Cat Cafes in Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Beyond

Australia got its first cat café in July 2014, when Cat Cafe Melbourne opened on Queen Street, and many more followed. Quite a few have since closed, in Brisbane, Perth, Hobart and Ballarat among others, and older lists still send people to them. Our directory lists 21 places in Australia where you can spend time with cats, half of them in Sydney and Melbourne, and they aren’t all the same kind of place. Some are rescues with adoptable cats, some keep the same resident cats for life, and a few sell kittens.

We checked every café below against its own website, booking page or social accounts, and against Google, at the start of November 2026. Prices are in Australian dollars. Hours are the thing most likely to change, and several cafés publish different hours in different places, so check the booking calendar before you travel.

How Cat Cafés Work in Australia

Cats and kitchens are kept apart. Australia’s Food Standards Code bars live animals from areas where food is handled, and cats get no exemption, so most cafés have a separate lounge, often behind a double door. Many serve no food at all, only drinks with lids. On the Gold Coast, Crazy Cat is an exception that lets you take food and drink from its café into the lounge.

You book a timed session. Expect to pay $25 to $37 for 45 to 60 minutes in Sydney, Melbourne and on the Gold Coast, often with a drink. Regional and charity-run rooms cost far less: Grounded Paws in Victoria charges $5 for 30 minutes. Booking is safest at weekends and in school holidays, and most cafés take walk-ins only if there’s room. Many refuse refunds or changes within 24 hours.

Check the age limit before you bring children. They vary more than the prices. Crazy Cat has no minimum age, Lazy Cat starts at 3, Catmosphere and Cat House at 5, Cashmere at 6, and Cat Cafe Melbourne at 8. Most want an adult with anyone under 12, and some ask for one adult for every two children.

House rules are much the same everywhere. Sanitise your hands when you arrive, take your shoes off or wear socks where asked, don’t pick up the cats or wake them, and turn off your flash.

Adopting goes through the rescue. Fees we saw ranged from $150 to $300 at Grounded Paws and $350 at Jiji, including desexing, vaccinations and a microchip where stated. You apply and meet the cat first, so don’t expect to take one home that day.

Australian Cat Cafés at a Glance

Sydney

Sydney has the most cat cafés of any Australian city, but they’re spread out, and only two are near the centre. Browse them on our Sydney map.

Catmosphere on Foveaux Street in Surry Hills, five to ten minutes’ walk from Central Station, opened in 2015 and is the obvious first stop. It works with The Cat Sanctuary, a small Sydney rescue, and you choose a room. The Cat Lounge, for ages 8 and up, has more than a dozen adult cats that Catmosphere has taken in for good, at $30 for 50 minutes on weekdays and $32.50 at weekends and on public holidays. The tiki-themed Treehouse has young cats looking for homes at the same price, and Kittyland has rescue kittens for 40 minutes; both take ages 5 and up. Catflix, its small cinema, costs $45 and has you watching a film on floor lounges among the cats, with wireless headphones. All of them include a drink, children 12 and under need a paying adult, and there’s no food. It closes on Tuesdays and for a break in the afternoon, and walk-ins depend on space. Here are places to stay near Surry Hills and Central on Booking.com.

YUMIAO Cat Cafe on O’Dea Avenue in Waterloo, a short walk from Green Square station, is named after its founder’s British Shorthair. Its residents are mostly rescues, surrenders and cats retired by breeders, and they stay on rather than being rehomed. A 45-minute session costs $28 on weekdays and $30.80 at weekends, with a free drink if you book, and there’s no child rate. An hour with treats and a drink, “Feed the Cats”, is $38. It opens from 10am, until 7pm on Mondays, at weekends and in school holidays, and until 5pm on other weekdays, with last entry an hour before closing.

In the Inner West, Cha & Zak’s Clubhouse is in the Marrickville Traders warehouse precinct on Rich Street, with 17 cats of many breeds alongside a pet groomer and dog daycare. An hour costs $30 with a drink, toys and treats, and you can book or walk in. It’s open from noon to 5pm from Monday to Thursday and from 9am to 5pm from Friday to Sunday.

For rescue cats, Paw Haus on Liverpool Road in Enfield is run by the Pet Us team, upstairs from a café called The Gentle Bean. Its cats come from Kittie Kat Rescue, and 109 had been adopted by June 2026. It costs $1 a minute, or from $30 for 30 minutes if you book online, and under-10s need an adult. It’s closed on Mondays, though its website lists different hours from Google, so check first. The same team runs Bubble Bath on Baywater Drive at Wentworth Point, a dog wash with a cat room of adoptable cats. It includes a free drink, and the room opens Wednesday to Sunday, or every day in school holidays. Both ask adopters for a video walk-through of their home.

