The location is usually busy on the weekends when family visit and adopt cats. The lounge hopes that for the year 2019 the adoption ratio can increase so that cats can live in a safe home forever.