To anyone who has never been to a cat cafe, I like to describe it as a very low budget petting zoo.

Cat cafes originated in 1998 in Japan and have spread around the world, growing in popularity in the U.S. in the past decade, with a focus on featuring adoptable cats. Essentially, they are a place where you can enjoy food, beverages, and the company of several cats. While visiting The Twisted Whisker, you can play, relax, or study; all with a cat in your lap! And should you fall in love, all the cats here are up for adoption through local animal shelters and rescues!

Admission is standard practice for cat cafes everywhere. Cats need food, litter, and contributions to their college funds- all of which requires money.

Cats can’t pay rent, unfortunately. Our door price ensures that we can keep the lights on and keep the cats comfy, without plunging ourselves into financial ruin. So, thanks!

Nope! We are a no-strings attached cat-lover experience. Just lounge and enjoy the cuteness, no commitments! The cats will enjoy the company.

But… should you fall in love with one of our fabulous felines, you can adopt right from us and take your new best friend home that day!

Unfortunately, probably not. We work with several different shelters and rescues to source our cats. This allows us to maintain a high standard of care. All of these cats live together; so proper vetting is very important. As such, we generally do not accept intakes from the public.

However we do occasionally accept special cases where all of our vetting requirements are met, IF we have the space open. If you feel like this applies to you, send us an email and we will see what we can do.

As of December 2023, yes! We are a registered 501(c).

We accept monetary donations as well as donations of cat litter, cat toys, and the occasional item of gently used furniture. You can rest assured that your donation goes 100% towards caring for the cats.

You can make a monetary donation and view our Amazon wishlist here. For other types of donations, contact us on one of our socials @twistedwhiskertupelo.

We haven’t set any hard and fast age restriction, aside from requiring an adult to chaperone any visitors under 16.

However, while you’re certainly allowed to bring your 4 year old (especially if you’re trying to see how they would do with a new cat!), they might get bored. As you well know, bored kids can be… trouble. So, supervision is paramount. Remember that these are live cats that may hiss, swipe, or nip - if hurt or provoked.

Well… if we operated as a real cafe our friends at the health department would shut us down faster than you can say “meow”. That is why it is with the most solemn of apologies that I admit: we are a couple of liars. The Twisted Whisker isn’t “really” a cafe, but calling it a cat lounge just sounds….nefarious. In reality we are more of a cat sanctuary!

We sell only pre-packaged and pre-bottled food and drinks from lovely vendors who don’t have 20 cats running around their prep areas. This means the MSDH and MDAC have proclaimed us free and clear for operation!

Sometimes.

We clean and sanitize everything every day, but anyone with pets knows the battle it is to keep your home from smelling like a zoo. We have 20 cats running around each with their own unique er…digestive systems.

That being said we have been told everything from “wow it smells SO GOOD in here” to “oh god, oh no no thank you” so it’s kind of subjective!

My husband took french, and he told me not to use the accent mark.

He refuses to explain further.

Also I never learned to type unicode