Also at Wentworth Point, across the Bennelong Bridge from Rhodes, Cat House & Co in Marina Square is a cat lounge, cat hotel and pet shop. A 50-minute session with a drink costs $25 for adults ($27.50 at weekends) and $15 for children aged 5 to 12 ($16.50), and it stays open until 8pm or 9pm most nights. Its cats are purebred and mixed, and it sells purebred kittens from breeders.

Jiji Rescue Cat Cafe in Middle Cove, on the Lower North Shore, founded in 2023, is a rescue café with more than 115 adoptions. At the start of November 2026, its website and Google both showed it as temporarily closed with no reopening date, so check before you go. When open, it runs private sessions for up to six people, from $15 for 20 minutes, for ages 8 and up.

Melbourne

Most people searching for a cat café in Melbourne mean Cat Cafe Melbourne, Australia’s first. It left its old home on Guildford Lane in 2023 and reopened in 2024 at 512 Swanston Street in Carlton, between RMIT and the University of Melbourne, with trams running past the door. Older listings still show the Guildford Lane address. More than 20 cats live across two levels, all adopted from shelters and staying for good, so none are for adoption. An hour costs $25, or $28 with a hot drink, and half an hour costs $18, with packages adding treats or toys. There’s no weekend surcharge online and no child rate. Sessions start from noon on weekdays and 11am at weekends, and run until about 4pm or later, depending on bookings. Children under 8 generally aren’t admitted, and you’ll need socks. Only the ground floor is accessible by wheelchair. See our Melbourne map. Here are places to stay near Melbourne Central on Booking.com.

Cashmere Cat Cafe, on Level 1 at 365 Lonsdale Street, a short walk from Melbourne Central, has the most cats in the city, more than 25 in about 280 square metres. It’s upfront that eight are rescues and the rest come from registered Victorian breeders. It’s open daily from 11am to 7pm. Thirty minutes cost $21.99, an hour $28.99 and two hours $52, with lower prices for ages 6 to 11 (one adult per child). Treat boxes are $5 at 1pm and 3pm. Older pages online give lower prices, so trust its booking page. Socks are compulsory, and when weekends and holidays are booked out, it takes no extra walk-ins. Food stays in the café area, and a window lets people with allergies watch from outside.

In the eastern suburbs, Lazy Cat Cafe on Whitehorse Road, a short walk from Box Hill Central, opened in 2024 with about 15 resident cats, none for adoption, along with board games and Nintendo Switch. An hour costs $26 for adults, $23 for students and $18 for children aged 3 to 11, and soft drinks are no longer included. Its pages disagree on whether it closes on Wednesdays, so go by the booking calendar.

Two hours east in the Latrobe Valley, Grounded Paws on McMahon Street in Traralgon is the cheapest we found: $5 per person for 30 minutes, with no booking. A volunteer rescue runs it, with up to 30 cats from Victorian pounds in an upstairs lounge themed on Alice in Wonderland, all of them adoptable for $150 to $300. It’s open from Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 4pm.

Brisbane

Brisbane has lost most of its cat cafés. Cat Cuddle Cafe was gone by mid-2022, and Lucky Cat closed its Annerley and Ipswich branches in 2025. Our Brisbane map shows what’s left.

EggYolk Cat Lounge on Station Road in Sunnybank, formerly PKP Cat Cafe, is now the main choice. It has about 11 resident cats, and fixed 90-minute sessions start at 10am, 11:30am, 1pm, 2:30pm and 4pm every day, from $15 on weekdays and $18 at weekends. That’s cheap for the length of the session. There’s no food inside, and no walk-ins at weekends. Babies carried throughout are free, parking is free at the Oasis Medical Centre car park, and it has full wheelchair access.

The RSPCA Black Cat Café, at the RSPCA Queensland campus on Wacol Station Road in the south-west, works differently. It’s a real café serving breakfast and lunch, with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options and all profits going to the RSPCA, and its cats are in enclosed play areas you watch from your table rather than a lounge you sit in. All of them are adoptable through the adoption centre on the same campus. It’s open daily, closing mid-afternoon, and earlier on Sundays.

Petacular Mt Ommaney is a pet shop rather than a café. It has a kitty room you pay to enter, and the kittens and cats in it are for sale.

