Today we’d like to introduce you to Shelly Casey and Chris Gutierrez.
Shelly and Chris, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We started The Catcade as a fun way to rescue cats and give them another chance. We had originally talked about starting a cat rescue and then it evolved into a cat cafe. Chris had the brilliant idea of combining his hobby of restoring old arcade games and that was how we came up with the “catcade” theme.
The idea was to break from the traditional mold of adoption. We wanted to create a low-pressure, relaxed living room environment where potential adopters could observe how the cats would interact with other cats and strangers in order to get a better understanding of how the cats will behave at their forever home.
After a successful crowd-funding campaign and six months of searching, we found our location in the middle of Lakeview and opened our doors on August 19th, 2017. Our initial goal was to find homes for 10 cats a month. A goal that was surpassed almost immediately.
Today, we average 1.3 adoptions a day and after five months, have done 173 adoptions. That is 173 lives saved as a direct result of our doors being open.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Beginning with the initial stress of fund-raising, some other struggles included finding a location that would allow our usage, passing all of our inspections to obtain the first official cat cafe permit in the city of Chicago.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about The Catcade – what should we know?
We are an arcade-themed cat cafe, rescue, and lounge. We are a combination of a rescue and entertainment cat-cafe. We have three free-play arcade games that have over 200 games, we show movies in the lounge, and we provide a free soft drink.
As a rescue, we pull all of our own cats. Literally, putting our hands in cages and saving lives. We specialize in standing out and being unique in the world of cat cafes and rescues.
To our understanding, we are most known for our irreverent social media marketing, our unique voice, and our platform of acceptance and diversity.
Our ridiculous yet sincere social media voice is what sets us apart along with our image and unique image brand of humor.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
When we were starting out, we reached out to several rescues and organizations in the city, but Abby Smith and Kelly Thompson of Felines & Canines became our mentors throughout this process. They helped us set up proper cleaning protocols and introduced us to other members in the community to assist in our transport of cats from high kill shelters.
Pricing:
- $15/per person for 1 hour (1 soft drink included)
- $30 Cat Yoga (60 minutes of yoga/30minutes of cat cuddles + 1 soft drink)
Contact Info:
- Address: 1235 W Belmont Ave
Chicago, IL 60657 - Website: www.thecatcade.org
- Email: info@thecatcade.org
- Instagram: thecatcade
- Facebook: facebook.com/thecatcade
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
