A popular cat café will close its doors on Thursday ahead of its move to a neighbouring town.
Charlie’s Cat Café has been based on Stone’s High Street for the past three-and-a-half years, but is relocating to a new purpose-built building in Eccleshall, which will feature an all-enclosed outdoor seating area.
The café is currently home to 18 rescue cats that diners can get to know whilst enjoying their food and drinks and owner Anna Brooks said she has always wanted an outdoor area for them.
“It will be great to be able to see the cats enjoy the outdoors,” Anna said. “They all had a tough start to life but love the fuss they get from our customers.”
Anna started the business after leaving a job as a social worker in child protection. She named it after her cat Charlie, who she had for 19 years before losing him the same year that she opened the café.
As well as enjoying interaction with customers, the cats have their own quiet areas they can retreat to should they want to be left alone.
The Stone café can accommodate 32 diners at any one time, but slightly more will be able to fit in at the new location, which Anna hopes to open at the end of the month.
All the cats – and the café’s six staff members – will transfer over to the new premises, off Stone Road.
Anna added: “I’m feeling a mix of emotions. We’ve had good and bad times in Stone but there are lots of cafés in the town centre now and this is a new start for us.
“Eccleshall is a lovely, thriving town and we’re looking forward to starting a new chapter there.
“We’ve had lots of positive feedback from our current customers who said they will travel to us and we look forward to welcoming them again.”