In July 2026, local news reported a development application for a rescue cat café at Capalaba, in the Redlands, which hadn’t yet been approved.

Gold Coast

Crazy Cat Café, upstairs in the Centre Arcade in Surfers Paradise, on the tram side, opened in 2016 and has more Google reviews than any other Australian cat café we checked, nearly 1,700. Its 24 resident cats aren’t for adoption, though it supports Animal Welfare League Queensland. A lounge visit costs $31.50 for 30 minutes or $36.50 for an hour, or $26.50 and $31.50 for children 12 and under, and you can take food and drink from its fully licensed café in with you. A private VIP lounge with up to six cats costs $80 per person, for at least two people. There’s no minimum age, but one adult must come for every four children, and babies under 12 months are free. Walk-ins are welcome if there’s space, but booking is strongly recommended. There are 17 steps and no lift, and it doesn’t admit assistance dogs. Here are places to stay in Surfers Paradise on Booking.com.

SupermarCat, in Southport’s Chinatown on Davenport Street, is a brunch café with a cat room next door. Spend $15 and you get 15 minutes with the cats for free, or pay $15 for the cat room alone. There are no bookings, it’s open daily from 8am to 3pm, and the cat room’s entrance may be too narrow for a wheelchair. See our Gold Coast map.

Adelaide

Sassy’s Cat Cafe on Payneham Road in Felixstow has resident cats and rescue cats and kittens up for adoption. Thirty minutes cost $15 and an hour $24 for adults, $19 for concession holders and $17 for ages 5 to 11, with under-5s free. It also runs cat yoga, cat meditation and school holiday sessions. Weekend hours are 10am to 4pm, and weekdays end at 2pm. Its website and Google disagree on when it opens and on whether it closes on Tuesdays, so phone first. Book by phone, email or Facebook.

MeowMe Cat Cafe on Glen Osmond Road in Parkside is a dessert shop first: fried ice cream, waffles and cat latte art. There’s no entry fee. You order, then take a short turn in the cat room in a small group, with one adult for each child. Its rescue cats and kittens are adopted through Paws & Claws Adoptions. It’s closed on Mondays. See our Adelaide map.

Perth, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin

At the start of November 2026, there was no cat café open in any of these cities.

• Perth. The Cat Cafe Purrth in Subiaco closed at the end of April 2023, although some articles still describe it as open. Mei Mei Cat Cafe was raising money for a site at markets in October 2026, and another group, Whisker n Bean, was planning one, but neither had an address. In the meantime, Cat Haven in Shenton Park is an adoption shelter, not a café, where you can meet cats.
• Canberra. Canberra Street Cat Alliance, a volunteer rescue at 80 Bellenden Street in Crace, opened a weekend coffee cart there in October 2026. You can drink a coffee and watch kittens, with cuddles if it’s quiet, but it says you aren’t buying time as you would at a cat café.
• Hobart. Hobart Cat Cafe in North Hobart has closed, and the space has since been taken over by another business. For Tasmania, head north: see Just Cats below.
• Darwin. Nothing we could find. MEOW WAFFEE in the city serves cat-shaped waffles, but we found no sign of live cats there.

Shelters You Can Drop Into

Two shelters welcome visitors who just want to spend time with cats.

Just Cats on Pateena Road near Longford, about 15 minutes’ drive south of Launceston, is Tasmania’s only option, and all of its cats are up for adoption, from $280 for adults and $360 for kittens. It has a $4 self-serve coffee machine. It’s open from 11am to 3pm, until 2pm on Sundays, and closed on Wednesdays and public holidays.

Paws and Claws in Craiglie, just south of Port Douglas, is a non-profit shelter with a large air-conditioned cat room and an outdoor area. Its rescue cats can be visited from 10am to 1:30pm, which makes it an easy stop on a Reef trip.

Closed Australian Cat Cafés

These still appear on older lists:

• Pokemeow in Rosebery, Sydney, was still trading in June 2026 and has since closed.
• Lucky Cat closed in Annerley in January 2025 and in Ipswich in August 2025.
• The Cat Cafe Purrth in Subiaco, Perth, closed in April 2023.
• Cat Cuddle Cafe in Lutwyche, Brisbane, was gone by mid-2022.
• Alley Cat Cafe in Ballarat and The Cat Lounge in Devonport have also closed.

Browse everything on our Australia cat café map, and if you’re new to cat cafés, start with what a cat café is. For how it all began, see our history of the world’s first cat café.