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‘A sanctuary for humans and cats’: How Boston finally got a cat cafe
It can be challenging to open any small business in Boston — but a cat cafe? Here's how A Sanctuary Cafe in Beacon Hill made it happen.
On a sunny day in Beacon Hill, a flurry of furry activity was underway at A Sanctuary Cafe.
Simon (an orange tabby) traipsed around the store, weaving in between visitors’ legs “like your annoying little brother,” said cat lounge manager Celyta Jackson. Leopold Macintosh (everyone calls him “Mac”) slumbered quietly in a ball by the entryway. And Elinor sat in the front window sunning herself, gently fielding the swoop of oncoming hands. Each of the store’s 16 cats has their own distinct personality, backstory, and important role in Boston’s only cat cafe.
Located at 80 Charles Street, the cat cafe is a place for people to play and visit with the permanent “resident” cats, sip coffee and nibble on pastries, and browse books – although not all in the same space.
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The business is Beacon Hill’s first cat cafe, and only the second in the city of Boston: the city’s first cat cafe, Purr Cafe, opened in Brighton in 2017 but closed two years later after becoming mired in controversy.
While it’s not the first of its kind in Boston, the cat cafe is certainly a one-of-a-kind business, bringing together three distinct yet related cozy concepts.
“There’s sort of a natural synergy to the three. When people come in, they’ll sometimes joke it’s kind of like the Holy Trinity: cats, coffee, and books,” cafe manager Grayson Pitt told me over the phone, laughing.
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The bookstore-cafe portion of the store opened to the public in July of 2024, and the cat lounge followed in November. Owner Brittany Baker said the public reception to the business has been overwhelmingly positive.
“The majority of the feedback we’re getting is really, really great and supportive and wonderful,” she said.
What it takes to open a cat cafe in Boston
Baker spent more than two years getting the necessary permitting for the cafe, navigating red tape and delays in the process.
Rezoning the space to allow the cafe and cat lounge was “a long and challenging process,” Baker said. But eventually, on Dec. 6, 2022, the city’s Zoning Board of Appeal unanimously approved Baker’s request for the cat lounge portion of the shop.
Where it got tricky was working with the Health Department on getting variance, a permission to deviate from the standard requirements of the zoning code, for the space, she said.
“We did go through an extensive back and forth with the Health Department before getting the variance that allows us to have animals on the premises,” Baker added.
The space is split between two levels: the top features a floor-to-ceiling “window wall” at the front of the store that separates the cats from the bookstore and cafe portion in the back. The cat lounge is only accessible through a double-door vestibule with self-closing doors to prevent the cats from escaping, Baker said. The space is retrofitted with a split HVAC system to prevent cat hair and dander from entering the cafe-bookstore space.
Once inside the cat lounge, visitors can descend a staircase to enter the second floor below, a quieter parlor for both cats and humans to relax and recharge – and to watch a video on repeat of mice, fish, or birds playing on a TV in the corner.
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She said she hopes A Sanctuary Cafe will set a precedent for businesses like hers that push the envelope.
“It is certainly my hope that things will be easier for similar businesses in the future, as a zoning category now exists and the Health Department has established requirements to confirm complete separation of the spaces,” she said in an email.
How much does a cat lounge reservation cost?
Cat lounge reservations start with an online booking for a one-hour session. During the weekdays, the price for a reservation starting in February is $40 and $45 on the weekends, with a $10 credit for each guest to use in the cafe.
It’s not lost on Baker or her staff that the price of a cat lounge reservation might not be accessible for everyone.
“We know that this price point isn’t pocket change for people, we know it’s something that you have to put some consideration into,” Pitt, the cafe manager said.
Cat lounge manager Jackson even said the cafe might be the most expensive cat cafe in the country.
“When I saw the price, I raised my eyebrows”, she said.
Indeed, at Massachusetts’ only other cat cafe, Kitty Cat Cafe and Adoption Lounge in Peabody, it costs $12 per person for a 50-minute appointment.
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But there’s more behind the cat lounge price at A Sanctuary Cafe than meets the eye.
What’s behind the price?
The location of the cafe in Beacon Hill is both a blessing and a challenge for the business. It’s a bustling neighborhood, which brings a steady flow of customers into the store; but it’s also an expensive neighborhood with a healthy, competitive marketplace for cafes and bookstores.
“Beacon Hill is a really difficult place to stay open with a cafe-bookstore element. Those square feet, unfortunately, do not convert to enough profit in a lot of spaces,” Baker said.
And unlike traditional businesses, A Sanctuary is a benefit corporation, meaning the business funnels any remaining profits after paying expenses to social causes valued by the store.
The cafe is in the process of developing two affiliated nonprofits: the first as a “buy one, donate one” model where for each book purchased at the store, a book will be donated to Boston Public School students; and the second nonprofit will focus on “community cats,” or cats that live outdoors.
On top of its social mission, the cafe pays all full-time, non-salaried staffers a living wage of $23.50 per hour to start, according to Baker. This decision was an important choice for her and the cafe’s community-driven mission, she said.
“That was a really, really important component for us. And that’s not cheap. But we personally think it’s totally worth it,” she said.
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Pitt, the cafe manager, said getting paid a living wage aligns with the cafe’s community-centric model.
“With hiring locally and giving staff a living wage, the money that they have to spare is going right back into this community. We’d like to think that all the costs that go into this are coming back out in great ways,” Pitt said.
A Sanctuary Cafe is also unlike other cat cafes across the country in that it isn’t an adoption center, in which visitors can play with cats that they can later adopt. At Sanctuary, all of the cats are permanent “resident” cats who live in the cafe for their lifetimes.
“In general, [adoption center] cat cafes are more likely to have a volunteer component to their staffing – they’re not full-time with benefits and a living wage,” Baker explained. Adoption centers might also price their cat lounge reservations lower because they have an additional incentive to get people in the door to look at the cats and adopt them, Baker explained.
The 1,300-square-foot space is a small but mighty one, Pitt, the cafe manager said, and offers visitors from all price points access to the cats.
“We want everyone to be able to make meaning and find some sort of satisfaction in us being there, and that’s different for everyone. We want to be able to meet everyone where they’re at,” he said.
The cats can be viewed from the front window of the store, as well as from inside the cafe through the window wall. Coffees and pastries were also priced “reasonably” to give customers access to the cafe without having to make a reservation in the cat lounge, according to Baker.
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“A lot of this is sort of a trade off, and our hope is that for people for whom the full cat lounge reservation experience isn’t in their budget right now, we’ve put so much work into the quote, unquote, ‘free, open to everyone’ side,” she said. “We were really trying to have multiple access levels. But again, that means we are making less of a profit margin right off of those things that we are offering for free and lower prices,” she added.
At the end of the day, Baker said she hopes the cafe brings something new to the city of Boston and some much-needed love and joy to visitors and cats alike.
“Our space is being used and appreciated for what it is intended to be, which is a sanctuary for humans and cats,” she said.
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