By 
Note: The Tiny Beans Kitten Lounge pop-up in Venice is now closed. It was a total success and all the kittens were adopted! Make sure you visit Cat Cafe Lounge in West LA.
OMG, out of all the places I’ve reviewed, this is probably my most memorable one to date.
For a while, Cat Cafe Lounge had been on my radar. In mid-July, I reached out to Kristi Labrenz, owner and founder of Cat Cafe. To my surprise, she was gearing up for the opening of a new pop-up space in Venice: Tiny Beans Kitten Lounge! I was lucky to go there the day before their official opening day at the beginning of August.
Since it was a pop-up location, the space was a lot smaller than their original location in West LA, but you still had ample space to play and interact with the kittens. I also sat down with Kristi, where she shared with me the story of Cat Cafe and her mission behind her business.
“We are Tiny Beans Kitten Lounge which is our kitten lounge spin-off to help with adoptions during kitten season. Cat Cafe Lounge in West LA has been around since 2018. We formed it as a non-profit, we are the only non-profit cat cafe/kitten lounge in Los Angeles.
Our main focus is to try to get these guys adopted. Everything we do is for them to have an outlet to be able to find good homes quickly and continue the process of pulling in more kittens that need more help and getting them adopted. We work with Stray Cat Alliance who supplies the cats and kittens, and we basically provide them with an adoption facility, but we are completely independent.”
I’m not going to lie, as someone who hasn’t grown up with cats, nor am I in contact with cats on a regular basis, it was intimidating as hell to go into a space with 19 kittens and cats. Since they are so tiny and delicate, I was also very cautious about holding them.
Note: In order to maximize the cleanliness of the space, socks are mandatory. If you don’t bring them, they offer disposable ones.
Fun is a HUGE understatement. First of all, when I walked out of this place I felt as if I had just had a massage followed by breathwork meditation. I felt like all my worries had vanished, and I also felt very exhausted. My happy chemicals were at an all-time high. It truly does have beneficial psychological effects.
The cats I bonded with the most were Pomelo, a female orange and white tabby kitten, and this gorgeous sibling duo.
You could say that Pomelo and I made a special connection. My experience with Pomelo dispels all myths that cats are frivolous and cold.
The hardest part about going to Kitten Lounge was leaving. Towards the end of my visit, Pomelo sat on my lap. After a while, I delicately placed her aside so that I could get going, but she came back and wouldn’t let me go! The employee finally took Pomelo off my lap, and this was the look she gave me:
Pomelo also had a sibling named Key Lime. After my visit I was happy to learn that both kittens were adopted. I will admit I was a little sad, but I’m really proud they found a permanent home where they’ll receive endless love and affection.
This tabby sibling duo was also adorable. One of them also sat on my lap. After my visit, I learned the term “bonded pair”, which refers to cats who have a significant relationship and must be adopted together. Imagine ripping one of these beautiful tabbies away from their sibling. I just wouldn’t be able to do it.
💖💖💖💖💖💖😭😭😭😭
They’re just so regal and beautiful without even trying! There were too many cute moments to list, but probably one of the top moments was when Pomelo snuggled alongside them.
Besides the overwhelmingly cute cats, it was so interesting to learn about cat psychology and how their personalities are not that different from humans.
Just like humans, if you put 20 cats in a space not all of them will get along. I was surprised to see how a few cats hissed at each other when they got in their personal space. That’s a way for a cat to set their boundaries.
Many of the cats come from a lot of trauma, which is why there were a few of them that didn’t want to be petted. There was a space in the back for shy cats that were not ready to socialize yet.
The cats at Tiny Beans Kitten Lounge didn’t just come to me, in a way, I “worked” for their affection by first petting them and reading their body language. There’s a funny saying: “Dogs have owners, cats have personal assistants”, which I can attest to after my experience.
After my visit to Kitten Lounge, I immersed myself in cat articles and videos, like how to know when a cat trusts you and likes you.
When a cat curls up next to you and exposes its belly, it means he/she trusts you. When they are squinting their eyes, that’s their way of smiling and telling you they feel safe.
This tuxedo cat woke up when I sat next to him. When he lay down right next to me and I could feel his body revving up like a motor, which basically means happy and comfortable in cat language, aka purring.
