After having my Binturong Experience at Hoo Farm in Telford, we drove over to the nearby town of Shrewsbury. Despite only living an hour away, I had never been to Shrewsbury before. I had heard that it is a beautiful town to visit and it is also county town of Shropshire. I’m not going to lie though, the fact that they have a newly opened cat café was the main reason why I wanted to visit. We all know how much I love a good cat café. There’s nothing better than spending some quality time with cats and other cat enthusiasts.

Paws Café

Paws café is situated on Mardol in Shrewsbury, around a 10 minute walk from the railway station. The café is owned by couple James Radnor and Katie Fields who enjoyed visiting another cat café so much that they wanted their own. Paws first opened its doors on January 17^th 2019 and has so far, been a success. It is the only cat café in Shropshire at the moment and is easily accessible from Telford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham on the train.

The inside of the cat café is like paradise for a cat. With cat trees, shelves, boxes and furniture for them to all climb over. There was also a box of cat toys if you wanted to choose something to entertain the cats. The décor was exactly to my taste and they had two big yellow chairs which are actually my dream chairs. One day I hope to own something similar. The café is very open plan, with plenty of space for the cats to run around. However, if they want to get away from the humans then there’s a set of cat stairs at the back of the café. Up these stairs is the cats’ living area. This is where they eat, sleep and go to the toilet.

The cats

There are 11 resident cats at Paws, all of which are a mixture of breeds. These include Bengals, a ragdoll and a Canadian Sphynx. Before visiting Paws, I had never had the chance to meet a “naked cat” so I was really excited to meet Cleo, the resident Canadian Sphynx. I was surprised that Cleo’s skin feels a lot like suede. She’s not completely hairless, there are some fine hairs across her body.

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The two Bengals, Simba and Nala, were hand reared so unsurprisingly, they are very affectionate towards humans. We ended up staying past the end of our booking because Simba decided to jump on Leigh and wash his face for him. It was way too cute to put a stop to it and both of them seemed to be enjoying themselves! One of the cats, Snowy is deaf which is a common trait in white cats. We didn’t see much of him, he spent a lot of his time upstairs.

The cost

As with all cat cafes that I have been to, there is a cover charge. This goes towards the welfare of the cats. At Paws Café, the cover charge is £1 per 5 minutes. I had a booking for an hour so I prepaid £24 for the two of us. This price also includes any hot and cold drinks during your stay. We had two hot drinks each (two teas and two coffees) and then Leigh had a caramel slice which was an extra £2. As we chose to stay past the end of our booking (or should I say that Simba decided for us) we had another £10 to pay for the both of us. I think that this cost is entirely reasonable. Usually when I go to a cat café, I end up paying around the same price with drinks and any food that I have anyway.

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This was the 17^th cat café that I have been to and it was definitely one of my favourites. I want to visit Shrewsbury again in the summer, so I will definitely be paying Paws Café a visit again. I definitely recommend you visit, I loved the relaxed atmosphere and all of the cats were so friendly.