(keys clacking) - Hello, I am Tallie Carter.

I'm the founder and executive director of RubyCats.

And this, this is Sugar.

(bright music) Having a cat cafe was my daughter's suggestion, and her name is Ruby.

Cat cafes began in Asia in the 1990s, and then they came over to the United States.

And generally, when you go to a cat cafe in the United States, it's a rescue and the cats are adoptable.

Our mission here is to connect people and cats and have a cozy home-like atmosphere for the cats that are here to live while they wait to find their forever home.

When we opened, we were fortunate to have a partnership with a local rescue that's also new called Forget Me Not.

They spearheaded the way for us to be able to form other partnerships with rescues in the Midwest.

(upbeat music) When you come to RubyCats, a session is 50 minutes.

The later sessions on Thursday and Friday tend to be really chill and mostly adults, whereas the noontime sessions on Saturday and Sunday tend to be a little more playful and have more children.

What's unique about the cat cafe is just that the cats can live in sort of a homelike atmosphere.

It's very cozy and it's a little more relaxing for the cats because they're not in and out of enclosures when people wanna visit with them.

So they live in a space that's their house, and then the people come in and are able to interact with them.

And that's good for people who wanna adopt because they can get a better sense of the cat's personality.

(transition whooshing) (upbeat music) All the cats in the cat cafe do definitely have a different personality and interact with people differently.

Some of the cats are super playful or very vocal, but some of the cats not so much, you might never hear them meow.

Some of them interact with each other and play with each other, and some of them prefer to keep to themselves.

All of them are really nice and want to be petted, and you know, after one or two sessions, might get a little tired and they'll climb up to the top of the cat gym and just hang out at a really high hammock.

It's really cute to see them all congregating near the door.

They know it's going to be time when they see us through the windows or they see me through the door and they're ready for me to come in and give them all the pets, or play with the toy with them, or give them their wet food, which they really like.

And of course, they try to convince us that they haven't been fed in a couple years, even though I know they were just fed that night.

Each of the name tags have a QR code on the back of it, and that's just so you can find out a little bit more about that cat when you're inside the cat cafe.

Just gives you a little more information about the cat.

Besides their name, it tells you their age and a little bit about their personality.

We have between 13 and 16 cats.

Right now, we will have between 10 or 12 people in there at a time, and I like to make sure that everybody who comes to RubyCats has the experience of getting to play with or pet a cat.

(piano music) People who might not have as much of an opportunity to interact with cats, so maybe they're not really looking to adopt, it just gives them an opportunity to come, chill out, hang with cats, and they don't have to clean the litter box.

(laughing) We do have a partnership with the coffee house across the street, which is called Grinders.

They developed a special drink, right now it's called the Oreo, and it's named after a cat that we have called Oreo.

And it is a latte float that has cookies and cream ice cream in it.

And for every one of those special drinks that they sell, they give us a dollar just to our non-profit, which is very generous.

Oh, adoption is definitely bittersweet.

We're excited they get to go to a home, that they're going to be loved for their life.

When you come visit us, you might see a certain cat that you really, really like and think, "I think that Cat would be a good member of our family," you can go on to the Our Cats page at rubycats.org, and you would come in and have a new family member.

(bright music) (upbeat music)