The Chatty Cat Cafe: 3 years of serving coffee and saving cats

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – A unique coffee experience at the Colony Square Mall in Zanesville is celebrating three years in business.

The Chatty Cat Cafe is celebrating its three year anniversary with face painting, a photo booth, and Meow Goodie Bags with every purchase while supplies last. The cafe serves coffee and breakfast foods with a cat lounge full of adoptable kitties. For owner, Erika Roberts, the celebration isn’t about sales numbers, it’s about the cats that have been helped.

“So, of course we’re a big home for adoptable rescue cats and also, last year, we started a non-profit called the Chatty Cat Compassion Fund. And we take that non-profit and we use those funds to pay for vet bills of cats that need care. Get them into foster homes and get them here and up for adoption, so we can help out some of the shelters with those costs, some of the rescues with those costs as well,” Roberts said. “So we’re looking at 474 adoptions. We have two more happening after the birthday party and then also, between our foster homes and here at the Chatty Cat Cafe, we’ve got over 500 that have been helped because we’re currently taking car of over 42 cats in our care right now. ”

As a way of thanking the community for their support, the opening of Chatty Cat Cafe started with a balloon drop today and will tomorrow as well with a special twist.

“Every balloon has a prize attached to each balloon. So when the balloons drop, you run up, you grab a balloon and it’s going to have a mystery prize attached and that’s happening at both the Chatty Cat Cafe and the Chatty Cat Closet.”

The Chatty Cat Closet was originally a pop-up shop but is also celebrating this weekend with an official opening as a permanent mainstay at the mall just a few doors down from the cafe. The Chatty Cat Closet is a donation based boutique with funds helping care for the cats. Roberts says the success to both of these ventures exceeded her expectations and appreciates the community’s support.

“Our community is awesome and the support that is behind Chatty Cat is unmatched and so appreciated. It’s really cool to see how far this has come in three years,” Roberts said. “That we were able to add another location and expand to a non-profit and we start helping with vet bills and, you know, continuing my journey of fostering that’s been over 8 years total now and just see it all come together in a big way is amazing. ”