I recommend watching this Youtube video by celebrity cat behaviorist, Jackson Galaxy, in which he thoroughly explains the how-tos of petting a cat! This video was actually filmed at Cat Cafe Lounge! He also had a long running show on Animal Planet called My Cat From Hell! What a great show. If you’re interested, you can watch it on Youtube.
Since you have a limited amount of time, if a cat doesn’t want to be petted, don’t stay fixed on him/her. Just move on. This is a great way to ensure you meet and interact with the kitties.
I wasn’t the only one there who didn’t have a pet at home. Morgan, one of the employees, didn’t have a pet either because of the no-pet policy in her apartment complex and because her husband was allergic to cats. Cynthia was a woman who, just like me, also got to experience Tiny Beans Kitten Lounge before the opening day. She said she did not have the time nor the commitment to own a cat because of her job. So we were a few examples of the type of people that might become regulars at Tiny Beans. Of course, the other important target customer is someone looking to adopt a cat.
If you don’t have a cat but you’re thinking about it, this is the perfect way to get familiar with cats and maybe bond with them before you take them home. And if you can’t have a cat, but you want to get a slice of cat heaven, this place, alongside the flagship store, are the ideal places to get the experience.
Kristi ensures the cats are not overstimulated by controlling the inflow of people and by having a space in the back for those cats that don’t want to socialize. She said: “Imagine if someone was talking to you all day long.” It’s nice they do this so the cats can have a break. I like how they never force the cats to socialize. For example, a few cats were just curled up in their little caves and didn’t leave while I was there.
Before you make the trip to Abbot Kinney or the flagship location in West LA, make sure you make a reservation. She said:
“If our reservations haven’t filled up for the day, we will accept walk-ins. But if you’re going to come all the way down to Abbot Kinney or our other location, guarantee your entrance (by making a reservation) so that you don’t have to wait in line or wait for further availability.”
Kristy really hit the nail in the head with the location. Abbot Kinney is known for its trendy boutiques and restaurants, and I’m pretty sure a storefront with kittens will have Angelenos and tourists alike flocking to Tiny Beans Kitten Lounge.
While I was playing with the kittens and interviewing Kristi, a lot of passersby stared through the window with big smiles on their faces, eager to come in. Many of them knocked on the door in hopes to join us, but they were told that opening day would be the following day. I wonder if the reservations filled up immediately after the amount of people coming in interested in learning more about the place.
Here’s the rest of my interview with Kristi.
Cat Cafe is our permanent space and this one is a three-month, lifesaving kitten event, just to try to move the very large population of kittens that are in Los Angeles right now. We might be able to stay here long term, we’re just kind of waiting to see how it goes on Abbot Kinney. Hopefully we’re accepted (laughs).
I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but there’s over 3 million stray cats in Los Angeles and there’s not enough resources to manage all of that and to save them all. There’s a lot of suffering and a lot of death unfortunately. We used to do kitten parties at the Cat Cafe (flagship location), but I was like, how do we do this bigger to provide a long term facility for kittens? The way of thinking about the purpose of a kitten lounge is inserting ourselves into the pipeline of the rescue process. Their bottleneck is that fosters get home with adoptable age kittens and then those fosters can go and help the rescue with kittens that actually need to be in a foster home. That’s why we have this facility, so that when the kittens are of adoption age, they then will relocate here to get adopted, so they can continue to pull those kittens out of the shelter or from the street.
All the adoption applications go through Stray Cat Alliance:
Stray Cat Alliance is the rescue partner, also a nonprofit 501c3. They have been in rescue for over 10 years. Adoptions go through them and their process. We help help increase their lifesaving by providing a fun space for people to visit and interact with and get to know the cat before adopting.
At their other facility, you will be able to enjoy a cup of coffee while playing with the cats!
