Upon visiting Happy Cat Cafe, I looked at each word individually. Happy? Check. Cat? Lots of them. Cafe? Debatable.

Walking in, I was met with two doors. One had a paper sign instructing to enter that one to check in. The other was equipped with a window looking into a room filled with exactly what the store name promised: cats.

Walking in the “check-in-door,” I was met with a typical coffee-house setting. There were welcoming seats and a coffee bar where I was able to reserve my half hour time slot to enjoy my time with the cats. The only thing missing in this situation was the espresso machine. While they did provide a few bottled drinks and Keurig machine, that was the extent of the “cafe” part of Happy Cat Cafe.

When it was my time to play with the cats, I walked into the room filled with sleeping young cats, plenty of seating, and no smell. I was extremely surprised that the scent that hit me was not that of litter boxes or cats, but a subtle lemon.

The worker in the room stayed in the corner, only jumping in to explain what the cat’s name was or if one or the other liked being picked up. The cats were cuddly and each was available for adoption. One wall was painted with chalkboard paint, and it explained the Cafe’s social media handles and that since they opened roughly a month ago, twelve cats had been adopted.

All of the cats Happy Cat receives are from the organization Carol’s Ferals. Some of the cats ended up there because they were too domesticated to be placed back into the wild. There they can feel lots of love until the right person comes along and decides to give them a forever home.

Even though there isn’t an elaborate coffee bar, that isn’t the mission of Happy Cat Cafe. Their main goal is to provide a loving environment for cats down on their luck. They do an excellent job of doing so, and I look forward to seeing how many lives they impact.