So the theory is, there’s a Cat Cafe in Liverpool. A magical place where caffiene and cats collide. This is not just a rumour, it’s true, and it’s based at the bottom of Bold Street. The Cat Cafe Liverpool is three floors of catty delight, where visitors and cats mix in a paradise of feline fun. Well sort of.

First off, the cat cafe ain’t free. It’s a pay per time place – but you do generally get your hot drinks for free. There’s about 17 cats and it’s a good idea to book. At 12 quid per person per hour the costs rack up pretty quickly – I took the family and it set me back fifty quid (cakes are extra).

It’s a good idea to book online as there can be a queue, it’s also quite a draw for people just looking through the window at the cats so the queue can be a bit odd. When we got there bang on 15:00h it was utter chaos. To stop the cats escaping there’s a triple door system, one of which remains closed. This slows the number of people coming and going, especially when there’s only one person at the desk. On the arrival of a second person the bottleneck cleared and we go through a lot quicker.

They make their money by the little extras (like cakes and Fanta) but also any time you spend over getting in there you have to pay additional for (I think it was a quid a minute per person). This can mount up as they’re not exactly speedy bringing the drinks over. I can see quite a few people getting caught out by “just finishing off their drink” only to be whacked with a bill for additional time in the place.

The clientele was varied to say the least. You’re not allowed under 10’s so young families were out, but other than that there were proper scallies with their (odd) “Giorgio Armani” slippers, retired folk, Japanese tourists, and middle-aged blokes and women. All loving the moggies and drinking coffee. The place didn’t smell of cat, it was very well maintained and the staff were obviously all cat lovers.

The positives are: the cats are mostly pretty friendly and don’t mind being stroked. They have a safe place to go if they don’t want to be petted where visitors cannot access.

The negatives are: cost, it’s expensive and the fact that not all the cats are out and about. Oh, and they somehow got our drinks order wrong, twice.

Still I got a couple of videos of some of the cats below for you to have a look at. Would I go back to the Liverpool Cat Cafe? Yes I think I would, it was novel and as long as it’s not busy and you get to spend some time with the moggies it’s a pretty cool hour to spend.