Since their Venice location is still in development, Kristi said:
We hope to potentially do cans of Kombucha, cold brew coffee like matcha, lattes and things like that. We also need to keep an eye on what’s going on with COVID because there’s a lot of shifts happening again. But long term, we hope to be able to keep the space after the landlord makes some improvements at the latter part of the year and then if that’s the case, we will build a small cafe here. Just to have that comfort that people enjoy when they come to our cat cafe. When you welcome someone over to your house, what’s the first thing you do? you offer them a beverage right? That’s our same mentality. If you’re going to come into our house with our sweet babies to interact with them, meet our team, and hear about what we’re trying to do in the community to save cats, we want you to have a beverage while you’re doing that and feel relaxed and hopefully relax enough to where you are comfortable, you’re snuggling with the cats and the next thing you know you’re like, I would like to have this experience in my house.
What’s your background?
I’m originally from Texas, just outside of Houston. Growing up, cats would always come into our yard. They must have known that we were the suckers on the block and knew that we were going to take them in. I remember this one cat Buster, he would always sneak into the boat that my dad had. I sat on the boat after school, just waiting for Buster, and we were BFFS. This was in middle-school, and then eventually, he ended up migrating into our house and became our sweet kittie indoor cat.
I grew up with cats my entire life. Ironically, when I was in high school, I developed an allergy towards cats, dogs, and pretty much everything. I’m still allergic to cats, but I love them dearly, I’ve had them throughout my childhood. I had my own first when I was in college, it was a rescue cat whose mom had abandoned him on a farm.
I worked with Hersheys in sales and marketing, so I had a good corporate background. That was after graduating from University of Texas, with a business degree. After that I worked for Beyond Meat, and that really taught me the start-up mentality. I just learned that I’m cut out for figuring things out, challenges and getting through those challenges. Then I went to Japan, I went to a cat cafe there.
I said to my friends and husband, why don’t we have this in the US? This is the perfect way to get cats adopted, because people can really see their true personalities, and they live a stress-free life there, which is important to me as a vegan and as an animal welfare enthusiast. I started researching in 2015 after that trip. There were five in the US. There was not one in LA at the time, and I was like, we’re doing it. That’s all I needed as a proof point, so I just dove in. I worked at a rescue short-term to learn more about what the challenges are, cat colony management, and try to learn more about being a responsible business individual going into a new enterprise so to speak.
Do you have any cats?
I have three now, all of them are foster fails. When I lost Charles, it was actually at the beginning stages of our cat cafe. He got really sick with cancer and we did everything that we could. Then I fostered, because I knew fostering was going to help save more lives and that’s what was important to me. So I fostered, and we just couldn’t send them back (laughs). So Earl and Lucas are my two babies, and then we ended up fostering to adopt another one (Rusty). This one was actually at the Cat Cafe. He was an undersocialized boy and it turned out he had pemphigus, which is an autoimmune disease and can be difficult to treat. We took him in to give him the care that he needed and he’s now a completely different boy. It definitely took us probably about two years. Yesterday he was snuggling with my husband. I was blown away. He’s changed so so much, he’s such a lovely little boy. My husband is like, “no more! You have a cat cafe, no more!” (laughs).
(end of interview)
I had an amazing experience. If you had told me five years ago that I would become a cat enthusiast, I would have looked at you in utter disbelief. My sister, who lives in Japan, has been a cat lover since childhood. I just never understood her affection towards cats. Fast forward to 2017, I had my first cat experience at my former boss’ house. She had a beautiful Norwegian Forest cat. I was very uneasy on the first few days, but we ended up becoming besties and she loved when I petted her. That was what sparked my love of cats.
There’s a video on Youtube where two women who didn’t like cats were challenged to work at a cat cafe for three days. Both of them ended up crying because they formed very strong bonds with the cats. Do cats have magic powers to cast spells on humans to make people love them? Who knows, but apparently there is a strong correlation between cats and energy vibrations! After interacting with cats, I just felt so good. They’re magnificent stress relievers. Here’s an article that delves more deeply into the healing powers of cats and why many ancient civilizations held them in such high regard.
I do plan on getting a cat (or two) down the line. However, given my busy lifestyle and my 9 to 5 job, I can’t commit to having a pet and not giving him/her the proper time and attention.
I also went to my local bookstore and bought the book The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. You could say that after my visit I became a little obsessed with them.
Have you ever been to a cat cafe?
Follow @CATCAFELOUNGE on IG and book your visit on their website here.
Tiny Beans Kitten Lounge address: 1522 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291
Cat Cafe Lounge address: 1736 S Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025
