Shropshire's first ever cat cafe: Meet the moggies you can enjoy a cuppa and a cuddle with

Cat cafes, where visitors can sit and have a coffee surrounded by a little colony of feline friends, initially sprang up in Japan.

Since then they have gradually appeared in countries around the world – and now Shropshire has its first, Paws Cafe in Mardol, Shrewsbury.

Launched by James Radnor and Katie Fields, it invites customers to enjoy coffee, tea, cake, beer and films while surrounded by cats.

“When James and I first met I was allergic to James’ cat Tinkerbell,” says 33-year-old Katie. “My eyes would be streaming and my throat was all swollen and I would be coughing. But I’m immune now. James is the cat man. He’s cats and coffee and I’m tea and cake.”

James, 30, was an engineer at Ricoh and Katie a food technology teacher. They launched Paws Cafe after visiting a similar cat cafe in Manchester.

“We really enjoyed being at that cafe,” says Katie. “It was so relaxing and we were content for the first time in a long time in terms of our stress levels and feeling comfy. We realised we didn’t want to go back to what we were doing and started drawing up a business model.”

The cats

The couple, who have a nine-year-old daughter Jasmine, started researching where they wanted to open the store, and after initially fearing they would be priced out of Shrewsbury found the perfect property at the former Relate charity store.

“People have been saying things like ‘how many coffee shops do we need in Shrewsbury’, but this is not just a coffee shop,” says Katie, who is pregnant with the couple’s second child.

“There’s lots of little quirky shops and one-offs here and we think it will do well.”