Sandra Cagan spent decades in property management before a milestone birthday and a brief human-interest news story about a New York cat cafe sent her in a new direction. She cold-emailed her county commissioner in Lake County, Florida — “You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but this is what I want to do” — and had his support within the hour. The Orlando Cat Cafe opened in September 2016 as Florida’s first cat cafe, and this year marks its 10th anniversary alongside the Community Cats Podcast’s own.

Sandra built it as a business first: a full-service cafe rather than packaged snacks, separate AC and filtration systems to keep the cafe and cat areas from cross-contaminating, and a “sweet spot” of about 28 cats at a time in a 1,000-square-foot play area, refreshed weekly by exclusive shelter partner SPCA Florida. All 489 adoptions facilitated last year sent 100% of the fee straight to SPCA Florida — a public-private model she credits partly to a public administration master’s she earned during the pandemic. That same pandemic tested her resolve: Florida ordered the cafe closed, and she kept it shut into late July rather than reopen too soon, paying her staff the whole time. Her advice to other cat cafe owners: keep six months of reserves and treat the business like any other, rather than publicly asking for help with basics like a broken AC unit.

Ten years in, Sandra has turned that playbook into the country’s first cat cafe franchise: 18 months of groundwork, a 500-plus-page operations manual, a $42,750 initial fee, and total investment of roughly $450,000–$650,000 depending on location. She and her team vet franchisees closely and personally scout a shelter partner in every new market, favoring slow, strategic growth — currently focused on the Southeast — over rapid expansion.

• How a milestone birthday, a chance news story, and one bold email led to Florida’s first cat cafe
• Why Sandra runs the cat side and the cafe side as two separate legal entities, with 100% of adoption fees going to her shelter partner
• The financial cushion and mindset that got the Orlando Cat Cafe through a months-long pandemic shutdown without laying off staff
• What it actually takes to become an Orlando Cat Cafe franchisee — from a 500-page operations manual to the investment range
• Why the cats do the matchmaking at the cafe, and how that changes the adoption experience

Resources & Links

• Orlando Cat Cafe: https://www.orlandocatcafe.com
• Orlando Cat Cafe Franchise: https://www.orlandocatcafefranchise.com
• SPCA Florida: https://www.spcaflorida.org